By Mia Martinez | Reporter

While last year’s spring worship was a small, intimate event, students and faculty alike are coming together to turn what was a simple prayer meeting into a school-wide event.

The Hankamer School of Business will host a morning worship and prayer gathering Feb. 26 in the Foster Atrium in recognition of Collegiate Day of Prayer, which is a yearly gathering originally started at Asbury University in 2023.

The event, an organized partnership with the Hankamer Student Organization and the Office of the Dean, is designed to bring students, faculty and staff together for an hour of prayer, fellowship and worship before classes begin.

Poway, Calif., junior Karsyn Pearce is an executive board member of Hankamer Student Organization and said the idea for the event grew from a smaller worship event held last spring.

“We had a more casual worship event last spring semester around the collegiate day of worship,” Pearce said. “So we really wanted to take that and just really run with it.”

Pearce’s team’s initiative to reach out to the dean’s office to explore a partnership with the event was how it all came together. Since the middle of the fall semester, several months of planning had gone into making this event available and successful.

“We’ve been working on this since fall semester. I’m just really pouring into it, making it something that students will really want to come to, within the business school, and outside of the business school,” Pearce said. “Just making it something that can happen every single semester.”

Dr. Matt Quade, associate dean for values-based leadership and director of the Center for Christian Leadership and Ethics, also spoke on the long-term goal of hosting a worship gathering once a semester.

“For us in particular, this event is a really good community event,” Quade said. “It allows us to gather together, not just with students, but faculty and staff, all gathering together. We can come together within the business school, just for an hour each semester, and spend some time together in prayer and worship.”

Quade explains how the core values of the business school — community, humility, excellence and stewardship are embedded within the culture and community present inside the Paul L. Foster Center Campus for Business and Innovation.

“All four of these are really important to us — they’re deeply embedded within our Christian mission as a university and as a business school,” Quade said. “They are four ways that we want to continue to grow and improve as current and future leaders.”

Pearce highlighted what the event will include, which is worship songs, scripture readings and guided prayers. Donuts, kolaches and coffee will also be available to attendees.

“We’re trying to make it more mainstream, just to appeal to mass audiences,” Pearce said. “There’s a lot of different denominations within the Baylor community, and so just using songs that apply to the verses that will be shared, but also ones that a lot of people know, just to foster, again, the comfortability.”

Quade emphasized that the event is open to all students, faculty and staff at Baylor, although he said the gathering is explicitly of a Christian nature.

“Other students of other religions, we welcome them to attend,” Quade said. “We’re not checking anyone’s religious background at the door, by any means.”

As an organized partnership with the Hankamer Student Organization and the Office of the Dean, both have stated that the central goal is to strengthen the relationships between students and faculty in a setting outside the classroom.

“Students would really be encouraged as they see faculty and staff around them,” Quade said. “[We want to] help them feel even more connected to the community of the business school, and in particular, the community where their faculty and staff are really present.”

Pearce highlights the hope that the attendees will experience belonging and unity.

“I just hope people can come and just feel welcomed and feel loved and cared for,” Pearce said. “Just to foster new friendships, new relationships, maybe with students in your classes or just random people, and just be able to grow faith-wise, relationship-wise, and just overall community-wise.”