Dean's Update - February 15, 2022

Our conversation turned to That Hideous Strength, C.S. Lewis’s “modern fairy-tale for grown-ups.” It portrays the foibles of Mark Studdock, a sociologist in the fictive University of Edgestow. Mark’s college has been invited to sell property to the National Institute for Co-Ordinated Research, or N.I.C.E., and to join up with this ostensibly omnicompetent organization that manages human life, resources, time, and even death for an imagined greater good. Mark feels the allure of what Lewis elsewhere calls “the inner ring.” He’s easily drawn into N.I.C.E. The narrator attributes his susceptibility largely to a weak education:

[It] had been neither scientific nor classical—merely “Modern.” The severities both of abstraction and of high human tradition had passed him by: and he had neither pleasant shrewdness nor aristocratic honor to help him. He was a man of straw, a glib examinee in subjects that require no exact knowledge.

Let no such thing ever be said of our students! Lewis’s novel reminds us that for a university to be a Christian university, it first has to be a university, an institution in which all the branches of knowledge are rightly understood and rigorously taught. Thereby, competent judgment, if not greatness, is fostered in students.

Late in Lewis’s novel, when everything at Edgestow has come apart, we learn of another scholar, an “old dear” named Churchwood who is complicit in a trahison des clercs.

All his lectures were devoted to proving the impossibility of ethics, though . . . he’d have walked ten miles rather than leave a penny debt unpaid. But . . . was there a single doctrine practised at [N.I.C.E.] which hadn’t been preached by some lecturer at Edgestow? Oh, of course, they never thought anyone would act on their theories! No one was more astonished than they when what they’d been talking of for years suddenly took on reality. But it was their own child coming back to them: grown up and unrecognizable, but their own.

Let no such thing ever be said of us! It is our duty to ask difficult questions and to consider criticism of cherished positions. Challenging ideas should be entertained in classrooms open to free inquiry. We also have a duty to help our students look for stable ground upon which to stand, and seek lives of character oriented toward virtue. When we professors “profess” the grace we see in Christ’s gospel and God’s world, uniting faith and intellect, and marrying disciplinary wisdom to artful pedagogy, we have reason to hope for students one day returning to us abounding in excellence, fully recognizable, and sources of sheer thanksgiving and pride.

Here are other items bearing on our shared work in the Honors College:

• Undergraduate Admissions reports sustained levels of high interest in Baylor. A record 50,000 applications have been submitted. From this pool of prospective students, our colleagues are confident our 2022-23 incoming class will hit desired targets. The Honors College is an important resource in attracting and landing academically well-qualified students, with our collaborative recruitment programs with Admissions garnering record attendance. I renew my public gratitude for the yeoman’s work of our faculty and staff in making Invitation to Excellence, Distinguished Scholars Day, and other recruitment initiatives a great success.


• Assisting high-ability undergraduates with scholarships is a high priority. I am thrilled that during the fiscal year to date, we have received over $1 million in new commitments and gifts toward endowed scholarship funds in the Honors College. Additionally, multiple endowed funds begun in past years are reaching the point at which expendable revenue will become available for scholarship awards. With an eye on our growing scholarship resources, I want to strengthen coordination of effort between our program admission processes, scholarship awarding, and the work of the University’s Admissions and Financial Aid staff. Please volunteer your best ideas in consultation with your program directors.


• Many of our faculty and staff have reached service milestones. Please congratulate and thank our colleagues as follows: Amanda Barton, business officer (5 years), Colleen Zori, senior lecturer in BIC (5 years), Erika Abel, clinical professor of biology in HP (10 years), Candi Cann, associate professor of religion in BIC (10 years), Paul Carron, associate professor of philosophy in BIC (10 years), Sam Perry, associate professor of communication in BIC (10 years), Erin Stamile, associate director of enrollment management (10 years), Sarah Walden, associate professor of rhetoric in BIC (10 years), Jason Whitlark, professor of religion in BIC (15 years), Mark Long, associate professor in BIC (20 years), and Lynn Tatum, senior lecturer in BIC (35 years). That’s 140 years of service!


• Kevin Chambliss, vice provost for research, has announced an Arts & Humanities Grant Writing Workshop designed to provide a comprehensive, step-by-step understanding of the grant writing process. This virtual seminar series will explain the types of funding available, the process of applying for grants, Baylor resources for grant writing, and tips for writing a competitive proposal. Further information is available here.

All the best,

Douglas V. Henry | Dean
Honors College | Baylor University
baylor.edu/honorscollege | 254.710.7689