Toby Brooks
Baylor’s Academy for Teaching and Learning (ATL) helps faculty become better teachers through enrichment and development opportunities. Toby Brooks joined the Baylor faculty this year as ATL director and clinical professor in HHPR. In this Baylor Connections, he unpacks insights on serving teachers and the teaching profession, and shares his path from athletic training to higher education leadership.
Transcript
Derek Smith:
Hello, and welcome to Baylor Connections, a 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 talking about Baylor's Academy for Teaching and Learning. Baylor is known for outstanding teaching and research, and it's no accident that our long-standing tradition in these areas continues to elevate the university among its peers.
Baylor's Academy for Teaching and Learning, or ATL, as we'll call it for short, serves faculty across campus to support and inspire a flourishing community of learning and to promote the integration of teaching, scholarship, collegiality, and service in a Christian environment. ATL offers numerous programs, fellowships, events, and more to help faculty continue to grow in the ways that they teach and inspire students.
We're joined today by Dr. Toby Brooks. Dr. Brooks was selected last spring as the director of ATL. He comes to Baylor from Texas Tech University where he served as Assistant Dean of Faculty Success, Program Director of Athletic Training, and professor at the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center. At Baylor he'll also teach in the Department of Health, Human Performance, and Recreation as a clinical professor. He's a widely published author and podcast host and is a certified athletic trainer. And he's with us today on the program. Really multifaceted roles, multifaceted career, and really important work you're doing here. Dr. Brooks, excited to have you with us today.
Toby Brooks:
Thanks, Derek. Thoroughly impressed. One take. You just nailed that introduction.
Derek Smith:
Oh well, thank you very much.
Toby Brooks:
Fantastic.
Derek Smith:
I was reading, but we'll roll with it. Yeah, but no, Dr. Brooks, you're a podcast host as well, so we're going to have to check that out. Maybe we'll ease into the interview.
Toby Brooks:
For sure.
Derek Smith:
If people want to check out what you're doing, what's the name of the podcast and what's the topic?
Toby Brooks:
Yeah, so the show's called Becoming UnDone. It actually started out of my work with athletes in particular as they're making transition out of sport, and the identity piece that is oftentimes lost when athletics is taken. We've started with athletes, but also spilled over into entrepreneurs, looked at former Navy SEALs. A lot of the common things that I saw in athletes I see in high achievers across the board, and that's, "What do we do when we fall apart? How do we put those pieces back together?"
Derek Smith:
That's great. We'll have to check that out. And people can find that, Becoming UnDone. We'll let them listen to another podcast besides this where they can check that out.
Toby Brooks:
Sure.
Derek Smith:
Well, Dr. Brooks, as I read through your biography, it just strikes me you have a number of interesting threads in your career. What are some of those threads that tie all the different aspects of your journey together?
Toby Brooks:
Well, first of all, Toby, please.
Derek Smith:
Okay.
Toby Brooks:
Came out of athletics, and the humility piece is central to my work, so I appreciate the kindness. Really, I got my start at a teeny-tiny high school back in Southern Illinois, and knew I wanted to be in athletics, but I didn't know how that could be. I knew I couldn't play in the NBA, so sports medicine really came front and center as I was in college. And I really kind of bounced back and forth between working with athletes in clinical practice and teaching.
And so one of the biggest, probably, transitions for me that really kind of forced that decision was when my wife and I started having kids. I was on the road with football when my daughter took her first steps. I tell my students that story often, and it was just kind of a reckoning for me.
And as I've gotten older, I've really started connecting more with young faculty and helping people make that transition from grad school into the classroom. And so a lot of the things I learned as an athletic trainer and a strength coach really play really well with folks making that transition and that shift. And lots of times things don't go according to plan in our classrooms, so how can we build on that and make it better?
Derek Smith:
Would you have ever anticipated a few years ago a role like this one where you're essentially educating educators in some way?
Toby Brooks:
Yeah, it's really kind of a meta thing. It is something that in grad school, I often tell the story, I applied to every D1 job I could find. I went to a relatively small school, Southern Illinois University, and really wanted to make the shift to a big-time athletic school. So I ended up at Arizona, and Arizona was R1 and really heavy into lab sciences.
So as an athletic trainer, as a clinician, as a practitioner, I really didn't have a place academically. I got the job as a GA, but I just had to find something to study. And so I initially started as an ex phys major, but I was working with gymnastics 60, 70 hours a week. And the work that I needed to do in the lab really just wouldn't fit. And so I started as an ex phys major, lasted for about two weeks. And all my other GAs were all teaching and teacher ed majors, and I didn't want to do that.
