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The Year in ReviewA series of accomplishments marks the last twelve months
Baylor Line: Baylor recently produced a report summarizing the various achievements during the 2007-08 fiscal year, which ended on May 31. Perhaps we could start by discussing the university's financial success and what that permitted Baylor to do this year.
President John M. Lilley: First of all, we're grateful for all of our successes during the past year and for the many people both within and external to the university who have contributed to them. Baylor is on a strong upward trajectory, and many people are working hard every day to ensure our continued forward progress in every area of university life.
 In the case of our financial success, we attribute our positive results to a practice of tying our spending to strategic planning with clearly established goals and objectives. In our strategic planning process, we look at how to improve what we are currently doing, and at what we might do, and at what we should cease doing in light of other opportunities. All universities have many more needs than they can meet, but we have a planning process that is broadly based in determining the choices that must be made.
Controlling our costs and managing our income are important. Our endowment income is a central part, and we are working to increase our endowment dollars through increased fundraising, through wise investments, and through careful spending of that income so that we have a hedge against inflation. Tuition and fees are also important, and we work very hard through our long-term budget model to minimize increases to those. Building our endowment while adding to and maintaining our physical plant are both important.
This financial success enables us to invest in such things as deferred maintenance on our facilities. Everyone who visits our campus agrees that Baylor is a beautiful place, but, within reason, we want to make it even more beautiful. Our biggest challenge in facilities is the renovation of our residence halls. We are renovating Kokernot this summer, but we will need to work on Collins, Penland, and Russell in the near future.
Baylor Line: How has Baylor's endowment fared this past year, and what strides in fundraising have been made?
Lilley: We have been very fortunate because we have a great team that handles our investments. As a result, our endowment has grown to $1.1 billion, even in a tough market. The stock market goes through cycles, and we are now in a downturn. That makes it difficult to grow a university's endowment, but we have an outstanding committee that advises on our investments. We also average out what we spend from our endowment earnings, taking a sixteen-quarter average, which smoothes out the highs and lows in the market and provides better financial stability for Baylor.
We have just completed possibly Baylor's best fundraising year ever. Baylor received $82 million in gifts and pledges during the past fiscal year, including more than $21.9 million given to Baylor's endowment. And this is the fourth straight year of a marked increase in the support of endowed scholarships, endowed faculty positions, and endowed programs.
Of course, we need to grow our endowment. One of our goals is to be able to provide students with more scholarship aid that minimizes their personal debt. This is especially important since many of our graduates go into professions that are not typically high-paying, such as teachers, social workers, and artists. Our plans are to grow our endowment, and we are confident that we can do so with the help of our alumni and other friends.
Baylor Line: What achievements have there been in the area of student enrollment and student credentials?
Lilley: It's been a great year. Our fall enrollment of 14,174 students, which was the second-highest enrollment ever at Baylor, featured the most academically qualified first-year class in Baylor's history, with an average SAT score of 1219. Many of those undergraduates are working alongside faculty in our growing research programs. As a result, their applications for graduate and professional schools will feature published articles that they have written as undergraduates, making them even more attractive to the most competitive programs in the nation. The quality of our students in our graduate and professional programs is outstanding as well. They are also major beneficiaries of our growing faculty research programs.
In May, we had a record-setting commencement, with more than nineteen hundred graduates receiving their Baylor degrees. And now we are anticipating the largest first-year class in Baylor's history this fall.
We are also doing well in terms of increasing the diversity of our student body. We have been focusing in particular on attracting more Hispanics and African Americans. Although we are a national university, Baylor's core enrollment continues to be made up of Texans. And we want, as much as possible, to reflect the demographics of Texas.
There are two additional communities of students that are a focus of our recruitment efforts: young men and Baptist students. The imbalance of men and women students is a national phenomenon, but our desire to have more Baptists is a local concern and a part of our history and tradition. Many of our students are dedicated Christians who come from community churches and Bible churches that may be pastored by a person who has been educated in a Baptist seminary. But even in what some call a "post-denominational" era in Christian life, we are committed to maintaining a strong core of students who identify themselves as Baptists.
