Baylor Summer Camps: Connecting Kids to the Campus Experience

Show Notes

Even in the summer months, Baylor’s campus is full of energy, thanks in part to a wide range of camps that bring pre-college students to Waco. In this episode of Baylor Connections, hear about two of those camps with Todd Kettler of the Moody School of Education's Talent Identification Program and Mary Lauren Benton from Engineering and Computer Science’s Innovate camp to explore how these experiences shape young learners. From hands-on academic challenges to the chance to live in the residence halls and connect with faculty and students, these camps offer more than just a preview of college—they build curiosity, confidence, and a sense of belonging that can last well beyond the summer.

The conversation highlights:

• how Baylor’s summer camps bring pre-college students to campus for immersive learning experiences 
• why living in residence halls and experiencing campus life is a key part of their impact 
• how programs like TIP and Innovate connect classroom concepts to real-world applications 
• the hands-on projects that introduce students to college-level concepts
• the role of faculty and student mentors in guiding and encouraging participants 
• the importance of building confidence and seeing themselves in future careers 
• how shared experiences create friendships and a strong sense of community 
• the life-changing impact of programs like Project Promise for high-potential students 
• why many participants leave feeling like Baylor could be a place they belong

Transcript

Derek Smith:
It's summertime at Baylor University, and even though many students are away for the summer, enjoying internships, mission trips, or other jobs, the campus is still full of life and not just with students who are taking summer classes.
It's been a long tradition here at Baylor to welcome students for all types of summer camps throughout the university. Athletics, some music, academics and more, all ages, all interests. There's something that brings students to campus and many of these camps allow students to experience life on campus, interacting with Baylor faculty, students and more.
And today, we're talking with two Baylor faculty members who are heavily involved in these camps, one in the education department and one in computer science. We're visiting today with Todd Kettler and Mary Lauren Benton. We have camps taking place, one through the Talent Identification Program and one through Innovate, an engineering and computer science camp taking place here at Baylor. And we're going to talk to them about what goes on, what students will enjoy and why these are such an important part of the Baylor experience. Mary Lauren, Todd, really appreciate you being with us today. Thanks for joining us.

Todd Kettler:
Thank you.

Mary Lauren Benton:
Yeah, thank you.

Derek Smith:
It's good to have you both here. I'll mention, we've done this a couple times lately. We've had two faculty members who meet on this show. So we appreciate you doing this, jumping on and sharing. And I'm sure you'll both hear things that each other are doing that remind you of what's taking place in your own division, but we appreciate you taking the time to do this.
Jumping on during a busy stretch, you're getting ready for the summer here. And I want to start by asking you, we're going to talk about camps here at Baylor, but going back to your time when you were in elementary or middle or high school, did either of you ever attend a college camp or a college summer event of any sort on a campus?

Todd Kettler:
I'll go first, Derek. When I was in high school, I went to a golf camp at the University of North Texas. It was the first time I'd ever seen a dormitory and I lived in a dormitory and had a ball. I probably got a little bit better at my sand game while I was there, but it was a lot of fun. So I can imagine why it's attractive to the students to get away from the house, kind of go to a college campus and get a ... I think one of the best things is just getting a taste of what college feels like. And that's how I remember my golf camp experience.

Derek Smith:
That's great. So you got that taste there at UNT, a sign of things to come. What about you, Mary Lauren? Did you ever attend a camp at college or any sort of event during the summer?

Mary Lauren Benton:
Absolutely. So I didn't attend a camp per se, but right before I came to Baylor as an undergrad, I came to Line Camp. And actually, prior to that, I came to the Invitation to Excellence event. And Todd was saying the excitement of being on campus, of seeing what college would be like and getting to experience the faculty and learning from them even before I got here was really one of the big reasons why I chose Baylor in the first place.

Derek Smith:
Now, here's a faculty member as well. So a great full circle experience there.

Mary Lauren Benton:
Absolutely.

Derek Smith:
Well, we're going to dive into what Innovate and what the Talent Identification Program are and how these bring students to campus, what are taking place. But broadly, Mary Lauren, I'll start with you. For ECS, why is it important to host summer events that connect students to college experience?

