Larry Lyon
Vice Provost & Dean of the Graduate School
In last year’s Annual Report, I shared our new Strategic Plan for “Being an R1 Graduate School”. This plan remains as relevant now as it was a year ago, perhaps even more so, given our additional understanding of R1 implications. So, much of this Annual Report is again organized around actions associated with our “Being R1” Strategic Plan.
The Plan is built around seven goals.
1. Elevating our Christian Mission
Since President Livingstone’s inaugural address, the argument “that the world needs a Baylor,” that it needs a preeminent Christian research university with strong graduate programs, has remained a cornerstone of her presidency. A primary reason Baylor is needed is because Christian research universities with strong graduate programs are so rare. We can debate definitions of “Christian” or “research” or “strong,” but the number of universities that fit all three criteria is surely small, single-digit small. If Christian viewpoints matter, then Christian universities—comprised of top students and scholars--matter because they are uniquely well suited to develop and espouse Christian perspectives, and more broadly, these universities demonstrate the relevance of the sacred in an increasingly secular world.
Dean Rios’ article details examples of how the Graduate School helps students combine faith and scholarship include our oldest, largest, and broadest group, the Conyers Scholars, where students learn to integrate faith and scholarship in ways that lead to a fuller life. We also sponsor the Ramm Scholars who focus on the relationship between science and religion, including a unique blend of faculty and students from the STEM fields and Truett Seminary. And finally, the Graduate School joins with the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities (IABCU) to sponsor the BCU Scholars, all of whom received their undergraduate degree from a Baptist college and are now working on a graduate degree at Baylor. These students learn the history and current landscape of Baptist higher education and typically participate in the annual meetings of the IABCU.
2. Enhancing Graduate Student Recruitment
Recruiting graduate students is much different from recruiting undergraduates. Undergraduates choose universities; graduate students choose departments, with choices based primarily on the reputation and scholarship of the graduate program. That means individual departments and faculty do much of the recruiting, but faculty have many other responsibilities and are not always skilled in student recruitment. The Graduate School helps our faculty recruit students capable of graduate-level work. An article by Dean Rios shows how student recruitment is a significant part of a larger five-year plan to grow and enhance our PhD programs. My “Long Upward Climb” article also demonstrates the growth of our PhD programs.
3. Raising Graduation Rates
Our graduation rates were relatively high when we compared Baylor with R2 universities, but now, to be among the best R1s, we must improve. Goal 3 requires that we help our students, especially our doctoral students, succeed and graduate. Pursuing a PhD is a long and difficult journey, but if we recruit capable students, then our responsibility is to ensure the highest levels of graduation possible. R1s do this much better than other universities, and that must be our goal as well. Dean Dolan’s article shows how this emphasis on helping our students graduate is part of a much broader effort to enhance graduate student success.
4. Aligning the Graduate School with Illuminate
Goal 4 reflects the Graduate School’s relationship with the most effective fund-raising campaign in Baylor’s history, Illuminate. While the Graduate School does not directly seek contributions, we are active in some of the major interdisciplinary initiatives prescribed in Illuminate. For example, the new doctoral program in Materials Science and Engineering, a “signature initiative” of Illuminate, was approved by the Board of Regents in November will be housed in the Graduate School. It would be difficult to overestimate the support Illuminate has provided to graduate education at Baylor.
5. Better Serving our Hybrid/Online Programs
Goal 5 addresses our largest and fastest growing enrollment category, hybrid/online graduate and professional students. Not only do these students participate in classes differently than our on-campus students, they are more likely to be fully employed, married, female, and older than our students studying in Waco. Dean Dolan’s article describes how the Graduate School has moved quickly to meet the unique needs of these students, though the growth has been so rapid that much remains to be done.
6. R1-level Mentoring
In some ways, this goal overlaps with Goal 3. If we mentor students well, they are more likely to graduate at R1 levels. However, high quality mentoring means more. R1 universities emphasize frequent, informative communication between the mentor and the student with regular assessments of progress. They build intellectual community among students and faculty with a increased level of equality that still recognizes distinct roles. At the undergraduate level, Baylor provides extraordinary student support as part of our Christian mission. The type of support is different for graduate students, but the level of that support and the reason for it should be the same as it is for our undergraduates. Dean Dolan’s article discusses how important mentoring is to graduate student success.
7. Responding to Growing Student Diversity
Finally, our graduate students are increasingly diverse. They come from undergraduate programs that are now more diverse. In our growing STEM programs, they are more likely to be internationals. In our growing on-line/hybrid programs, they are more likely to be older and female. International students face challenges that U.S. citizens do not. Similarly, an older, employed woman with a family may have support needs quite different from a younger, single male. We have been successful in recruiting a more diverse graduate student body. It’s our responsibility to recognize and meet those needs. Dean Dolan outlines some of those efforts in her article.