Faith, learning, and scandal

It’s not only in recent months that Baylor University has found itself at a public crossroads. In February of 2011 I attended a preview weekend at Baylor for prospective doctoral students in religion. There the vice-provost and graduate school dean Larry Lyon gave a memorable pitch for the program. “We’re conducting a great experiment here at Baylor,” I recall him saying. “Either Baylor will succeed in becoming a Protestant research university or no one will.”

Lyon described how Ivy League universities had long ago abandoned the Christian heritage of their founders, while distinctly Christian colleges and universities have tended to prioritize undergraduate teaching over graduate programs and research. A few notable Catholic universities, such as Notre Dame, combine Christian commitments with robust graduate programs and research, but there were no such models in the Protestant tradition. As a result of the visionary leadership of key administrators in the 1990s and early 2000s, explained Lyon, Baylor was positioned to become that Protestant model.

One of those visionary leaders is Don Schmeltekopf, who served as Baylor’s provost and chief academic officer from 1991 until his retirement in 2003. In Baylor at the Crossroads Schmeltekopf describes how Baylor transformed itself from a regional Baptist teaching institution into an internationally recognized Protestant research university. This book is both the story of a university and the memoir of its provost.