By Maggie Meegan | Reporter
Professors at Baylor do more than just lecture in the classroom. They create a home at the university for students, share interests, introduce new topics to the younger generation, challenge and push controversial conversations to open up their students’ eyes and prepare them for their work after graduation.
Once a year, Baylor awards the Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year to an exceptional professor who has demonstrated dedication not only to the classroom, but also to their students.
The 2026 Professor of the Year was awarded to Dr. Randall Bradley, Ben H. Williams Professor of Music and professor of church music. For the past 26 years, Bradley has dedicated himself to teaching, research and service on Baylor’s campus.
When he started teaching 40 years ago, Bradley said he thought professors were the experts, and it was their job to take the information they knew and give it back to their students. Today, he finds himself being a student in the classroom as well because there is always something his students are teaching him, he said.
“We are more or less the experts,” Bradley said. “We really kind of turned that upside down and shifted that a lot to believe that we are co-learners, and we’re in a community of learners, and we have so much to learn from our students.”
As a professor, Bradley said he has been most impacted by his international students. He has had the experience of serving as a professor inside the classroom on Baylor’s campus, but also by getting to be the faculty member to take students to travel and study abroad during his time at Baylor.
“Probably some of the places where I have been most impacted by students have been in settings with international students, in which I’ve learned so much about other cultures and cultural perspectives,” Bradley said.
Louisville, Ky., senior August Rothpletz said Bradley has played a large role in his life the past few years through the Baylor men’s choir and attending mission trips together.
“Bradley has been leading trips to Kenya for the past 20 years,” Rothpletz said. “I’ve actually have had the pleasure of going with him to Kenya twice now. That’s been a big influence on me, those trips and everything that he’s set up there.”
Outside of Bradley’s class, students have also had the experience having him as a mentor. He has created connections with his students where he teaches them more about balancing life while being a busy college student and life after graduation, said Rothpletz.
“[He gives] lessons on how to live a happy, fulfilled life,” Rothpletz said. “How to manage your time productively and present yourself well to the world.”
According to Baylor’s website, the Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year Award is named in honor of the Baylor alumna Dr. Cornelia Marschall Smith, who was from Fredericksburg, Texas, and eventually became a professor and the chair of Baylor’s biology department. The award is given annually to a faculty member, and the recipient is chosen out of a pool of submitted candidates by the Cornelia Marschall Smith Selection Committee.
