By Frances George
Thousands of college students are completing their semester finals, packing suitcases and preparing to come home for the Christmas holiday. After the requisite “long winter’s nap” where they will no doubt, enjoy the comfort of their own bed, they’ll wake up, and without rush, without concern for completing an assignment, your student will relax and be home. Enjoy. And somehow, as the days unfold before you, you will notice and enjoy something far greater than just their presence in your home. You will notice they are different somehow, more mature, more confident in who they are, maybe even wrestling with, but thinking in an adult manner, about their future, in a way unlike they did just a few months ago. They are looking toward the future and smiling.
What is the difference? In a word, Baylor.
Just last week, our junior daughter posted an Instagram story from the last Vertical meeting of the semester. Vertical’s campus-wide ministry met at Common Grounds coffee house where hundreds of students gathered to reflect on the past semester and look with great joy toward the new one. It was a collective “thank you” among the students to God for a semester of growing and walking with God.
While standing among the throng of students at Common Grounds, Catherine paused, snapped a picture that included not only the students around her but also the Collins parking deck in the distant background. She marked the photo in true insta story style, writing: “it was in this general area that I watched the sunset, the breeze surrounding me and thanked God for bringing me to Baylor and for what He had done so far in my freshman year. How amazing is it that 2.5 years later, I’m a junior standing here next to dear friends, praising God as a Vertical volunteer on the prayer team. God is so good.”
Baylor is a place where students are encouraged to reflect, take stock of where they’ve been and where they are going and then get to work doing what God has called them to do in this moment, in this season. They do this so often in the rhythm of the semester, that it becomes second nature to pause and reflect and record what they’ve learned wherever they are on campus. “Be the very best you can be. God uses it all! What unique thing does God have planned for your life? Here at Baylor, you will find your way.” This is not unique only to a few hundred students involved in campus ministry. It extends to the field of play. Football Coach Matt Rhule was recently quoted, saying, “I preach this message to our team that all the things that happen to you, happen to you for a reason. And they prepare you for the next opportunity.” This from a D1 football coach who thinks well about all things, the good and the difficult. This is a coach that does all things with eternity in view and he models it for his athletes. This is someone who reflects, takes stock, and gets to work, trusting God with the results. So, far… so Great! Sic’em Bears in the Texas Bowl!
However, this is not unique only to students in campus ministry, not only unique to student athletes. This commitment to excellence extends into the classroom… oh yes, one of the primary reasons your students are at Baylor!
“Be your best! Do your best. What does God have for you to do that is uniquely YOU? Find it here at Baylor.”
How do I know this to be the Baylor tenet repeated over and over and taught with practical application to each student? Princeton Review has recently released the top 25 Schools for Entrepreneurship Studies for 2019. Baylor has dramatically risen to #6! No surprise! In the classroom, students are encouraged to train their minds to think well about all things, to think beyond what they see and peer deeply and thoughtfully in to the unseen world of what could be. And apparently, they do it very well! I know this to be true from a 2018 alumnus, now living in Dallas, successfully working in mergers and acquisitions consulting, but not before co-founding a small business while an undergraduate (sophomore) at Baylor and successfully selling majority interest upon graduation, yet retaining a percentage of the enormously successful company right here in Waco, a business that serves our very own students on and off campus! He is an amazing young man, gifted and winsome and wise.
“There are so many opportunities out there. You’ll never know if you can succeed unless you try.”
–Ryan Snitzer, Baylor graduate Class of 2018, co-founder, Campus Crates
This type of thinking is fostered at Baylor. It is encouraged in the classroom every day and becomes reality on a regular basis. This ranking is real and deserved. I’ve seen the results in actual lives, Ryan Snitzer is exhibit A! I look forward to the day when Baylor is #1 and fully expect it to happen! Congratulations Entrepreneurship Studies!
But from where does all of this excellence originate: at the top, in an administration that seeks to educate students to think well, to be their best, to go beyond the status quo, not only in the classroom, but on the field of play, and in ministry. Because this administration too, does all things with eternity in view.
So, as you are sitting by the fire with family, wrapping those last minute Christmas gifts, traveling to visit family, listen well to your student. Listen for the lessons they have learned this semester. Listen to their words of gratitude, perhaps not in actual words spoken to you, but in the manner in which they carry themselves, more confidently than just a few months ago. Notice it in the way they speak, more eloquently than even last summer as they interact with their peers and elders over Christmas dinner and more compassionately when they speak to you. Baylor students are more poised, more purposeful than most.
“Thank you Mom. Thank you Dad, for sending me to this place called Baylor.”
You may not hear those exact words, although I’ll bet many of you will, but you will see those words in the life of your student. Growing up at Baylor is a blessing unmatched by any other school. God uses it all and in a moment, He will bring to remembrance, as He did with Catherine, a sense of tremendous gratitude for the privilege of attending such a university as this. And then in an instant… in an insta story, perhaps…you will be given a great gift, the rare glimpse into your student’s maturing heart, as they say with their life, “Thank you God for bringing me to Baylor.”
And that, as I always say, is the Baylor difference.