Biographical Sketch
of Rosalie Beck

Rosalie Beck was born into a Southern Baptist family in the city of Amarillo, Texas, on 28 January 1949. Because her father, Edward Oran Beck, was a career Marine, she spent her childhood and youth living on both coasts and in Hawaii. Her older brother Joe and her younger brother Jim provided spirited company while traveling, and the life of a military dependent was exciting and challenging thanks to her mother, Margeret Camden Beck, and her dad. Growing up in a Christian home, Rosalie attended church regularly. At the age of eighteen, while a counselor at a GA (girls' missions education organization) camp in the San Diego (California) Baptist Association, she made a firm and total commitment of her life to God.

After earning a B.A. in biology at the University of California at San Diego, Beck moved to Houston to work as a biochemist at the University of Texas Medical School in the Department of Biochemistry. For two years she enjoyed this scientific effort, but came to believe there was more she needed to do in the world than run experiments. In 1973 she entered a short-term missionary program of the Southern Baptist Convention. Beck served as a youth worker in Asia, and for two years she taught and ministered among the young people. She returned to America in 1975 where she worked with Southeast Asian refugees at the Southern Baptist Convention's resettlement office in Fort Smith, Arkansas.

In January 1976, Beck entered Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, to work on a Master of Divinity degree. She majored in church history and received the first Robert A. Baker Church History Award for the outstanding student in that field. After graduation, Beck moved to Waco, Texas, to pursue a Ph.D. in religion at Baylor University. She received a graduate assistantship and then a teaching assistantship. Beck completed her degree in August 1984 and was asked to join the Baylor faculty beginning that Fall. She was the first woman professor in the Baylor Department of Religion, now holds the rank of Associate Professor at the university, and is a member of the Graduate Faculty.

Beck maintains the goal of teaching church history to help students understand how their belief system took shape, to help them know what they believe, and to enable them to understand how their beliefs apply to daily life. She strives for better ways to teach students and to excite them about the history of Christianity. Committed to helping people learn to love God with their minds, Beck encourages students to engage all of their abilities when learning about the Church, the faith, and God.