Mary Lauren Benton:
I think that bridge between what they're learning in the classroom and then how we're actually using techniques and ideas and engineering computer science really makes the math and the physics and those challenging courses come to life. So one of the most important things to me I think is building curiosity and excitement in the students for the things they can do with what is a challenging course in high school or maybe something they don't get to interact with very much. We can bring them here. We can show them what their faculty are really doing with these ideas or where their research is, what's on the cutting edge. And I think that gets students really excited to learn more.

Derek Smith:
Probably some similar answers, but in the school of ed, why has it been so important through the years to host these?

Todd Kettler:
Yeah, I think the Baylor TIP program is sort of the newest innovation and a long history. The holding summer programs for high ability talented kids goes all the way back to 1983 here at Baylor. So we're talking 40 plus years of this experience where we're bringing kids in, but the models have evolved over time. So the program that we're running now has some similarities to the one that started in 1983, but we serve a broader range of kids and have more, I would say, more of an academic focus rather than a just enrichment focus.

Derek Smith:
So you mentioned TIP. We're going to really dive into this over the course of the show, but when you're talking about TIP broadly, what is that?

Todd Kettler:
TIP stands for Talent Identification Program. So we're technically the Baylor Center for Talent Identification Programs or Baylor TIP. And the TIP model goes back to about 1977 to 1980 when there was some big national attention given to why we need to be more focused on our most high ability kids across the country.
So you had a handful of universities like Johns Hopkins, Northwestern and Duke University, they were the three leaders in the talent search model. Johns Hopkins and Northwestern are still part of those services. Duke shut their doors in 2022, and that's when Baylor picked up the Baylor TIP program. So we evolved from UYP into Baylor TIP when Duke had shuttered their programs. So we kind of filled that gap that Duke had previously been serving kids in Texas. We were happy to ramp up our model and we're excited about where we're headed.

Derek Smith:
And you mentioned UYP, University for Young People. I think a lot of people have known that title over the years, but that's now part of TIP.

Todd Kettler:
That's right. That was the original program, University for Young People and we maintain that terminology. It is our youngest group of kids now. It's our first, second, and third grade programs and we offer those programs throughout the year.

Derek Smith:
And these are students of all potential majors and interests, right?

Todd Kettler:
That's right. That's right.

Derek Smith:
Right. And obviously, it makes sense that within the School of Engineering and Computer Science that you're focused on those specific disciplines, but take us inside what Innovate is. Who is it for and what are some of the topics you're going to cover?

Mary Lauren Benton:
Yeah. Innovate is for raising 11th and 12th grade students. So we're targeting students at the end of their high school careers who maybe have some already specific interests in engineering computer science and also are potentially starting to look at colleges and universities. And then some of the topics that we look at, last year we focused on engineering and computer science innovations for health, but this year we're going to have a range of different faculty all bringing their specific expertise. So we'll have a much wider collection of topics and activities for the students.

Derek Smith:
Is it fun to take some of these engineering or computer science topics and find ways to really provide hooks for these high school students who might have some understanding or interest and really kind of bring them down that path towards what they might be studying someday?

Mary Lauren Benton:
Absolutely. It's a blast. So last year, when we got to do health, my research area is in bioinformatics. So a lot of the research that I'm doing is applying computer science and data science techniques to study human health and biological processes. And I got to bring the students along for that ride. So we actually built machine learning algorithms in the session to identify COVID cases versus pneumonia cases just using chest x-ray images. And so they got really a chance to see what that might be like to take some sort of medical data that's really relevant for healthcare and then apply machine learning and artificial intelligence to try to make classifications based on that.

Derek Smith:
There's some real world types of things for sure.

Mary Lauren Benton:
Absolutely.

Derek Smith:
About how many students are part of Innovate?

Mary Lauren Benton:
We have about 40 to 60 students. We're growing that capacity now, so we're hoping to continue to reach more and more students. Last year we had about 40. This year, we're hoping to grow a little bit more.

Derek Smith:
That's great. And Todd, all age groups within TIP, about how many students do you plan on welcoming to campus this summer?

Todd Kettler:
I believe we're going to have about 485 students on campus this summer. We're very excited about that. We run our programs through June and July and they're stratified by age group. Some are residential and some are commuter, but yeah, we're very excited. About 480 some odd students, a lot of students and a lot of staff.

