Hello BIC alumni,
Can you believe we are welcoming our 19th entering class of BIC students? We are pleased to see the BIC continue to thrive, as there are over 600 students within our program. We are also very proud that the student body president (Wesley Hodges) is a BIC student — and this is the second year in a row the SBP has been a BIC student.
Homecoming
Let me take this moment to invite you to our 4th annual BIC Homecoming events, which will take place on Friday, October 18. Dharmpal Vansadia will be our featured alumni speaker and will offer a lecture entitled “The Unshared Life Is Not Worth Living.” Dharmpal graduated from Baylor in 2003 and is currently a 4th year orthopedic surgery resident in Dayton, Ohio. He pursued graduate degrees in biomedical science and public health before going to medical school. We look forward to hearing from Dharmpal and hope to see many of you at the lecture. Also, please let us know if you’d like to be a speaker at a future Homecoming, or if you’d like to come speak to a BIC class about your career.
BIC Homecoming Activities for Friday, October 18, 2013
2:45 pm — Alumni Lecture
“The Unshared Life Is Not Worth Living,” Dharmpal Vansadia
Bobo Spiritual Life Center (open to the public)
Dr. Pepper Hour will follow the lecture
7:00 pm — Alumni Reception – hosted by the BIC Faculty
For faculty and alumni only
Recent developments in the BIC
It has been an eventful year here in the BIC. We said good-bye to BIC coordinator, Hilary Train. Hilary’s husband, Dan, got a post doc at Duke. We wish them well in their new east coast adventures. We are pleased that Adam Moore has joined our coordinating team. Adam has been at Baylor for several years, working in the College of Arts & Sciences Advisement office and in Campus Living & Learning. We are also fortunate to have a brand new staff position funded. Kathryn Hamill joins us as an Admissions Analyst after working in records at MCC for two years.
We are also quite pleased to have two new faculty members joining the BIC. Sarah Walden, herself a BIC alumna, just started her first year on tenure track. She’s teaching in the World of Rhetoric sequence and World IV. She will join the Examined Life team next fall. Stacey Hibbs is starting her first year as a full time lecturer. Stacey is teaching in World I, Social World I, World IV and Capstone, along with her husband, Dean of the Honors College, Tom Hibbs.
We are offering several new capstones. Tom and Stacey Hibbs are offering a capstone on God, Nihilism and Beaty, which explores the phenomenon of nihilism and responses to it in philosophy, theology, literature, film, and painting. Chuck McDaniel created a new capstone on the economic dimensions of informed citizenship and the capabilities and limitations of the market system in cultivating virtue. Ivo Novakovic is offering a capstone titled Exploring Personal Identity, which deals with those BIC-like questions of ‘who am I’ and ‘who should I become’ in the context of contemporary American society. We also are expanding our summer course offerings with Biblical Heritage and World V available on campus in the summer. BIC courses also play an important role in drawing students to the Baylor in Turkey and Greece and Baylor in Oxford programs. Sam Perry is busy at work revamping World of Rhetoric II.
I’m particularly excited about a new undergraduate research initiative we are starting as well. We’ve paired undergraduate students with faculty members according to their research interests. The faculty members mentor these students in the research process. Everyone is very enthusiastic thus far.
Recent faculty publications
We’ve also been busy on the publication front. Candi Cann’s book, Virtual Afterlives: Grieving the Dead in the 21st Century will come out with University of Kentucky Press in 2014. Candi has also started blogging at Huffington Post, where you can check out her first blog post.
Jason Whitlark has two books forthcoming: Resisting Empire: Rethinking the Purpose of the Letter to the Hebrews (Library of New Testament Studies. London: T&T Clark, 2014) and Interpreting the Claims of the Text: Resourcing New Testament Theology (Waco: Baylor University Press, 2014), which he edited with Bruce W. Longenecker, Lidija Novakovic, and Mikeal C. Parsons. My own book, Plato’s Socrates as Narrator, was also published with Lexington Press this year.
So that’s a bit about what’s new with us. Let us know what’s new with you. We are currently revamping our alumni communication to include an alumni blog, so look forward to more information in the near future, including alumni updates. Please let us know if you have any ideas, updates, or other contributions.
We look forward to seeing you this month at Homecoming.
Best,
Anne-Marie Schultz
Director, Baylor Interdisciplinary Core
