Jason Cook

Transcript

Derek Smith:
Hello and welcome to Baylor Connections conversation series with the people shaping our future. Each week we go in depth with Baylor Leaders, professors, and more discussing important topics in higher education research and student life. I'm Derek Smith, and today we are visiting with Baylor's Vice President for Marketing and Communications, Jason Cook. Jason has served as vice president in that role and chief marketing officer at Baylor since 2016, and as we head into another school year before too long, there's a lot we can look at, a lot to look forward to and really a lot to celebrate at Baylor these days, Jason. Thanks for taking the time to jump on and share with us.

Jason Cook:
You bet, Derek. Great to be here. And my gosh, it's almost eight years now and it's such a special place at Baylor and so much going on.

Derek Smith:
Well, exciting times that we can talk about, eight years, that is hard to believe, isn't it? Yeah, you'll be in a decade before too long. So in that time you've really immersed yourself in the Baylor family and you've got to know campus rhythms and routines, so on, all that. So let me ask you few of your favorites if we will, to start out.

Jason Cook:
Okay. We're going to start hard, right?

Derek Smith:
Okay, hopefully. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see. Maybe it'll be easy, maybe not. We'll see. So favorite spots on campus? Do you have a favorite outdoor spot on campus?

Jason Cook:
Well, I will tell you the first 18 months that I worked at Baylor I actually lived on-campus in some on-campus housing. So in the evenings I would get to walk campus quite a bit, run campus in the mornings. So I've got some really good spots, but my favorite outdoor spot is the stream or the creek that runs in between the science building and the Student Life Center. That is just so well done from a design perspective, I'm a marketing guy, but it's just so serene and peaceful. I just love that stream and how it cuts through those two buildings.

Derek Smith:
Good one. A good answer. Okay, what about indoor?

Jason Cook:
Indoor, well, I'd have to say the Hurd Center, just with our newest building on campus. The opportunity, just what a blessing I had to play a role in that building and the overall design and the storytelling elements with the columns that relate back to Independence and really the energy that it's brought to our campus. So that's my favorite indoor.

Derek Smith:
Favorite indoor, okay. Now what's a place on campus that you don't visit often, but when you are you're like, oh, this is pretty nice, I'd like to come back here.

Jason Cook:
Ooh, now we're getting a little bit tough. I would say Armstrong Browning Library. What a hidden gem on our campus and you walk in there, just the architecture of the exterior building, a little art deco to it, and then to go inside to see the stained-glass, the reading room, wow, it's just an incredible facility that not a lot of people know about.

Derek Smith:
Yeah, that's pretty well known in certain circles outside of Baylor. I mean it's some distinct circles, but I realized that hit me too when I was a student like, wait a minute, this is a big deal.

Jason Cook:
Yeah, you know what's interesting, a lot of times when you're close to something you don't think that much of it or cherish it as much. It's kind of like living at the beach. If you live at the beach, you never go to the beach. But you're right, I mean Armstrong Browning brings so many people worldwide to study and look at the Browning Collections. It's a pretty special place.

Derek Smith:
Okay, A favorite piece of Baylor clothing. What's the go-to that you always enjoy taking with you or throwing on for a game?

Jason Cook:
Oh wow, now we're getting really hard, Derek. I'm pretty fond of quarter zips and we have our lucky quarter zips or lucky polos, things of that nature. So we'll have a reset with the start of football season, so we'll see which one of those polos, I've got a green striped one. Kind of a micro stripe shirt that I like the best. We'll try that out to start the season.

Derek Smith:
Season which gets off to a good start, hopefully.

Jason Cook:
Indeed.

Derek Smith:
Yes. All right, two more questions for favorites. What's your favorite athletic tradition?

Jason Cook:
Baylor Line, hands down, something that's so unique to Baylor and it's exciting. It really brings together the freshmen class, but there's so much pride in it. And the symbolism, it's not just the freshmen running across the field at football games. It's really indicative of that journey from student to alumni and it's that line that holds us together and we actually depicted that in the Hurd Center as well. There's a gold line that runs from north to south in that building and really aligns perfectly with Pat Neff Hall. So a lot of symbolism there for the Baylor Line, but that's my favorite tradition.

Derek Smith:
And last one, favorite institutional, favorite non-sports tradition?

Jason Cook:
Non-sports tradition, ooh, that is going to be tough. You know what's interesting? So many of our traditions at Baylor are kind of tied to sports in some way. It is that mosaic that kind of holds us together. You know, Derek, I'm thinking probably Mass Meeting is pretty special. Again, it's kind of sports related with Immortal 10 and things of that nature, but that time to bring people together in a solemn moment and really reflect on the things that are about Baylor, I think that that's pretty special. Of course, Line Camp, again, it's affiliated to the Baylor Line, but that trip to Independence is pretty special too for our freshmen.