Derek Smith:
As you talk about that, you use the same terminology that we talk about for full-time students, right? On campus or off, right? Some are here residential. About how many students, do you know about how many or what age groups are going to be on campus? And what's it like trying to welcome them into our residence halls and into campus life?

Todd Kettler:
Yeah, that's a great question, Derek. I think one of the highlights of the program, we do a lot of feedback from our students and sometimes we think the learning, the classes that are fantastic. And when we ask the kids at the end of camp sometimes it's like, it was the dormitory that was fantastic.
So I think it's a full experience that they're going to learn a lot, but they get this dorm experience. They love Penland. Their eyes just light up when they walk into Penland in the summer and they think this is the greatest cafeteria ever. And so, yeah, we think that the living on campus experience, those are really only our oldest kids, our 8th through 12th grade students. The students in 1st through 7th grade are commuter students.

Derek Smith:
And what about the residential aspect for Innovate, Mary Lauren?

Mary Lauren Benton:
I think that's a huge part of this camp. So last year was our first summer making this a fully residential camp and the students came in. We paired them in small groups with current Baylor students in these programs. So they got a chance to not only live on campus and eat in Penland, which they also loved, but they got to go to the SLC and go to the library, and we took them to our research spaces. So they got to see the big lasers and the cool equipment and the engineering labs. And then they were being guided by students who are doing the things and studying and in the majors that they're hoping to be in just in a few years. So I think that part was a really big hook for the students and something that got them really excited about college, about engineering and about what their futures could look like.

Derek Smith:
They're learning a lot, but it's almost like they're on vacation just a little bit, maybe. Is that fair to say?

Todd Kettler:
Yes.

Mary Lauren Benton:
Yeah. They played lots of Legos and games and made videos and things in their downtime. So they did work and they learned a lot, but they had a lot of fun too.

Derek Smith:
That's pretty exciting. And I'm going to ask you both about the program a little bit more here, but also that interaction with faculty or with students. That's such a big part of it, whether it's learning that, "Oh, I can interact with the Baylor faculty member or these students who are a few years down the line from them," and they can kind of see that path as well.
So Todd, let's dive in a little bit to Talent Identification Program. You mentioned it's different age groups, middle school and high school are on campus and the younger age groups are lower in that ballpark there. Take us inside, just give us some samples, if you would, what the programming looks like and what faculty involvement looks like here.

Todd Kettler:
Our most intensive program is our TIP Residential, which are the high school kids. And these students, we have three weeks of programs, but each week they would take one class for an entire week and they do about seven hours of class time each day. So it's pretty intensive. It's a lot. And most of the cases, the courses are taught by Baylor faculty or sometimes doctoral students in those departments. We have great collaboration.
I think one of the things we're really proud about is we collaborate with units across campus. So we have a really strong collaboration with the Honors College, because Dean Henry will give a talk to the kids and explain to them why you would consider Honors College someday. And we have a great collaboration with athletics.
One of our most popular courses that we've offered for multiple summers is sports medicine, and we collaborate with the training staff that work in athletics and our students get to go and tour all of the training facilities in athletics. And they're just amazed, because we have top-notch facilities and just outstanding programs for rehabilitation and diagnosing injuries. And the students really come away with a deeper understanding of how health sciences and athletics intersect at that medical. How do we not only prevent injuries, but how do we diagnose them in real time out on a playing field sometimes. And then how do we also provide emergency services when kids are really injured.

Derek Smith:
I asked Mary Lauren of a version of this question, but if you're talking about kids of all ages who are coming to be a part of this, you have what? About four decades of experience. As a school of education, about four decades of experience of this, but creating experiences that are age appropriate, bringing our faculty into that. How much fun is that? And what have you and your colleagues found to be most enjoyable about that?

