Baylor Connections

Master Teacher is the highest designation awarded to Baylor faculty for sustained excellence in teaching. Wiff Rudd, Professor of Trumpet in the Baylor School of Music, was recently named Master Teacher along with three other colleagues across campus. A longtime educator and performer, Rudd shares how the two threads of his career intertwine and why the role of teacher has represented a high calling in his life.

Preparing students for leadership is a key part of the Baylor mission, and programs across campus embody that calling. One is the Billington Peer Leader program in Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business, a student-led and student-focused initiative to support Pre-Business students as they navigate the transition to college. Laura Lalani, Associate Director for Student Success Initiatives, and Madeline Prescott, a student leader within the Billington program, share how the program develops leaders and sets students up for a successful college experience.

Expansive leaps in technologies like AI prompt important questions about their impact on people. Pablo Rivas, assistant professor of computer science, is a leader at the intersection of technology and ethics. Rivas, Baylor’s site-director for the Center on Responsible Artificial Intelligence and Governance, unpacks questions around responsible AI and examines the role Baylor can play as an ethical voice amidst this growth.

Baylor’s Institute for Faith and Learning (IFL) offers numerous resources to faculty, staff and students to assist in integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment. Elisabeth Kincaid, a theologian, lawyer and business ethics scholar, was named last Spring as the new IFL director. Here, she shares her path to Baylor and examines why IFL is such a meaningful piece of the University.

All lawyers must understand elements of psychology to successfully navigate the human elements of the legal system. Few people are as qualified in this area as Chris Jaeger, associate professor of law at Baylor. With both a law degree and a Ph.D. in psychology, Jaeger combines both streams to better understand the ways individuals process significant concepts like reasonableness in his award-winning research.

A new strategic plan, an addition to the University’s longstanding motto, and a second-half football surge: these are just a few of the highlights of an eventful 2024 that saw continued growth as a preeminent Christian research university. President Linda A. Livingstone, PhD., takes listeners inside some of the highlights, honors and opportunities that defined the past 12 months and set the stage for 2025.