Derek Smith:
All right, well this gives a little taste of your favorites. Nothing too controversial there.

Jason Cook:
No, steer clear.

Derek Smith:
Yeah, you steered clear of, steered clear of that. Hey, you mentioned the Hurd Welcome Center. As this show airs, there's what? Two more weekends left for people to check it out as a welcome center if they're finishing up their summer travels.

Jason Cook:
You know, it's been interesting, that facility being on I-35 over a hundred thousand cars pass that facility every day. And so we were looking at a way over the summer, how could we kind of take the mystery behind that building, it is very unique architecturally and so many people passing, travelers, summertime, let's bring people into our campus and it's been a really successful. We've had secret shoppers, prospective students just wanting to see what it's about. We've had alums stop by, people have no ties to Baylor whatsoever, just to stop by to get some air conditioning, use a restroom, things of that nature. It's been a really neat experience as a way to welcome weary travelers to our campus and it is been a lot of fun for our staff too, to hear stories and connect with people who just wouldn't have been part of the Baylor experience at all.

Derek Smith:
It's funny, as you talk about that, the building is grand and impressive, but you also can almost lose sight of just how functional it is. There's a lot of parking, the restrooms are clean, you can get a cup of coffee and Baylor's offered some snacks and gift packs, so it's grand and exciting, but it is actually an easy on, easy off for people who just want to stretch their legs a few minutes too.

Jason Cook:
Well, I will tell you, we didn't design it to be a Buc-ees, but we did think about things like parking, access, making sure we had enough restrooms in the facility. Things of that nature because we thought that it would be an attraction point for the Baylor campus and it's certainly proved to be that way so far. And we've got a few little billboards with a little spin on some of the Buc-ees language too.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Jason Cook, Baylor's Vice President for Marketing Communications. Well, Jason, last summer at this time we were really talking about the construction of the Hurd and Foster Pavilion, building construction was really the focus in a lot of ways. What's been the focus around Baylor this summer? It feels like it's been a good quiet but productive summer.

Jason Cook:
I would consider this summer's been somewhat of a transition season for us. Now, we're still completing the Fudge Football Development Center, that's nearing completion in the next couple of weeks. So we've still got one big construction project underway. But I do say it's a kind of transition because we've wrapped up Give Light, our philanthropic campaign, that raised over, $1.1 billion was our goal, we exceeded that almost close to 1.5 billion now. And then we wrapped up Illuminate, which was our strategic plan. So over the spring we really looked at what's our new strategic plan going to be, and now we're getting ready to roll that out in early September to students, faculty and staff, but also to our alumni as well. So a season of transition as we close a five-year period of incredible growth and momentum of the institution and start preparing for that big next push.

Derek Smith:
Well we'll look forward. I know we'll have President Livingstone and I would imagine Dr. Brickhouse or others on the program in the fall talking about the new strategic plan and we'll get to learn more about that. I'm also curious, I think it may be aligned somewhat with that, is this idea of Pro Mundo, that Baylor has added Pro Mundo to our university motto. Could you take us inside why now's the right time to add that here?

Jason Cook:
Yeah, you're exactly right. Our longstanding motto since back, late 1890s have been Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana, for the Church and for Texas. But we started looking at now Baylor being a Research 1 institution. And with our research growing, alumni living around the world, an impact that we are able to make as a Christian research university, there's just not many of us like that. And so it's really given us a seat at the table on so many conversations of academia, of leadership, of society, things of that nature, missions.
And so we really had a reflection moment in the spring that we're just not for Texas. We are really for our country and for the world as well. So adding Pro Mundo, for the world, was very important for us to really reflect, not change the mission, but really have our motto reflect what our mission is and who we are today. So that was a really important move for us and I think that it's just a statement that, we are at the caliber and at the level of an institution, that we can have that worldwide impact and really fulfill the mission that we have as a university.

Derek Smith:
From a marketing standpoint or a change standpoint, is it delicate at all thinking about doing something like that because as you talk about it it certainly seems like it just kind of fits in some of what we've already been doing and where we're going further.

Jason Cook:
It's not a shift, which is really good, but anytime you change something like a motto that's been around for over a hundred years, you have to be very careful, very thoughtful in how we do that. And I think that what you'll see when we roll the strategic plan out in September, and I can't steal any of President Livingstone's thunder about that today, but once you roll it out, it will have a significant global kind of feel to it, a global focus reflective of that motto. And you get down into the details of making sure new seals, where they're placed and things of that nature. So we've been very intentional about the change on our campus and in talking with other colleges and universities that have changed seals and mottos and things like that in the past, we're not going to go and change history, we're just going to add to it. And it's really going to be nice to see the evolution and the progression of Baylor since we were founded in 1845 to here we are today, having a worldwide influence.

