By Shelby Peck | Staff Writer
Whether teaching the same class together, such as Henry and Lenore Wright, or inviting students over for pancakes, like Peter and Sandy Klein, married professors uniquely leverage their relationships to impact the Baylor community.
Baylor is home to many married professors who may not always work under the same department, but are able to share tradition, intellect and the green and gold spirit.
“That’s the deep enjoyment, really profound enjoyment of teaching together is that we’re more than parents. We’re more than spouses. We’re also on this journey of being, and we’re human. And so this enables us to transcend … necessary pieces of life like kids and jobs and clients and really, I think, engage on a different level,” Lenore said.
Lenore met her husband, Henry Wright, both professors in the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core, when they were completing their masters in philosophy at Baylor. Henry, originally from Waco, said he offered to show her the city and they began attending lunch in group settings.
“We had classes together and got to know each other; we fell in love over symbolic logic — that was the first class we took together … we would study together and prepare for assignments together,” Lenore said.
Upon graduation, the couple moved to New York, where Lenore would then earn her doctorate in philosophy at Buffalo State. After dating for five years, the couple moved back to Waco where Lenore said she then started law school but quickly realized her passion remained in philosophy. It was Henry who added to his already multifaceted interests and became an attorney.
Lenore then accepted a position as the assistant director of the Baylor Interdisciplinary Core. The BIC program was initially designed to give students a well-rounded insight of history, but the administration soon realized the lack of art and its vast influence on culture in the curriculum.
“The BIC overall faculty and administration recognized what we need — art historians,” Lenore said. “We need architectural historians, and we don’t have them at Baylor, or they’re not able to come.”
Henry stepped up to the challenge due to his vast background in art history and architecture and began teaching in the BIC in addition to practicing law. The couple now teaches World Cultures III courses together.
“Just the experience of knowing we’re both doing meaningful academic work together at the same time … it enables us to talk about something other than our children or things involved in marital relationships,” Lenore said.
The couple has also been able to blend Henry’s admiration of architecture into several study abroad experiences, including a past spring break trip to London that included an after-hours tour of Westminster Abbey.
“[We] have been able to — through support of the university — go to lots of the places that tap into the cultures we teach, and that is super enriching, because if you’re going to teach these cultures and you’re not an expert in them, you need to determine some expertise,” Lenore said.
Aside from a study abroad experience, married faculty in other departments have also found ways to serve their students in unique ways outside the classroom.
Peter and Sandy, both faculty in the Hankamer School of Business, said they support their students by attending their events and inviting them into their home for a pancake breakfast, a tradition they began around five years ago.
“We go to all the basketball games and the football games … if I have a student, I usually try to go see them compete,” Sandy, lecturer in economics, said.
Married for almost 29 years, the Kleins met at an economics conference during graduate school. After dating long distance — as Sandy attended Auburn and Peter attended Berkeley — they eventually moved to Waco in 2015 and began teaching at Baylor.
“We kind of understand each other when we come home, and you have an issue, or you’re talking about your day, you know the other person … gets it on a much deeper level than if we were in two completely different, you know, fields of work,” Peter, professor of entrepreneurship, said.
The Kleins said they appreciate the family-friendly atmosphere of Baylor and the welcoming environment available to their children, whether it’s various concerts on campus or events such as Christmas on 5th.
“We’re not just people who live in Waco, but both of us actually have a tie to the institution which … helps to build that sense of community,” Peter said.
The Kleins have been employed at other universities together, but they said the community they experience at Baylor is the strongest. They still eat lunch together weekly, and Sandy said what makes their relationship relationally and academically successful is the trust they have in one another.
“We have so much in common — professionally, personally, socially … we are great teammates, because we understand each other so well,” Sandy said. “We trust each other so well, and I think that’s … part of working in the same sort of general job.”
The Wrights said they appreciate the rare opportunities brought to them by working at the same university, whether it be in lesson planning, attending conferences or even staging fake arguments for students to explain the potential breakdown of discourse.
“We really love teaching at Baylor so much that as we go home we continue talking about the class and the material and how we handled it and what the students think and it really doesn’t end when the class ends,” Henry said. “One of our favorite things is engagement with students.”
