Category: Baylor Mugshots with Chelsea Teague

 

This week I met up with senior BIC-er Elisabeth Lambert to talk about her hopes, dreams, and her time here at Baylor.  We snagged a rickety little table crammed between a trash can and a wilting ficus, and I powered up my laptop, opening up my prepared questions.

Elisabeth turned on her own computer and sat with legs crossed, fingers woven together on the table.  “I made some notes to help me out,” she said, a true BIC student.

We jumped right into it.

“Is there a Baylor memory that sticks out in your mind more than any other?” I asked.

Elisabeth consulted her notes, and then said immediately, “The cookies and milk thing that they did during Line Camp, when we got back from the trip to Independence!  I don’t remember the song—which is probably a good thing, because it would be stuck in my head all the time—but I got free food, and I didn’t expect it.”

We reminisced over the cookies and agreed that any instance of free food would always rank pretty high on our list of most memorable experiences.

“You know they were giving out free groceries on Fountain Mall the other day?” I said.  Elisabeth nodded and leaned over the table to whisper excitedly that she’d gotten two dozen free eggs that day.

“I’m making omelets every morning,” she said.

We laughed, and then I asked my next question.  “What do you think of BIC?”

Elisabeth got that look on her face that every BIC-er feels in their souls by about the middle of their second semester—equal parts pride, confusion, excitement, and exhaustion.  “I’m glad I did it,” she said, after some thought.  “And I’d do it again—there’re lots of great professors in BIC.  I’ve definitely learned a lot.”

“What’s been your favorite class?” I asked.

“My favorite class was with Dr. Stacey Hibbs!” Elisabeth said.  “She’s so nice!”

I shared my own love for Dr. Hibbs, and then shamelessly advertised the Mug article that I had written about her last semester (which you can find here!).

Finally, at the end of our interview, I said, “Can you describe Baylor to me in three words?”

Elisabeth admitted that she didn’t have any notes for that particular question, so she had to think about it for a bit.

“‘Draining my finances,’” she said with so much accuracy that it hurt, “but I don’t think that’s what you’re really going for.”

(“You’re not writing that down, are you?” she asked.  “Everything gets written down,” I said ominously.)

After some more thought, she finally told me that she did not think that she could condense her entire Baylor experience down into just three words.  “It’s too much for that,” she said.  “I’m sorry!”

I assured her that it was fine, and that I had more than enough to write a stellar article.  Then I thanked her for her time and set about transcribing our conversation into another literary masterpiece while Elisabeth bought herself a Frappuccino.

Chelsea Teague is a junior majoring in Professional Writing and Rhetoric 

 

The first thing that anyone should know about Brittany is that she is that she is more passionate about politics than almost any other person I have ever met.  If you have read her own column for The Mug, “The Daily Grind,” then you know that she knows her stuff, and is not afraid to tell it like it is (“but not in a Trump-like way,” she would say).

I got the chance to talk to Brittany over the phone a couple of nights ago, and I grilled her with questions about her time at Baylor and what she thinks she would like to do in the future.

“What’s your favorite Baylor memory?” I asked.

Because I am so intimidating and scary, I heard her laugh nervously on the other side of the line before she warned me with, “Okay, so this is kind of cliché…” Brittany told me that her favorite Baylor memory by far was our football team’s classic domination of TCU a couple of years ago, when the Bears won with a score of 61-58.  “I was right in the front row of the line section,” Brittany said, “and I rushed the field with everyone.  It just really felt like I was a part of the Baylor family.”  I agreed that there was no bonding experience quite like stampeding with a herd of riled up twenty-somethings over a field of crushed horned toads, and then we moved on.

“If you were going to pursue anything other than a career in politics, what would you do?” I asked.

“A friend and I actually went through a phase last year where we really wanted to be CIA agents!” Brittany said, excitement palpable through the phone.  We both laughed about that, and while I shoved my own secret aspirations to be the next American super spy deep into the corners of my psyche, Brittany admitted that she probably did not have the skills required for the job.  “But it’ll always be a secret dream!” she said.

Next I asked Brittany what she had accomplished during her time at Baylor that she was most proud of.  She said that she had had trouble thinking of actual, tangible things that she had done in her two-ish years in Waco when she first read the questions that I sent her.  Finally, she said, she had decided that she was most proud of the person that she had become—proud of the journey that she had completed.

“I was trying to think of a way to say that that wasn’t cheesy,” she said, laughing.

“I think that’s great!” I said.  “No worries.  Last question: can you describe Baylor to me in three words?”

This was a hard one.  Together, we explored Thesaurus.com to try to coax the words out of Brittany’s brain.  Awkward silence reigned as she struggled over finding just the right thing to say.  Finally, she decided on life-changing (“That’s one, right, because it’s hyphenated?”), unique, and fun.

“Yep,” she said as I typed the words.  “Sounds about right.”

Chelsea Teague is a junior majoring in professional writing.

