The Quest to Be R1
Recollections of Baylor’s Quest to Be R1
Dean Larry Lyon
In several points during this and previous Annual Reports, I have referred to Baylor’s quest to become what Carnegie classifies as a university with “very high research activity” or R1. Now that we have achieved this status, it’s appropriate to recognize some of the people who made it happen. First and foremost are the Baylor faculty who recruited, mentored, and graduated doctoral students and who won grants to support those students. Gratitude also should be extended to those students who chose to attend Baylor based on the promise of a “premier Christian research university.” This is an accomplishment built on the efforts of Baylor faculty and students—efforts that comprise the primary metrics for R1. There were also many staff members working behind the scenes, colleagues who oversee facilities, assist with grants and publications, and ensure the gears keep turning. Baylor administrators also contributed to this achievement. I would like to trace this quest over two decades by acknowledging some of those administrators.
During my long tenure at Baylor, I witnessed three distinct stages in our quest to become a research university.
Stage 1. The initial stage began in September of 2001 with the publication of Baylor 2012, an extremely ambitious, progressive, and controversial vision for the University, that included the following:
Why should we enhance graduate studies at a primarily undergraduate university such as Baylor? The answer is twofold. First, we aspire to rank among the finest universities in the nation by 2012. No university has yet gained such rank without strong graduate programs. Second, Baylor will make its influence felt in the academic world and in our larger society as an institution informed and motivated by its Christian identity. Such influence requires a depth of scholarly excellence and a volume of scholarly output that is found only in schools with first-rate graduate programs. For our influence to be distinctly Christian, a core of this scholarly work must be done from a rigorously Christian perspective. As the leading Baptist university in the United States, Baylor is an ideal place for this experiment in Christian scholarship of the highest order.
We did not meet our temporal 2012 goal, and even now with R1 achieved, the “experiment” continues. However, today it continues at a more rapid pace and with more Christian and scholarly infrastructure in place than I could have imagined in 2002. For Baylor, becoming R1 with “Christian scholarship of the highest order” was neither easy nor a given.
In the first stage, administrators with more vision than I had, and more than that of most faculty or alumni, pushed the Baylor 2012 agenda. President Robert Sloan became the public face of and lightning rod for the vision. Vice President David Brooks developed the unprecedented financial model to fund the vision. Provosts Don Schmeltekopf and David Jeffrey administered the sweeping academic changes. Even for someone who was there, I still find it difficult to comprehend the magnitude of their challenges. Change is always difficult, but for Baylor, for that time, it was almost impossible. Still, due in no small part to the efforts of Sloan, Brooks, Schmeltekopf and Jeffrey, the vision never died. Baylor continued to move forward.
Stage 2. After President Sloan stepped down from office in 2005, the goals of Baylor 2012, while never repudiated by Baylor, were pursued with less vigor. Over the next several years, the University had many presidents and provosts. Some pursued 2012 with more energy than others, with Pro Futuris being the most significant reaffirmation of the 2012 goals. The scholarship agendas of Baylor 2012 and Pro Futuris were especially well protected and advanced by two administrators. Truell Hyde was Baylor’s first Vice Provost for Research. For almost two decades Truell used that position to expand the research profile of Baylor University. For much of that same time, Lee Nordt was (and still is) Dean of Baylor’s largest college, Arts and Sciences. Lee continually championed scholarship among the A&S faculty in a way that had not been common among Baylor deans. For me and many others who believed in the idea of a preeminent Christian research university, Hyde and Nordt helped “keep hope alive.”
Stage 3. In her inaugural address in 2017, President Linda Livingstone proclaimed Baylor’s goal of R1, and she has continued to publicly press our research goals. I can personally attest to how much easier it is to build graduate programs when a president repeatedly states how important graduate education and scholarly research is to the university. A new provost, Nancy Brickhouse, who supports graduate education and understands the importance and nuances of faculty scholarship helps tremendously. We also hired a new Chief Business Officer, Brett Dalton, who is willing to find the resources to build our research infrastructure, and a new Vice Provost for Research, Kevin Chambliss, who works closely and well with faculty and administration to expand external research funding. I am pleased to have served Baylor long enough to work with Linda, Nancy, Brett, and Kevin. Their commitment and determination pushed Baylor across the R1 finish line, and the momentum continues.
One final point about Baylor and R1. We will now begin saying even more often that R1 is only a step along the way to the “preeminent” or “Tier 1” status we seek. While that is certainly true, we should not fail to recognize the significance of this current achievement. Due to the metrics associated with R1, it is very difficult for private universities to achieve this status. Only 37 private universities are R1, and Rice is the only other private school from Texas on the list. Baylor belongs on the list below, and I am proud that as a Christian university we are among the strongest private research universities in the nation.
Private R1 Universities
- Baylor University
- Boston College
- Boston University
- Brown University
- California Institute of Technology
- Carnegie Mellon University
- Case Western Reserve University
- Columbia University
- Cornell University
- Dartmouth College
- Drexel University
- Duke University
- Emory University
- George Washington University
- Georgetown University
- Harvard University
- Johns Hopkins University
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- New York University
- Northeastern University
- Northwestern University
- Princeton University
- Rice University
- Stanford University
- Syracuse University
- Tufts University
- Tulane University
- University of Chicago
- University of Denver
- University of Miami
- University of Notre Dame
- University of Pennsylvania
- University of Rochester
- University of Southern California
- Vanderbilt University
- Washington University in St. Louis
- Yale University