By Frances George

When our first Baylor daughter, Mary Scott, was in the spring semester of her senior year in 2016, she texted me the night of her final sorority chapter meeting and said, “Mom, it went by too fast. I’m so sad it’s over.”

Last night our younger daughter, Catherine, currently a Baylor senior, came downstairs at our home, thinking she was heading back to Baylor to finish her senior year, after (what seemed at the time) two interminably long weeks at home due to the coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. Instead, with tears in her eyes, she said, “Mom, it’s over. We aren’t going back. My college career just ended. It went by too fast.” The Class of 2020 will end their senior year online without a graduation ceremony in May.

Tears have been flowing here at the George house over a season cut short. And yet…

Through the tears, through the overhearing of conversations Catherine has had with her fellow Baylor seniors scattered now across the country, through social media posts from Baylor students and from the University itself, I’ve seen over and over, what I call “The Baylor Difference” shine brightly.

Daily, almost hourly, I read posts of Baylor students like this: “At the deepest of levels, neither peace nor joy is based on the circumstances but on the God who rules the circumstances.” And “I am learning to choose peace before things fall into place.” Also from President Livingstone, “As we walk through these significant challenges together, let us remember to heed Jesus’ command to ‘love one another’.”

Baylor students are perplexed but not crushed. They are disappointed, but they know deep in their soul this is not all there is. They know—because they have been taught in the classroom, on the field of play, in their sororities and fraternities, through Vertical, and weekly in their phenomenal churches in Waco—that there is something more than what they see going on in this season of uncertainty and that Baylor has been their training ground for life, no matter what “life” comes their way.

And in the crisis, Baylor students are prepared to meet the challenge.

The last big event at Baylor on campus was Sing. I’ve blogged about it in the past,  and the late February performance was one for the record books. Three and half hours of Broadway-style musical talent, consisting of eighteen outstanding performances by more than 2,000 students over six nights. The cherry on top was that Catherine’s Kappa Kappa Gamma/Kappa Sig act was the blue ribbon, first place performance! It was a night we won’t soon forget! So many happy tears of joy, followed by spring break!

But as the events of the last 24 hours unfolded and I realized Catherine’s collegiate career was suddenly, and without warning, over, I immediately had a flood of images fill my mind of our family’s nine years and three degrees (and a post graduate degree yet to come in 2022). Images of football games, homecoming parades, National Championships, choral performances, summer Send-Off Parties, care package parties and prayer, mid semester dinners in our home for NC Baylor Nation parents, and countless other memories that will remain in our minds and hearts long after the events of this week pass, for not only our daughters but also our entire family. Our family has been dramatically shaped by Baylor University, and I would venture to say that our girls are the amazing young women of God today in large part because of the influence of Baylor University.

Two snapshots came to my mind last night as events unfolded for our family. These images sum up “The Baylor Difference,” and poignantly, they are images of the final event of Catherine’s collegiate career, although at the time we did not know it.

The first image is of a Sing open stage rehearsal, without costumes, without backdrop, without an audience, late in the evening. Countless hours are spent by the students preparing for the six Sing performances. Late nights are required of the students, most every night of the week, over the six weeks that precede the performance. It is tiring. It is, at times, tedious.

But it is worth it. When the audience sees the performance (the second image), it is polished and perfected, every costume perfectly fitted, every carefully choreographed moved expertly executed, make up, hair, orchestra, lighting…. all presented excellently to over 13,200 ticket holders, in a six night, sold-out Waco Hall! Yes, it is highly impressive!

The second image is an accurate snapshot of Baylor students that are ready to perform with excellence. They can do this. Baylor students do life with excellence unparalleled by any other university. What takes place between the open stage rehearsal and the final performance, the final curtain, I realized, is a picture of what our students become through their four years of college at this place called Baylor.

They work night after night, day after day. It can be tedious. It is most definitely tiring. You are called upon to learn what excellence means and how to incorporate excellence in every aspect of life. The students “rehearse” in the classroom, outside of it, alone and with others, for countless hours, days, months and years for the final performance, the one that actually takes place after they graduate, after the final Baylor curtain — it’s called life.

They learn how to succeed. They learn what it looks like to fail and then to pick yourself up when you make a misstep and start again. They learn all of this with the support and love of friends, faculty and administrators all the way to the top, with our beloved President Linda Livingstone and First Gent Brad Livingstone. Baylor students learn life’s choreography within this unique Baylor family, who are cheering and instructing the students every step of the way.

Each major milestone along the way in their four year journey is like an opening night, and then, all too soon, the final curtain on the final performance falls. For the Class of 2020, it all came to a close too fast.

But even in this severe disappointment, our students are ready. The intervening four years between the first rehearsals of freshman year and the final curtain for our Class of 2020 seniors look a lot like these two photographs, now etched in my mind.

Baylor students come to campus as young, eighteen year old freshmen, and yet even these young Baylor students that arrive on campus are of a higher caliber from the beginning than students at other universities. Over four years, they hone their academic skills, discover new ones, experience life with students and faculty where it is still “cool” to be a Christian, acceptable to lead based on Truths of the Word and integrity and honor, where doing things with eternity in view permeates each student’s day. Baylor.

And when things suddenly come to a close prematurely, Baylor students, even in the crisis—especially in the crisis—are ready.

The unexpected early final curtain for the Class of 2020 has only proved what I have seen for almost a decade now…

Baylor University is unique among colleges.

Baylor University prepares its students for life, even when life throws curves unexpected.

The winning act for Sing this year was “Ship of Dreams.” It was the story of the Titanic… Poetic irony, perhaps, but what was said to the students by their peers before the final performance embodies the essence of what a Baylor student represents. The competition for first place is stiff, and preparation is rigorous for the right to win first place. Before Catherine’s sorority (and the fraternity with whom they were coupled for this season of Sing) went out to perform one last time, the Sing chairs who are students themselves, addressed the over 200 students in their act and said, “You know, we are all on life’s ship. We can choose to steer our ship ourselves in our own strength, or we can choose to let God steer our ship. Let’s trust God to steer our ship and watch Him work.”

Catherine texted that to me later that night and said, “Mom, I’m so proud to be a part of a group where its leaders encourage us with words like that. I love my school. Thank you for sending me to Baylor.” It is a phrase our daughters have repeated to us for nine years: “Thank you for sending me to Baylor.”

The opening scene for their act included 200+ students on stage singing “Tis the Old Ship of Zion. Step on board if you want to see Jesus. There’s nothing but love in God’s waters.” Truth spoken by these talented young adults, even as it foreshadowed what was to become of the Class of 2020’s senior spring semester. Even with an early final curtain, what do we see? Nothing but love…across the country in the lives of our students in Baylor Nation.

Baylor Nation, you see, is not just a place in Waco, Texas. Baylor Nation resides in each student, in the spirit and soul, in the character and caliber of its students no matter where they are and no matter under what circumstances they find themselves.

Mary Scott and Catherine were both correct in their sentiments: “Mom, it went by so fast. It ended too soon.” And both of my girls are ready to launch with a lifetime of blue ribbon, first place lives because of Baylor.

It is, as I always say, The Baylor Difference. Some things never change. Baylor is one of them.

And when students, including the newest Class of 2024 return to campus, it will be even sweeter to be back. But for the time being, we’ll “fling our green and gold afar” And sooner than we can imagine, we’ll be back singing together, “That Good Old Baylor Line.”

Step on board. Join us. Hope lives here.

Thanks be to God for this place called Baylor where the final curtain is really only the beginning…