Related articles and links |  1 of 10

Waco once billed itself as "the Athens of Texas," but it is difficult to escape the impression that its best days are past. Its 22-story Alico Building, a Beaux Arts structure completed in 1910, was once the tallest building west of the Mississippi. The Alico survived the tornado that swept through downtown Waco in 1953, but little else did. Wacoans' urban renewal efforts notwithstanding, when you stroll through the downtown streets you almost expect to hear a movie director shout, "Cue the tumbleweeds!"

From the top of the Alico Building you can survey the signposts of central Texas—the McClennan County courthouse to the west, the rodeo grounds to the south, and just a few blocks away, hard by Interstate 35 and the Brazos River, the large golden dome of Baylor University's sports facility, the Ferrell Center. The campus bustles nearby.

Baylor, which already bills itself as the largest Baptist university in the world, has even bigger ambitions. In the words of the school's president, Baylor aspires to be "the finest Christian institution of higher learning on this planet." This is Texas, after all, so nothing is quite so important as scale. And Baylor has a plan—specifically, a 42-page document that articulates a vision and outlines a strategy to achieve it by 2012. "Within the course of a decade, Baylor intends to enter the top tier of American universities while reaffirming and deepening its distinctive Christian mission," reads the plan, called Baylor 2012. It rejects the notion that "intellectual excellence" and "intense faithfulness to the Christian tradition" are mutually exclusive, although it notes that not many universities have been able to do both effectively.

Baylor 2012 calls for, among other things, an Honors College with its own dean and faculty; at least 10 new doctoral programs in the social sciences and humanities (in addition to its existing 17 doctoral programs in a variety of disciplines); and a world-class faculty, with 200 new appointments over the course of a decade.

Additionally, Baylor's administration has hopes of locating the George W. Bush presidential library on campus. A $103 million science building is under construction. Baylor has embarked on what one faculty member calls a "huge building spree" of athletic facilities, and the university plans to construct a new residence hall every two years until 2012.

Some at Baylor want the university to become a "Protestant Notre Dame." The connection is not coincidental. Although there are no official ties between Waco and South Bend, faculty at the two schools (particularly the philosophy departments) have met for a number of structured conversations. Michael Beaty, a philosopher and director of the Baylor Institute of Faith and Learning, did his doctorate at Notre Dame. Both Baylor's president and his chief faculty recruiter acknowledge their intellectual indebtedness to Notre Dame's George Marsden—who warned about the secularization of U.S. higher education—and to the Notre Dame model.

"There are a lot of Protestants who want to see a university take its religious identity seriously," Beaty says.

Opinions at the school differ on whether Baylor 2012 represents a course correction or a new trajectory. Beaty sees it as the latter, while people like John Wilkerson, former chairman of the board of regents, take issue. Wilkerson acknowledges that the board and administration are more focused on the school's Christian identity than before, but he believes that Baylor has been trying to be a "first-class Christian university for a number of years."

next page... |  1 of 10

November 18 2002, Vol. 46, No. 12