Derek Smith:
You talk about our seat at the table of the growth [inaudible 00:11:59] and this being a very practical, a very distinct next step for the university. So I'm curious, you've got a unique vantage point to where Baylor is in the marketplace in 2024. So this is a broad question, but when you look throughout higher ed, peer institutions, people who give grants or publish, all of these things, where does Baylor stand in the marketplace in 2024?

Jason Cook:
I think that we are distinct when we say we're a Christian Research 1 university, if you will. There's just not a lot of big religious-based institutions that have a big research portfolio that play big time athletics and that still have a strong connection to their religious mission. So you could look at Notre Dame would be one of those. Boston College would be one. Even though they're not a R1 institution, I would put BYU, a new Big 12 member, in that. So it really is distinct in our position in the marketplace, but it's not just about research or having a religious label. I think that one of the big distincters for us is the student experience. If you look at some of the US news rankings, and not just look at the main ranking but peel back some layers, we're top five for first year experience for students.
We are in the top 25 for undergraduate teaching and undergraduate research as part of that. Our student life components of the institution really bringing students in and making them feel a part of the Baylor family and feel a part of something special, that's something bigger of themselves, than themselves. We really excel at that. And so I think that there's a lot of things outside the labels that you could put us in different boxes. I think it really boils down to that overall student experience, the care that our faculty and staff have for students. And that's why we're attracting students from around the country

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Jason Cook on Baylor Connections. Jason serves as Baylor's Vice President for Marketing and Communications and Chief Marketing Officer. Let's shift a little bit to the Big 12. You mentioned the conference adding four more schools: Arizona, Arizona State, Colorado, and Utah will join the conference this year. What does that mean for the conference? We're in a season of, we're definitely in a season of change throughout college sports and the Big 12 certainly.

Jason Cook:
It is, college athletics, a tremendous sea of change that's happening. And the Big 12 frankly is pretty exciting when you look at it. And I think that yes, we've got four new schools, great academic institutions, schools that have some pretty impressive historic and current athletic success, which is pretty exciting. And if you look at the Big 12 now, we're stretching from the mountains of the West all the way to the coast of Florida and across four time zones. So I think that the Big 12 has really become a national conference in and of itself and the connectivity that it has geographically, it's not like some of the other conferences that are focused in the Midwest and then have a couple of outposts on the West Coast.
There is some connection with the schools within the Big 12. And what's exciting for me is not only the newness of the schools, the energy that they brought in to the league, but just the parity that exists. I think that regardless of the sport, you look around it, you don't know who's going to win. And I think that just a level playing field is going to bring a lot of excitement and energy to the conference beginning this fall. And hopefully our schools can just keep up with our commissioner, Brett Yormark, because he is a bundle of energy and ideas as well.

Derek Smith:
Yeah, he is been transformative for sure. And for those who, Jason mentioned you've been here eight years now, there's people coming in now who may not know that you spent a lot of time and leadership in college athletics at Texas A&M and elsewhere, so I'm curious, your vantage point, when we talk about the fact that the geographic footprint has changed, what does that mean? I think we know it opens the Big 12 brand to more areas of the country, but what does that mean to you?

Jason Cook:
You know, in the past, kind of the knock against the Big 12 and the Southwest conference before that was that it was a regional conference, it was really, stuck really in the heartland of the country and it really didn't get a lot of visibility and attention on the coast, for example. And why is that important? Well, your major media markets and media focus is in New York and in California as well. So we think that we were really undervalued and really not a lot of visibility in the past. Well now that geographic expansion really gets a lot more eyeballs on your conference, a lot more visibility into our institutions and what we're doing and attracts a lot of attention with prospective students.
Even faculty and staff hiring, connectivity with our alumni. We mentioned that we have alumni living in all 50 states. It gives a greater connection to the institution. And an old cliche is that athletics are the front porch of the university, and I certainly agree with that. But I think that you've got to take it one step further is, as a university, we've got to make sure we get people off the porch, open the front door to the university and showcase all that we have to offer not just in terms of athletics but academics and research and student experiences and the work of our alumni. It just provides a great opportunity and now we have a national footprint to do that.

Derek Smith:
Visiting with Jason Cook here on Baylor Connections, as we head into the final few minutes of the program, I want to ask you a couple of other areas that Baylor is speaking into. You mentioned Give Light, I want to actually ask about that first. Give Light has come to a successful conclusion, but I know we're still hiring professors, all these things. Where are some of the places we're going to be seeing the fruits of that season for a long time?