I thought if you know it, you can teach it. And reluctantly kind of backed into a degree and a career... Well, a degree at the time. I was basically just trying to get my master so that I could continue working in athletics. And after I say about two weeks, I was quickly disabused of those presumptions that if you know it, you can teach it.
One of my first professors in grad school who would later go on to be my PhD dissertation chair taught a phenomenal class, and really helped me understand that good teaching is a craft and you need to work on your craft just like you would anything else. And so this notion that good teachers are born, I think some people have personality traits, and they've got maybe a way of connecting in a way that's natural and comes easier than others, but it's an acquired skill. You can make it better. And regardless of how good or bad you were born with that, there are ways that you can improve.
Derek Smith:
Visiting with Toby Brooks. Toby, so in some cases you're on the sidelines working with the lead athletes. Maybe they are in discomfort or injured and you're helping them back. Are there parallels between being in that chair, if you will, and the chair of teaching? Are there things you're like, "Oh, I didn't see that connection, but now I do"?
Toby Brooks:
Yeah, I think in many ways a lot of the skills that I honed working with an injured athlete are very similar to the skills I honed as a college professor. You get someone that's new to campus, say they've relocated to Waco, maybe they went to a small Christian school or whatever. Whatever their circumstance was, chances are this is a transition, this is a difference for them. So you've got that. You've got the added financial stresses of college, you've got being maybe the first time away from home. There are just so many things that are new and so many aspects of who they are as a person that are in flux.
And an athlete many times is dealing with some of those same types of doubts and concerns where this may be the first time they haven't seen the field. This may be the first time they have been pulled away from something that they've identified with. And so I always come back to in a secular, and in Texas Tech, I would talk about unconditional positive regard. My wife's a counselor. That's really just kind of counselor talk for love. It is a way of communicating to my student or the professors that I'm working with or the student athlete that, "I'm here to support you. I am here to be with you every step of the way. I can't necessarily understand every aspect of your journey, but I'll be here to support it."
Derek Smith:
Well yeah, we all, whatever our position is, whatever industry we're in, everyone needs someone who can kind of help them think, "All right, I'm here now. Here's where I want to get. What does it look like to get there?"
Toby Brooks:
Yeah. When I was at Liberty, we had an award for the Booster, the individual that best personified the Paraclete. And it was kind of cool because in football, the trophy was a gold pair of cleats.
Derek Smith:
Oh yeah?
Toby Brooks:
And so this idea that we're coming alongside and supporting, and we are helping people become the best versions of themselves. And that doesn't matter if you're a student athlete who's facing an injury, a student who's new to campus or changing majors, or a professor who's making that transition from being on the receiving end of education to being on the giving end of it.
Derek Smith:
Visiting with Toby Brooks, director of Baylor's Academy for Teaching and Learning. And when you first heard about this opening at ATL, going back to when that was, what was it that stood out to you? And I'm curious, so if you were talking to other people, maybe people, you were saying, "Hey, I'm looking at this job," and they said, "Well, what is it you're going after?" How would you have described ATL to them?
Toby Brooks:
Yeah, I found myself pretty much right in the middle of where Baylor is. So I was a faculty member at the Health Sciences Center. We did not, and still they don't, have an equivalent of the ATL. Texas Tech did, and has for over 20 years. And so the proximity, and I didn't know this when I interviewed at Texas Tech, the HSC is actually a separate institution altogether. They've got a separate accreditation, everything's separate.
When I saw that we didn't have those types of opportunities at the HSC, I kind of washed up on the shores over at the ATL equivalent at Texas Tech, did a lot of their fellowship programs, became really involved and active in the work that they did. Well, they had existed for 20 years. They had established themselves on campus as a meaningful part, and faculty knew where to go to get help. And then the flip side of that was I was over across the street trying to justify the creation of a comparable program.
So when I see Baylor, it's a relatively young program. The ATL at Baylor is the youngest in the Big 12 at the time. And so 15 years ago, roughly, is about when the ATL got its start here. I really saw that what Texas Tech had done in some ways could be aspirational, because they'd had more time and maybe some more resources. But the hard part, the brick walls or the ceilings that I'd been bumping into at the HSC to get something like this off the ground, that work had already been done. My predecessor, Lenore Wright, lots of folks that were instrumental in getting this created.
And so I was really excited about it because the analogy I use is instead of having to build the aircraft and get it to take off, the plane's already in the air here. And so it's just about, "Let's take our cruising altitude higher." But a lot of the hard part to just justifying your existence was already done here, and it was exciting.