Baylor Line: How significant has the opening of Brooks Village, in the fall of 2007, been in terms of Baylor's goal of increasing the number of students living on campus?
Lilley: Brooks Village has exceeded all expectations. Students love living there for a number of reasons, ranging from the Robbins Chapel and the Great Hall to the classrooms and the refurbished Minglewood Bowl. With Brooks Residential College and Brooks Flats, we now have 4,650 students living on campus, representing about 41 percent of our undergraduates. After its renovation this summer, Kokernot will become our living-learning center (LLC) where our Engaged Learning Groups are housed. We'll also open a new Global Community LLC this fall. The success we have had with Brooks mirrors our success in the Engineering and Computer Science LLC that is in the North Village and the Honors Residential College in Memorial and Alexander. As we add more faculty families and chaplains to those residence halls, we are working to integrate living and learning in a special way.
We would like to add even more residential spaces. Our goal in Baylor 2012 is to have more than 50 percent of our students living on campus. We are looking presently at where we might locate and how we would manage the cost of the construction of the next residential complex.
Baylor Line: This past year, Baylor began funding the implementation of several major strategic initiatives in the area of academics. Can you describe those?
Lilley: One is the creation of the first PhD program in the Hankamer School of Business. The new degree, a PhD in information systems, was approved as part of the strategic planning process. We were able to make the proposal a reality because the departmental faculty had the necessary research credentials for implementing this cutting-edge program. We also established a PhD program in geology with a research focus on terrestrial paleoclimatology, a program that is an excellent fit for Baylor's mission. Other approved initiatives included a special honors program in the School of Engineering and Computer Sciences and a Doctorate of Nursing Practice degree for the Louise Herrington School of Nursing.
In vetting these programs, we ask questions such as what is the societal need for this program and does Baylor have something special to contribute? We want to improve the world around us. In some cases, we are able to help the immediate region of Central Texas through our research focus in these programs. We have a great partnership with Texas State Technical College in Waco. We combine our PhD students and research faculty with their technicians whom they have educated on excellent equipment. Together we're doing some exciting things. We are also developing research partnerships with Texas A&M and the University of Texas.
Baylor Line: What were some of the major accomplishments in Baylor's athletics program this past year--not just in the way the sports teams have performed, but the way Baylor incorporates student-athletes into its overall life?
Lilley: We've just had the three best years of our athletics history. For the first time, this past year all of our winter and spring sports were nationally ranked at some point, most throughout their seasons. Our teams expect to contend regularly for championships. The men's basketball team made the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 1987. The women's basketball team appeared in its fifth straight and seventh all-time NCAA Tournament. Both men and women were in simultaneous post-season play for the first time in our history. Our men's and women's tennis teams collected four Big 12 regular-season and tournament championships, with the women advancing to the Final Four for the first time in team history. And on the track, our men's 1,600-meter relay team won its fourth consecutive NCAA title.
These are successful athletes, but they are also bright young men and women. Baylor had a school-record 449 student-athletes named to the Big 12 Commissioner's Honor Roll for the fall and spring semesters. For the second consecutive year, we produced the Big 12's highest Graduation Success Rate (GSR) score, with five of our eighteen intercollegiate athletics programs--football, baseball, men's tennis, women's tennis, and women's golf--all ranked first in GSR among their Big 12 peers.
I'm also excited about our football prospects. Coach Art Briles has already made a huge difference in recruiting and coaching. I said privately one day to Grant Teaff that I was determined to return Baylor football to the winning category with other Baylor teams. With the able leadership of Ian McCaw, our athletics director, and with the support of our regents, I'm highly optimistic that Art Briles is our man to do that. We are already scheduled for a number of television appearances, and a concentration of gold in our stands will send a powerful message about the love of the Baylor family for Baylor Bear football.
This interview with Baylor President John M. Lilley was conducted on June 16, 2008, by Todd Copeland.
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