Todd Kettler:
Well, first of all, just to see the difference it makes. The way we identify kids in the Talent Identification Program is these kids are already performing in roughly the top 10% and then they have to test to be admitted. So the ones that get admitted after the testing are probably top 5% in terms of academic performers. They're National Merit kids. They get Fulbright scholarships. I mean, these are really bright kids and the amount of ...
We provide them with a highly rigorous curriculum during the summer, and most of them will tell us things like, "We learn as much in one week at TIP as we learn in an entire semester when we're back at our homeschool."
So I think a great comparison, Derek, of what we're trying to do is I know you're familiar with athletics because of your time here at Baylor, but most of the athletes that go to play college sports, they didn't just play high school sports, they played on a travel team of some sort. And most of them would tell you that, that travel team was where they really got their elite training to prepare themselves for college athletics.
We think of the Baylor TIP program as like the travel sports for academics where our kids that are, they're super talented and we are just pushing the envelope to stretch them and prepare them. And most of them, what we provide is undergraduate level curriculum. So we're talking about kids that are 13, 14 years old, learning from a professor with undergraduate curriculum. So they're definitely stretched when they're here for the TIP programs.

Derek Smith:
That's a great analogy and a good way for us to think of that. And I mean, you do see they're around other elite students, as you said. I mean, they're all learning but kind of measuring and realizing, "Oh, I can do this at this level." And that's great to see.
Innovate, you've told us a little bit about it already, but take us inside a little further if you would. You mentioned students are in labs and in classrooms. What are some of the ways they're interacting with faculty? And as you said, paired with students as well.

Mary Lauren Benton:
Yeah. So for each day of camp, what these students are doing is they're waking up, they're spending time in small groups and having discussions with their peer mentors. They're doing activities, but they're spending four hours a day with a Baylor faculty member. So last year, it was myself and Dr. Min Pack in engineering and we each took two-hour blocks in the morning and the afternoon to do something.
All of our lessons are really hands-on. They're all activities. So they're learning something about engineering or about a topic, but they're doing it by actually getting their hands dirty by building something, by programming something and testing it. So they really get a chance to explore and experiment. And they were doing that three of the days of camp.
Then we took a day to go up to Dallas and actually show them a prosthetics lab. So they got to see some hands-on application for people that are actually implementing some of these tools and techniques. And then they came back to Baylor and they went to research talks by individual faculty. So they got to see even more people over at the BRIC, just off campus. So they saw lab tours and research talks. And then on Friday, we did a few more hands-on activities with them.

Derek Smith:
You think about a lot of the work you and your colleagues are doing is very high-tech. I mean, you're in bioinformatics. It's a very complex field. But with these students, I mean, a lot of y'all started out as kids who are curious, right? How much are you trying to draw a line between their curiosity in high school and what they can do with that at the college level, even though it might seem topics that they don't really know about at this age?

Mary Lauren Benton:
I think curiosity and building that bridge between, here's an equation I use in my physics class and then here's how we're using it when we're building water filtration devices or prosthetics. Stoking that curiosity and getting students excited about learning more is the main goal of this Innovate Camp.
And I think one of the things that we can do with a lot of these hands-on activities is demystify some of these complex topics by breaking them down into something that the students can complete, they can learn from, and then they can take back with them hopefully this desire to learn more and learn more about why it works and not just have something, a product at the end.

Derek Smith:
Question for both of you. And I think you've touched on this, but I want to ask you both specifically. What do you hope students take away and what makes in your mind the experience successful for your students?

Mary Lauren Benton:
I think if students are, they walk away curious, they walk away wanting to learn more and they walk away confident feeling like they have the skillset and they have the interest and they could be successful in this field, that would be a success for me.

Todd Kettler:
It's a great question, Derek. We operate on a theoretical model, which we talk about as the science of exceptional performance. And within that model, one of the things we're trying to help the students achieve is a sense of identity whereas, for instance, you may imagine a kid who's really strong in mathematics. At some point in his life, he says, "I'm good at math." And then later on he says, "Really, math is my favorite subject." But once he adopts his identity, he'll start to say, "I'm a mathematician."
And so what we find is when we expose our kids to the Baylor faculty that are doing this high level intellectual work in their disciplines, our kids start to think, "Hey, I want to be like that. I want to be a mathematician. I want to be an engineer. I want to be a health science professional." So I think building identity is one of the things that we really care about in terms of how we're developing these kids.

Derek Smith:
What are you both, Todd, I'll start with you as you get ready to welcome kids to campus, what are your favorite parts? What are you most looking forward to experiencing, whether it's you or your colleagues?

