BAYLOR STANDS APART AS A CHRISTIAN RESEARCH UNIVERSITY — a position that empowers our aspiration to become the world's preeminent Christian research university. Illuminate, Baylor's Academic Strategic Plan, challenges us to integrate academic and teaching excellence with an uncompromising Christian identity.
Developed on the framework of Pro Futuris, the strategic vision Baylor adopted several years ago, Illuminate sets the course for our future and affirms "the world needs a preeminent research university that is unambiguously Christian - where such a commitment does not imply a lack of scholarly inquiry, but rather requires scholarship and creative endeavors at the highest levels of quality to complement and inform its teaching and service."
Baylor exists to demonstrate that faith is not a deterrent to scholarship. Rather, faith is the very motivation for discovering the richness of creation. It compels us to engage with issues spanning the intellectual and ideological spectrum, fostering productive dialogues that ultimately bring our discoveries to bear on the most complex problems of today.
Baylor is able to guide students in the consideration of crucial issues from every possible perspective - ethical, religious, social, and intellectual - and our faculty members can serve as open and persuasive advocates for the beneficial role that faith plays in their teaching and scholarly research.
Collaboration is vital to finding solutions to the immense challenges facing our world. Baylor's Illuminate calls for faculty to engage in multidisciplinary academic initiatives and contribute as mentors to undergraduates and graduate students through high-impact learning experiences. Illuminate initiatives are developed around areas where existing collaboration among Baylor faculty members is yielding results and where continued work will galvanize interest among researchers and academic leaders on our campus.