Graduate School story- By Dr. Larry Lyon, Dean of the Graduate
School
The goals and aspirations outlined in the Baylor 2012 Vision
are nothing short of audacious, by any standard. Academically, few universities
have ever moved as far and fast as we plan to do. Religiously, no Protestant
university has ever moved this far without secularizing. Yet, I will
argue that none of Baylor’s goals are as audacious or unprecedented
as those ascribed to the Graduate School.
While our undergraduate goals are both highly important and ambitious,
much of what we aiming for at the undergraduate level is an extension
of what we have done in the past and what we are doing now. Baylor has
always focused on the quality of the undergraduate experience.
Our bold goals for the professional programs—top national rankings,
quality placements for graduates, influencing the professions in ways
that reflect our mission—are not too dissimilar to what we would
have expected from our medical and dental schools in an earlier time.
Now, with 2012, we have similar expectations for programs such as business,
law and theology.
While our religious goals—integrating faith and learning, understanding
life as a divine calling, preserving and enriching our Baptist identity—are
more intentional now, this intentionality does not necessarily represent
an attempt to be more religious than our predecessors. The explicit
proclamation of these goals reflects recognition that legal ties to
Baptist entities ought not to be the only anchor to our faith-based
traditions.
Even our athletic goals—to be competitive in every athletic venue—are
not that different from previous aspirations nor would their achievement
be that different from our athletic successes before Baylor 2012. Yes,
we have a long way to go in Big 12 football, but the old Southwest Conference
was once a powerful football league, and as a long-time fan, I can recall
many Baylor football teams giving highly-ranked state schools all they
could handle, or more.
Only at the graduate level with its corresponding scholarly requirements
of faculty are we especially aiming toward something truly unprecedented
for Baylor. Baylor 2012 “requires a depth of scholarly excellence
and a volume of scholarly output that is found only in schools with
first-rate graduate programs.” Such scholarly excellence and output
demands faculty “recognized as leaders in their respective disciplines
and in productive, cutting-edge research.”
Baylor has never aspired to greatness in research-driven, graduate-level
scholarship. Our focus has been on undergraduate education and on the
professions. Thus, we are further behind in graduate education and research
than we are in other 2012 areas. In fact, the gaps between us and “research”
universities are so large that one might ask why we should even try
to close them. After all, we have a long and successful tradition in
undergraduate and professional education, and graduate education is
expensive and dominated by elite universities.
How do we justify such ambitious graduate goals? Baylor 2012 offers
two rationales. The first is ironic, but straightforward. No national
university has achieved “Tier 1” status for undergraduate
education without large and strong graduate programs. For 2002, the
top 14 undergraduate universities in U.S. News & World Report are
all private schools, like Baylor. Unlike Baylor, however, at these 14
top undergraduate schools, graduate students comprise, on average, a
little over 40% of the total enrollment. Baylor’s graduate percentage
is a little under 10%. These 14 schools average, by my count, about
25 nationally ranked graduate programs; Baylor has 4 or 5. This close
relationship between the quality of graduate programs and undergraduate
excellence is tied to faculty. The faculty found in large, strong graduate
programs generate the research that builds the academic reputations
that attract the best undergraduate students. Baylor is not likely to
achieve the academic reputation necessary to attract the strong undergraduates
associated with “Tier 1” status without significantly expanding
and enhancing our graduate programs.
The second reason is more nuanced and more important. Ideas matter;
Christianity matters; ideas formed from a Christian viewpoint especially
matter. Too many evangelicals have abandoned the life of the mind and
too many religious colleges have left the graduate playing field with
its emphasis on research to secular universities (with a few notable
Catholic exceptions). In national conversations regarding cloning, stem
cell research, the environment, welfare, women’s rights, affirmative
action, abortion, just wars, poverty, or almost any important issue
of the day, voices informed by both rigorous scholarship and the Christian
faith need to be heard. Baylor is uniquely suited for nurturing scholarly
Christian voices. I know of no other seriously religious Protestant
university willing and able to take up this task. This means we must
be more than teachers of knowledge; we must be creators of knowledge.
If Baylor does not rise to the challenge of producing Christian scholarship,
then little opportunity exists for the development of scholarly religious
views informing important national conversations.
All of the above implies that we have a very long way to go in graduate
education and that we have a compelling need to get there. Will we get
there? In all honesty, my answer to that question a couple of years
ago would have been “probably not.” By this time last year
I had moved to a “maybe” and now I respond with a “probably
so.” This shift toward an increasingly affirmative response reflects
a number of new and positive developments in faculty hiring, budget
allocation, and strategic planning.
For the last three years, I have been privileged to participate in
the interviews for faculty positions in doctoral-granting departments.
Each year I have grown ever more impressed with the quality of our new
hires. They have both the depth of faith and the quality of research
to move us to the levels envisioned by 2012. Further, I see little evidence
that the faith-based criteria in our hiring process are an obstacle.
On the contrary, I see us winning competitions for top faculty because
of our faith-based mission.
These new faculty are expensive; so are laboratories, professional
travel, and graduate students. The increased budgetary support for these
areas is unimaginable by the fiscal standards of just a few years ago.
In the Graduate School, the stipend budget increased 14% during the
first budget year of 2012. This year we will spend approximately $12M
supporting graduate students at Baylor.
Of course, all this extra money must be spent strategically if we are
to actually close the gaps between us and Tier 1 universities. We are
creating and implementing strategic plans for graduate education on
an unprecedented scale. Some universities are trying to significantly
improve some of their doctoral programs, but I know of no university
other than Baylor trying to significantly improve all of its doctoral
programs simultaneously. Similarly, the increased stipend funds were
strategically allocated to enhance the measurable quality of our graduate
students. Measures of graduate enrollment, doctoral production, as well
as the publications, citations, and grant awards for our faculty all
show an upward climb.
I’m an empiricist. When I can experience or measure something,
it is easier for me to understand. I have experienced our hiring process
and measured our progress in the first year of 2012. I understand that
even with gaps as large as we experience in the Graduate School, we
are closing those gaps and making the first steps toward fulfilling
the audacious, unprecedented goals of Baylor 2012.