 

Our latest Mugshot contributor is Swanson Traylor, a freshman BIC-er with two majors and one epic positive attitude.  I lured him to the library with promises of free Starbucks, and then attacked him with a list of Big Bad Baylor Questions™.

“First of all,” I said.  “I know you haven’t been here long, but is there a Baylor memory that sticks out in your mind more than any other?

Swanson thought over the past seven weeks of his life, and then admitted that, if anything, his greatest Baylor memory must have been his very first World Cultures lecture with Dr. Long.  “He went on this long analogy about quests, and about how BIC was a quest,” Swanson said, laying the scene.  “He is such a great speaker—I don’t think I’ll ever forget that.”

We agreed that all Dr. Long had to do to get us to weep with patriotism was open his mouth and spill something about the weather.  After a few more minutes of gushing over how much we loved our BIC profs (“I have Hinden for Cultures!” Swanson said.  “He’s the one that throws the beach ball the first day of class!”), we moved on.

“So I guess you’re liking BIC so far, huh?” I asked.

Swanson said that he definitely was.  “It still seems ridiculous that I’m required to do all these things that I love to do,” he told me.  Like most BIC-ers, Swanson is a man of many interests, with majors in English and history.  “BIC is everything that I like all melded together,” he said, shaking his head like he could not believe his luck.

I asked him what he would major in if not English and history, and Swanson said that there was actually a very real probability that he would switch.  “I’m really interested in film,” he said.  “Being a director would be really cool.  The professional writing major looks awesome too.”

I freaked out a little when he said that and tried to win him over to our pro-writing ranks (“Join us,” I hissed).  He said he would think about it.

Finally, I asked him the last question on my list.  “Can you describe Baylor to me in three words?”

Swanson mulled that over, and then said, “Welcoming, rigorous, and—um, surprising, I think.”  He said that before coming to Baylor, he had assumed all the stereotypes surrounding tidy little Baptist universities would be true.  “They’re not,” he said.  “Especially in BIC, it’s really diverse.”  And with that, we saluted each other and went our separate ways.

BIC definitely affects your Baylor experience—and your life, if we are all being completely honest—in irreversible ways.  Dr. Long is right: our education is a quest, and we are all adventurers bound together in pursuit of the best versions of ourselves, and the best version of the world we live in.

Chelsea Teague is a junior majoring in professional writing. 

 

Welcome back to school, Baylor bears!  QuickBIC—now The Mug—is back after a summer-long hiatus, and we hope you are all ready for some top-notch new content that will get your blood pumping and your heart racing.

Before we all went our separate ways at the end of last semester, I sat down for a wonderful chat with the BIC’s most colorful professor, Dr. Emily Glass.  We hunkered down in the library where Dr. Glass had been meeting with her rhetoric students to help them with their final papers—ten-page long monsters about complex issues that I did not even want to touch.  I hid in the corner while they worked.

Dr. Glass did not seem to have a problem with beating thesis statement after thesis statement into submission.  “I do experience pride very viscerally with my students,” she told me once the last freshman had gathered his cowed research paper and left.  When they struggle with difficult concepts or schoolwork—like final papers, she said—and then they get it—that is the point of being a teacher, in Dr. Glass’ book.  I rushed to scribble down that piece of literary gold, and then jumped right into my next question.

“What are your favorite hobbies?” I asked.

“Well,” said Dr. Glass, laughing a little.  “I like to think that I’m capable of engaging with serious grownup things.” (I made air quotes around “serious grownup things,” because what even is that?) “But inside,” she said, “I’m a vortex of frivolity held together in human form.”

It turns out that Dr. Glass’ hobbies are just as fun as her awesome wardrobe.  “I’ve made my own jewelry,” she told me while I simmered in jealousy over her creative genes.  She also sews, and she has been interested in costume design since she was little, even making her own outfits for the Monster High dolls that she collects.  Back in college, she said, she and her friends founded a sword fighting club, and they used to spar with wooden practice swords in the park, which she said was unbelievably fun.  (I made a note to check out the fencing club on my own time.)

We talked a little more after that.  Dr. Glass mentioned her respect for Socrates, and I mentioned that my Gorgias was buried away, never to see the light of day again.  She said that she had crayons and coloring books in her office for world-weary students; I said that I would probably need to drop by sometime.

Finally, we arrived at the last question on my list.  “Can you describe Baylor to me in three words?”

Dr. Glass had done some thinking about this one, and tackled it immediately.  “Earnestly mission-driven,” she said, with no explanation.

After reading back over my notes, I think that Dr. Glass managed to sum up herself in three words too.  Anyone who spends upwards of half a dozen hours a week helping students outside class, or who takes the trouble to smack googley-eyed stickers onto your weekly quizzes, or who has snacks and crayons in her office for students that need them must be earnestly mission-driven about her job, and about turning the kids she teaches into rhetoricians to rival Aristotle.

Thanks, Dr. Glass.  We think you are doing a great job.

Chelsea Teague is a junior majoring in professional writing.