By Mackenzie Grizzard | Staff Writer
Baylor joins several prestigious institutions like Harvard, Yale and Stanford Universities on TIME Magazine’s list of the 100 Best Colleges for Future Leaders 2025, marking a strong start to the new year.
Partnering with Statistica, TIME ranks Baylor at No. 61 in the nation and No. 3 in Texas for producing excellent future leaders across disciplines. Baylor’s Hankamer School of Business was specifically highlighted in this ranking for demonstrating the university’s commitment to nurturing future leaders.
“Our job is essentially to cultivate principal leaders, [which] is our goal at the Hankamer School of Business,” Dr. Sandeep Mazumder, the William E. Crenshaw Endowed Dean of the Hankamer School of Business, said. “So to see the data back up the fact that we’re able to do this is really exciting and encouraging for us.”
TIME’s ranking analyzes the resumes of 4,000 top leaders in the U.S., ranging from CEOs of Fortune 500 companies, leaders in government, nonprofit and religious organizations.
According to Mazumder, the commitment to excellent leadership extends to the business school’s extensive faculty as well.
“The [Hankamer] Advisory Board has a group of men and women that are C-level executives of top companies around the country, and it’s a very impressive list of resumes,” Mazumder said. “We’ve always known anecdotally at Hankamer that our students are business leaders.”
The school emphasizes growth in leadership skills across all majors and academic departments through regular classroom instruction and specialized programs like the Business Scholars, Baylor Business Fellows and more, Mazumder said.
“We really cover the whole range of basics so student careers are fluid,” Mazumder said. “That leadership training [will] transpire in their particular field.”
While the school cultivates leadership growth inside the classroom from an academic standpoint, an additional emphasis is placed on developing “servant-oriented” leaders, according to Mazumder.
“As a Christian business school, we emphasize servant leadership a lot,” Mazumder said. “It’s about making sure we’re serving people and making the right decisions that are ethical.”
Mazumder said Baylor’s Christian approach to leadership is what distinguishes it from others on TIME’s list.
“We feel that God calls us in the moment to lead in whatever business or industry, and to do that faithfully,” Mazumder said. “At the end of the day, it’s not about our own ego, it’s about using the talents and opportunities that God gives us to serve others in that moment.”
Highlands Ranch, Colo., junior Isabella Carpinelli said that her time in the school’s Billington Peer Leader Program has nurtured her as a leader and as an individual.
“The Peer Leader Program helped me discover what I am passionate about and why I want to be in business,” Carpinelli said. “It made me aware of the level of support and opportunities here at Baylor.”
Carpinelli said she joined the Peer Leader Program as a second-semester freshman when the program was just developing. She said the program provided her with an older mentor who was also in the business school and whom she could turn to for advice and support.
“My mentor in particular helped me navigate adjusting to college and finding my place at Hankamer, which can be overwhelming at first,” Carpinelli said. “I felt so supported knowing that Hankamer — and Baylor in general — cares about the well-being of its students.”
Next fall will be the first semester since the program’s introduction that every freshman in the business school will have a mentor in the Peer Leader Program.
“Every single business school says ‘we want to develop future leaders,’ but one thing we’re mindful of here at Baylor is giving them practice,” Mazumder said. “So these student organizations like the Peer Leader Program are wonderful opportunities for our students to start practicing leadership.”
