Honors College Receives $125,000 Grant to Expand Micah Scholars Program
Baylor University’s Honors College has received a $125,000 DELTA On Purpose grant from the University of Notre Dame’s Institute for Ethics and the Common Good to expand its Micah Scholars program. Baylor is one of five institutions selected for the inaugural cohort of grant recipients. The grant will support a five-day community immersion and two-day reflection retreat for Micah Scholars students in 2027.
“I’m elated that our Micah Scholars program with its Christian vision of healthcare have garnered this competitive grant,” Honors College Dean Douglas Henry, Ph.D. said. “Through it, Drs. Abel, Tausen, and Thompson will do all the better work with some of our most gifted, conscientious, and service-minded pre-med students. We're celebrating far and wide the opportunity to help students see the morally laden nature of the medical profession and to experience the Christian joy of serving our brothers and sisters in need.”
Led by Honors College Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies Erika Abel, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Social Psychology Brittany Tausen, Ph.D., and Clinical Assistant Professor of Pre-Health Education Chad Thompson, M.D., the project, “Humanizing Healthcare in the Age of AI: Learning to Love Our Neighbors Through a Local Community Immersion,” builds on Micah Scholars’ commitment to connecting Christian faith with preparation for healthcare careers. The three-year Micah Scholars program combines theological reflection, mentorship from Christian physicians and relationships with patients through Waco Family Medicine.
“At its heart, Micah Scholars is built on Micah 6:8: doing justice, loving mercy, and walking humbly with the Lord” said Brittany Tausen, Ph.D. “We want pre-health students to see medicine as a form of neighbor-love, rooted in the belief that every person bears the image of God.
The grant students put that vision into practice through a new community immersion experience, deepening their understanding of the people and organizations serving Waco.
“Since the program’s conception,” Dr. Thompson added, “there has been a desire to add a community immersion component to help students get to know and learn from their Waco neighbors and the wonderful organizations that support their holistic health needs. The DELTA On Purpose grant will help us bring this dream to life.”
Each morning, students will focus on one of the DELTA framework’s five principles: dignity, embodiment, love, transcendence, and agency. Students will then work in small groups alongside Mission Waco’s Creekside Community, Waco Family Medicine’s Street Medicine Team, World Hunger Relief Farm, or Friends for Life.
“During the immersion, students will step outside the Baylor community to learn directly from their neighbors, gaining a deeper understanding of the lived realities of those they hope to serve as well as the interconnected factors that shape human health, from food and shelter to relationships and belonging,” Tausen said. “Students will begin their mornings learning about and reflecting on the day’s DELTA theme before heading into the community, where they will be encouraged to notice how dignity, embodiment, love, transcendence, and agency are either upheld or overlooked in the practices and systems they encounter.”
Preparation begins through the Faith and Healing Professions Chapel series during students’ first year at Baylor, followed by additional gatherings before the immersion. The series explores the relationship between healing and curing and spiritual practices that can sustain a life of service. For incoming Micah Scholars, the immersion will be their first experience as a cohort and the beginning of continued engagement with Waco.
“These conversations invite students to ask questions about the possibilities and limits of medicine, what it means to care when cure is not possible, and ultimately, what kind of people they are becoming in their journey to become healthcare professionals,” Thompson said. “The immersion week itself concludes with a retreat to create space for reflection on the week’s experiences, learning from each other, and how encounters in the community shape their sense of vocation.”
Beyond Waco, Baylor will join Anselm House at the University of Minnesota, Loyola Marymount University, the University of Dayton and the University of San Francisco in adapting the DELTA On Purpose model to their campuses.
“We are honored to be a part of this inaugural cohort and are excited to learn with and from other institutions that are thinking deeply about student formation and what it means to be human in our current age of AI,” Abel said. “This opportunity allows us to deepen investment in local partnerships while joining in a network of other institutions with rich traditions of faith-informed education. We hope this collaboration provides opportunities for exchanging ideas that will help strengthen the Micah Scholars program, while also participating in a larger conversation about what it means to prepare students not simply to become competent healthcare practitioners, but to become the kinds of people whose lives are marked by the pursuit of justice, love, and humility.”