In early 2024, Baylor Provost Dr. Nancy Brickhouse invited Dr. Barry Hankins to document the history of Baylor’s 30-year transformation into a R1 research university.
“She wanted me to write a book about how Baylor grew into one of the best research universities in the country, while it became even more intentional about its Christian mission,” said Hankins, professor of history at Baylor University, editor of the Journal of Church and State, and award-winning author of eight books.
“It was a story I lived through, but it’s also related to my specialties of American culture and religion,” he continued. “And I’m just loving it. It’s one of those books where everything rips along and you know it’s going to be a good story to tell, and I’m having a great time telling it.”
Hankins celebrates 29 years on the Baylor faculty, a journey that began when he transferred to Baylor as a junior in 1976, primarily because he wanted to play basketball. “I was good enough to be on a Division I basketball team, but not good enough to get a lot of playing time,” he lamented. “To quote novelist Pat Conroy, I was born to be a point guard. But not a very good one.”
A Vision for the Future
While there were already inspired ideas for the future of Baylor, the catalyst for real change was Dr. Robert B. Sloan, Jr., who served as president from 1995 to 2005. He and Dr. Donald D. Schmeltekopf, then provost and vice president for Academic Affairs, began brainstorming. With the help of other administrative colleagues and scholars from farther afield at the University of Notre Dame, they drafted a 10-year strategic vision for Baylor University titled Baylor 2012.
“President Sloan called it a vision document, and it was full of color photos and lots of inspirational language,” Hankins said. “There was so much in Baylor 2012. From the Baylor Science Building, the pedestrian campus, and even the football stadium. Sloan told me they’d put in everything they could think of, including the goal of becoming an R1 institution.”
Sloan’s decision to commit to Baylor 2012 was by far the most influential. However, more recent presidents have continued to advance the university’s goal of achieving R1 status. Judge Kenneth Starr, who served as president of Baylor University from 2010 to 2016, built on Sloan’s vision and published a new strategy, in May 2012, known as Pro Futuris. In 2017, Dr. Linda Livingstone became president of Baylor, launching her unique vision for Baylor a year later, called Illuminate.
“I’m still writing the chapter on Livingstone. It’s one of the last in the book,” Hankins said. “I still don’t quite know how she did it. At the time, I think many of us were thinking Baylor would become an R1 university in our lifetime, but probably not before we retired. She made it happen in four years.”
The Research Mission
Baylor University attained R2: Doctoral University status in 2006. In December 2021, the university was awarded the prestigious Research 1 (R1) designation from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education. There are currently 187 R1 institutions in the United States.
Although many believed that the dream of achieving R1 status would undermine the university’s commitment to Christianity, almost the opposite has come to pass.
“It’s a wonderful integration of the original Christian mission, the teaching mission that has been there since its founding in 1845, and now the research mission,” Hankins said.
The religious component provided Baylor with a unique opportunity to launch quality Ph.D. programs and begin producing Ph.D. graduates who could secure jobs at colleges, primarily at Christian colleges across the country, in humanities, social sciences, and STEM fields.
“And now we have some rock stars in the sciences who are coming to Baylor because they’re committed Christians,” Hankins said. “For example, Dr. John Wood is the Robert A. Welch Distinguished Professor of Chemistry and co-director of the Baylor Synthesis & Drug-Lead Discovery Lab. He came to Baylor because he’s a committed Christian. He receives all this external funding, has a huge lab, numerous doctoral students, and he’s conducting cutting-edge research. In the STEM field, it’s really a matter of finding outstanding scientists, mathematicians, and engineers who want to be at a Christian university.”
All of this was part of the original Baylor 2012 document, “And it’s happening now,” he continued.
The Writing Process
One of the most significant sources of information for his new book is Dr. Stephen Sloan, the director of the Institute for Oral History at Baylor University. The institute conducts extensive interviews with individuals who have dedicated their careers to Baylor, creating an archive of the remarkable ideas that have shaped the university.
“I’ve been reading through these interviews from the 1990s to about 2010,” Hankins said. “More recent history is difficult to find, as many of the documents are not yet available. I have found magazine and newspaper articles that have filled in some of the blanks for me, and I’m hoping to speak to more of the people who were involved. I’m also having them read through some of the drafts of chapters I’m working on for their feedback.”
The book will consist of 10 chapters, and Hankins has already completed six of them, although revisions and fine-tuning have become a regular part of his life. He hopes to have the final manuscript ready by next spring and the book published the following year.
“My writing process has changed over the years. When I started out, I did all the research, organized the research, and then I wrote the book,” Hankins said, who now does the writing and the research simultaneously.
“I found it more invigorating to have the research and the writing reinforcing each other as I go along,” he explained. “My most important advice is to sit down and do it daily so that it becomes a part of who you are and what you do.”
Looking to the future
Hankins, 68, is considering whether to return to the classroom now. He already has plans for another book; this one will be his second in the series called Spiritual Lives. His first was about Woodrow Wilson, who was president of Princeton University, governor of New Jersey, and the 28th president of the United States. Hankins’ new book will focus on the religious history of the 40th president of the United States, Ronald Reagan.
“When I was at Baylor in the late seventies, we had 9,000 students. There was nothing on the other side of University Parks. And now you have the School of Law, the Baylor Ballpark, and the Ferrell Center. I’ve had the opportunity to watch the university thrive and grow, becoming bigger, more beautiful, academically prestigious, and more well-known across the country,” he said. “It’s been an incredible journey, and an important part of my life.”