And the fact that it was in a Christian environment was even better. I've really built much of my work around Luke 2:52, "Jesus grew in wisdom, stature, favor with God and man." There's a mental, a physical, a spiritual and a social piece to growth. And anywhere else I've been, it's like you have to lower case and reduce the font size on that spiritual piece. You can talk about other than self, you can kind of try to spin it, even though it really is rooted in Scripture. At a state school, you really can't trumpet that that's what you're after, whereas here that's a critical part of the Baylor experience is the total person development.
Derek Smith:
Mm-hmm. We know, obviously, that's one area here at Baylor's ATL that's distinct. You mentioned Dr. Lenore Wright. We've had her on the program. What is it about the foundation she and others set that's helped this grow into something even more appealing? And also what maybe makes this distinct at Baylor? As you mentioned, Texas Tech and others have something similar.
Toby Brooks:
Yeah. So much of the work that Dr. Wright and many of her contemporaries did was essential in getting our upper administration to recognize the need for this. Part of what most ATLs have to battle against is that same assumption that I shared, that I had before I got into the space, is that if you know broadcast journalism, you can teach it, right? And we have to disassemble or maybe deconstruct that assumption.
And what I think Dr. Wright was able to do is get people to realize that teaching is a skill, that not every professor is going to come in here and deliver a tremendous classroom experience. They're just not prepared for that, and there's no shame in that. Let's normalize recognizing that, "I need to work on this just like I would work on any other skill."
Derek Smith:
This is Baylor Connections. We are visiting with Toby Brooks, the director of Baylor's Academy for Teaching and Learning. He's also a clinical professor in Baylor's Department of Health, Human Performance, and Recreation. And Dr. Brooks, so you get the job, you come here, your first semester. Where are some of the interesting places that fact-finding, relationship building, whatever, has taken you?
Toby Brooks:
Yeah. So in my interview, I had to basically explain what I would do in my first year, first five years. And I'm proud to say I've pretty much followed true to script. I planned to set out on a pretty comprehensive listening tour. I've met with almost every dean on campus. I've got a couple more to meet with to check that box. I've met with all the members of our advisory council. I've met with a lot of the vice provosts, faculty from all shapes and sizes, various positions within the enterprise.
We have three different lines that faculty teach in. Our research-heavy, the tenure track line is kind of the traditional. There's a teaching track, and I'm in a clinical track, which is really more for folks that are active professionals and have, whether that's a practitioner's degree, something along those lines. All that to say there are a lot of different needs for our faculty.
What it means to be a faculty member at Baylor in 2024 is pretty vastly different from what it was even 10 years ago. And so being able to adequately build programming that's relevant and is meaningful for them really means we have to really tap the brakes and ask the question, "What could we do better? What could we offer? Or how could we offer it in ways that would be more relevant or more convenient?" After Covid, we know a lot of people have stopped going to as many in-person meetings as possible. Well, we can offer it on Zoom, but will it be the same kind of impact? And so looking at ways of leaning heavier on what we've done well in the past, and that foundation.
Our provost frequently says, "We want to respect the tradition, but also lean into the cutting edge." The timeless aspect of a Baylor education should never change. You should be able to count on great instruction in a classroom, but the cutting-edge piece means the AI, the VR, the emerging technologies that can mean the difference between someone going into the workplace well-equipped with 2025 skills versus someone who's learning out of a book that was published five years ago, and they are at a disadvantage. So those are critical things.
Derek Smith:
Visiting with Toby Brooks here on Baylor Connections. So you've got to know your colleagues here at Baylor, you're settling in. What else has stood out to you about Baylor? If you're going back to Lubbock and they say, "What's Baylor like?" what would you tell them?
Toby Brooks:
Well, it has been a tough transition for my family, no doubt, and I don't try to sugarcoat it. Because we're empty nesters. My wife was a children's minister at our church back in Lubbock. She is making a career transition, leaning back into her counseling degree and getting her hours. So it's just all the things you see on lists of high-stress things. Other than death, knock on wood, our family is going through those things. And so not being able to sell our house in Lubbock. I mean, there's some things that have confounded this move.
And I don't feel like we're in Waco. I tell people I love Baylor. I have not met one person here that I haven't walked away from thinking, "They're tremendous." Waco doesn't feel like home yet. And I know that will come. It's really just kind of the circumstance of our current reality. But we really feel kind of like we're spread across 350 miles right now with nowhere in particular to call home.