Todd Kettler:
I think drop-off day is fun, because kids are super anxious and they wonder, "Do I belong?" Because they start talking to the other kids and they find out where that kid goes to school and the kid says, "Well, yeah, I took six AP courses last year." And they wonder, "Do I belong in this group?"
And what we do masterfully, my staff is outstanding at this, is we really provide a caring environment. And these kids, while it is intense academics, but at the same time they feel like I'm supported, I'm welcome here. And we hope that when they walk away, they think, "I belong at Baylor University. This is a place I could see myself."

Derek Smith:
What about you, Mary Lauren? Same question as your Innovate kids prepare to come. What are you most looking forward to?

Mary Lauren Benton:
I'm really looking forward to meeting them and watching them grow over the course of the week. One of the things that really struck me when I saw them on the first Monday afternoon of camp last year versus the Friday is how many relationships they'd built. They came in strangers, they were all a little bit nervous. They weren't really sure what we were doing or if they were going to have fun.
And by the end of the camp, you would never know that they hadn't been friends for five years. They built these really great relationships. They had good relationships with their undergrad student mentors and a really great rapport. They got to meet with the faculty and you could tell that when we had our end of camp breakfast that they were excited to show their parents what they'd done and introduce them to the people that they'd met. And so just watching them build those relationships and get excited for Baylor and that caring community that I think we build is really special. So I'm really excited to see that happen again.

Derek Smith:
And some of them might be your future students, you or your colleagues, for sure. And to that end, as we close out and ask you, Mary Lauren, I'll start with you. Are there any stories that have stood out to you as where you've seen that impact most meaningfully as you talk to these students?

Mary Lauren Benton:
Yeah. I think one of the things that was really cool, getting to know those students over the summer was great and we sent them off to do their junior or senior year of high school. But actually, just this past spring at a Baylor Premiere event, I gave a short research talk and afterwards I had one of my students from the summer come up and say, "I loved the camp. We had a great time and we're really excited to be here." And he was touring the campus and looking at Baylor because of the things and the people that he interacted with during our camp. So that was really, really cool and I'm hoping we'll see more of that in the future.

Derek Smith:
Absolutely. What about you, Todd?

Todd Kettler:
Derek, one of the programs that we have, it's like a program within a program called Project Promise. Project Promise began in 1999. So we're on the 27th year and it's been funded through grant funds and philanthropy as well as support from the university.
The mission of Project Promise is to identify high potential kids like the ones that are getting into TIP, but these kids that are in Project Promise are in the lowest family quartile for family income. And just some basic statistics in terms of educational attainment. According to the Pell Institute, which studies this tremendously and annually, you have about a 13% likelihood of attaining a bachelor's degree by the age of 24 if you're in the lowest quartile of family income. And we've had more than 500 Project Promise kids come through our programs since it was launched in 1999, and we have a 91% bachelor's degree attainment rate by the age of 24.
So to me, when I think about what impact we're having, that's probably the most profound impact because these kids are kids that wouldn't think of Baylor University as a place I might go to college or maybe even to a summer program, but we work with school districts and we recruit them and we get them here and we really focus on that idea of belonging, like I mentioned a moment ago. But when they start to believe, "I can do this, I can be a part of this group," the stories will just bring tears to your eyes because it's fantastic. And some of those kids, when they finish high school, they ask if they can come and work as counselors in our program, because they want to pass on what was given to them.

Derek Smith:
That's pretty cool. That's really exciting. Well, and you both paint such a great picture of why these matter and what's taking place and we're excited for another generation of kids to come through this summer. So Mary Lauren, Todd, thank you so much for the work you do in these, you and your colleagues, and thanks for taking the time to share.

Todd Kettler:
Thank you.

Derek Smith:
Grateful for that, for sure. Well, if you're on campus this summer and you see kids who don't look quite college age, now you know a little bit more about why they're here, whether they're in one of the dining halls or residence halls and certainly in the classrooms across campus.

Appreciate our guests today, Todd Kettler and Mary Lauren Benton with us here on Baylor Connections. You can learn more about the Talent Identification Program and Innovate in the show notes from this episode. This and every episode available online at baylor.edu/connections. You can get video as well on the Baylor University YouTube channel and they're all available on iTunes as well. I'm Derek Smith. Thanks so much for joining us today on Baylor Connections.