Jason Cook:
I think there's a couple of things, and Give Light truly was transformational across the institution. And I think a lot of people just look at buildings and facilities because that's something tangible. But I think the intangibles, that campaign is going to impact this university for decades to come. And a couple of things that endow professorships. We've been able to create funds for faculty members that we are hiring from some of the top research institutions around the country. And what we found is that there are a lot of Christian faculty members in higher education around the country and they want to be in a Christian environment, but they've got to have research infrastructure in support of that as well. And I think that what they're finding now is Baylor is providing a Christian environment. We're providing infrastructure in terms of labs and facilities, but then also in terms of financial resources for these faculty members to come. Bring their research grants and portfolios, bring their postdocs, bring their graduate students together.
And one of the reasons we've been able to do that is because Give Light provided the financial resources for us to attract just some worldwide names from a faculty perspective. So I think that that's one thing that's really impactful. And then the second thing is just the growth of our endowment. The Baylor family did a tremendous job through Give Light giving money to the endowment. And it's not a savings account which you withdraw from, really, the endowment. You pull off the interest of those investments and that allows us to support faculty. It allows us to grow our students scholarships. It allows us to do some remarkable things for the institution and that's just going to pay off for decades into the future as well. So I think that faculty student scholarships through the endowment's really important. And then we've talked about some of the building projects too. That's where the legacy that Give Light will leave with us.

Derek Smith:
About a year in. You mentioned the building projects. Hurd Welcome Center and about half a year in, took a little over about eight months into Foster Pavilion's opening, what do you see the impact of those facilities on campus?

Jason Cook:
Well, it's given us a great welcome off I-35. I just love driving in from Dallas and you top that hill and you see McLane Stadium and now you see the Hurd Welcome Center on the left and Foster pavilion on the right. It's such a, wow, I'm at Baylor. I mean this is huge. There's something here. There's a substantial footprint for this institution. So that's really exciting as part of that. And I think that those facilities, particularly Hurd and Foster, are really reflective of the university and where we're going into the future. And we've been very careful to make sure that we have some historic ties in terms of buildings with red brick for example, and some nice touches to historic architecture. But it's just a great symbol, both of those buildings, of the momentum of the institution.

Derek Smith:
Jason, final couple of questions for you. One, we're going to have guests on the program in the weeks ahead talking about the idea of civil discourse during this, really, it's been a jaw dropping last couple of weeks in the election and a contentious season potentially ahead. What's Baylor's role in speaking into that?

Jason Cook:
That's a really important question. And we saw a lot of stress points, colleges and universities across the campus this spring. And looking at an election season, anytime you have change is incredibly difficult for our country. And we will have change with President Biden stepping out of the race a few days ago. But our country is so divisive right now and everyone, it's here's how I feel and I don't care what you feel. And we think that universities have a very important role to play in bringing people together to have conversations. And we may not agree on a subject, on politics or a candidate or whatever, but at least let's have a dialogue to, let me understand why you believe the way you do or why you feel the way you do. And I think that if you have those kind of conversations bringing people together, you can generate some understanding.
But you look at our society today, Derek, the government's not going to bring people together. Our churches are struggling to bring people together. And we really think here at Baylor, we have a unique opportunity, as a Christian university, to bring people together. To have dialogue and to coexist in an educational environment. And we can agree to disagree, but we're going to do so in a manner that's very respectful, that's very civil. And we think that we have a responsibility to teach our students and to teach our community how to have these kind of important civil dialogues about any subject, not just politics.

Derek Smith:
Yeah, be different than what you see out there, can provide leadership opportunities or even just some peace that people can bring in to a conversation.

Jason Cook:
If you look at Baylor's history, we've always been in the middle. We've always lived in this tension on issues, societal issues, even theological issues, things of that nature. So we think that we have a lot of experience living in that tension and hopefully we can bring a lot of people together to have those conversations.

Derek Smith:
Well, Jason, as we head into the fall semester, what are you excited about? What's ahead at Baylor as we looked into Fall 2024?

Jason Cook:
Well, you mentioned I've been a sports fan in my career, has kind of woven athletics in and out of it, and so I always get excited about the start a football season. That's just been a part of my family's life. And so that everyone's zero and zero as you kick off the season. So that's exciting for me. I'm really excited to see our students back on campus and the energy that, I think it's BU'28 class of '28 is bringing through orientation, in Line Camp. They are just so excited to be at Baylor. Can't wait to watch them run the Baylor Line across McLane Stadium that opening weekend.

Derek Smith:
That should be a lot of fun. Well, Jason, thanks for taking the time to share and good to visit with you as always and look forward to this fall semester ahead.

Jason Cook:
Thanks, Derek.

Derek Smith:
Thank you. Jason Cook, Vice President for Marketing and Communications and Chief Marketing Officer. Our guest today on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. Reminder, you can hear this and other programs online, baylor.edu/connections and you can subscribe on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.