Derek Smith:
That makes sense, yeah. Well, hopefully some of those loose ends, you're able to tie those up soon here, and feel more a part of the Waco area, as we visit with Dr. Toby Brooks. You mentioned Luke 2:52 earlier, and I know that's been a verse that's personally important to you. I was wondering if you could dive into that a little bit more, and as you think about relationships you build or the work you do within ATL, how is that foundational for you?
Toby Brooks:
Yeah, it's kind of one of those verses where you've read it countless times, and you just kind of plow right over it as you're checking the box for doing your reading in a day. But again, at Liberty, so I mentioned the Paraclete Award. We also had a Luke 2:52 Award for the football student athlete who best personified the verse. And so the thought was they weren't just the MVP of our team. Yeah, you're an All-American or you're All-Conference. Those are great awards. But that's usually a great athlete. That's the physical piece. And then we've got student athletes who are 4.0 students, pre-med. That's an academic piece. And maybe they're great social, they're great with the camaraderie and the teamwork, or they're really good at cultivating the spiritual environment.
So the 2:52 Award was for what our coaches would call, they're kind of the Swiss Army knife, but unlike a Swiss Army knife, they do everything really well. So a Swiss Army knife might be able to do everything, but it's kind of questionable. This is a tool that works in any circumstance. So the "Jesus grew in wisdom" piece means they're getting it done in the classroom. They are lifelong learners. For a student athlete, that means you're doing well in your classes.
Once we graduate, the pressure's kind of off, but that doesn't mean we get the right to stop growing. So for me, that's meant things like learning how to podcast or I signed up and did an MBA recently. There are things that I feel I can demonstrate that I'm growing in wisdom.
The "stature" piece is the physical piece. And in my dream of dreams, vision of visions, Baylor will have a place where faculty and staff can go to work out. The SLC is great, but it's really meant for students. It's not necessarily meant for us. And I always say that, "Well people serve well." And so if we've got a place where people can go get nutritional counseling advice or have access to personal training or other types of counsel, then that can serve well in that regard. So that's the "stature" piece. I would love to say I'm continuing to grow in height, but "stature" means physical.
The "favor with God" is the spiritual piece, and that's what I feel is missing from a lot of secular jobs. And that's something that really drew me to Baylor is that you could lean into that and cultivate that spiritual growth. Another colleague of mine, a guest you should have on, Dr. Elisabeth Kincaid, I don't know if you've had her yet.
Derek Smith:
She's on our future want list, yeah.
Toby Brooks:
She's the new director for the Institute for Faith and Learning. And we hired in basically two weeks apart. And so we're kind of similarly situated in the organization. We're really more on the teaching side, and she's more on the faith formation. And so that faith piece is critical.
And then the "favor with man" piece is the social, and we envision a place where faculty and staff can come together, affinity groups where we can talk about a book or we can discuss gardening or love, I almost said love of the Dallas Cowboys. I don't know if there are very many here.
Derek Smith:
There's probably a few here. There are a few, yes.
Toby Brooks:
But those types of things, things that really don't speak directly to mental, physical, spiritual growth, but they're critical to who we are as people.
Derek Smith:
Visiting with Toby Brooks here on Baylor Connections. And Toby, as we head into the final couple of minutes here, I feel like there's really no way to do justice to all the programs that ATL has, and you're probably still getting to know a lot of them yourself. But what stood out to me is look at the website. You've got programs and workshops that are very hands-on. You've got kind of philosophical discussions, special events, pretty immersive. It feels like really kind of the whole gamut of opportunities for you to get to know what's there and see what you can grow and build on.
Toby Brooks:
Yeah, there are some historic programs, and I've heard people refer to them as kind of sacred cows on our campus. The Summer Faculty Institute in particular is one that a lot of people talk about, is really transformative, especially early in your career, helping you figure out what this professorate thing is all about. But beyond that, we offer a number of things that are perhaps less intensive.
So SFI is a five-week commitment. It's basically your full-time job for five straight weeks. You learn a number of things about the scholarship side of teaching and some of the habits that can help make you successful in being promoted and tenured, those types of things. But it's also things about communication and how to write good test questions and how your syllabus should be clear. So really some in the weeds learning about what it means to be a professor.
Derek Smith:
Real excited to see more what's ahead as you dive in and appreciate that. Dr. Toby Brooks, director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning, our guest here on Baylor Connections. I'm Derek Smith. A reminder, you can hear this and other programs online at Baylor.edu/Connections, and you can subscribe to the program on iTunes. Thanks for joining us here on Baylor Connections.