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Scholarly Profile

Scholarly Profile

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The Scholarly Profile of Our Graduate Faculty and Programs

Sara Dolan and Steven Driese, Associate Deans for Research

One requirement for Baylor to become a preeminent Christian research university is that our graduate faculty regularly publish widely cited research. This is especially true for our research doctoral programs. The growing research prowess of our faculty is clearly illustrated in the graph below of the number of articles our faculty publish. We have more than doubled our scholarly productivity of ten years ago, exceeding 1,300 articles per year in the world-wide data base of major peer-reviewed journals maintained by Clarivate Analytics.  This growth has been strategic, consistent, and is moving us increasingly close to the high level of scholarship associated with the strongest research universities.

chart of faculty publications

More broadly, the Office of Institutional Research & Testing maintains an annual Academic Analytics (AcA) database that counts not publications, but also the citations, awards, and grant dollars of every graduate faculty member of every PhD program in the nation. For 2020, AcA’s most recent release, nineteen of our PhD programs are among the strongest in the nation in terms of faculty scholarship, the largest number ever for Baylor.

Our PhD program in Philosophy leads, with its faculty placing among the top 4% of scholars in the nation, and two of our newer PhD programs, Higher Education Studies & Leadership and Entrepreneurship, are also in the top 5% in the nation.  Additionally, the breadth of our highly ranked programs is noteworthy.  Baylor PhD programs in the Humanities, the Social Sciences, the Sciences, and our Professional Programs are all represented on this list.  This is a characteristic of a comprehensive research university and reflects our understanding that “all truth is God’s truth.”  

Highest Ranked PhD Programs in 2020

PhD Program Percentile Rank
Philosophy 96
Higher Education Studies and Leadership 95
Entrepreneurship 95
Preaching 88
Religion 85
Educational Psychology 85
Environmental Science 80
Information Systems 79
Sociology 77
History 72
Exercise and Nutrition Sciences 67
Curriculum & Instruction 65
Biomedical Studies 62
Mathematics 60
Health Services Research 59
Biology 58
Ecological, Earth & Environmental Sciences 58
Psychology 53
Social Work 52

Two points of temporal reference:  First, five years ago, in 2015, Baylor had only twelve PhD programs ranked in the top half by Academic Analytics. In only five years, we have increased the number of highly ranked doctoral programs measured by the scholarship of our faculty to nineteen.  Second, in 2002, Baylor’s Vision 2012 publicly promised to have “a depth of scholarly excellence and a volume of scholarly output that is found only in schools with first-rate graduate programs.”  Our faculty continue to deliver on that promise.  

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