By Camille Cox | Staff Writer
Baylor announced a new faculty chair position, donated by Jim and Tammy Snee, aimed at addressing food security through research.
According to a Baylor press release, the Snees donated $1 million toward the implementation of the new chair, claiming the 14th chair within the Baylor Academic Challenge in the Give Light campaign.
Jeremy Everett, founder and executive director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger and Poverty, said he believes this gift will help them achieve their goals.
“This gift, this chair, is catapulting us to become one of the premier research institutions in the nation that is looking at the issues of hunger and poverty and will allow us to recruit the top food security researcher in the country to be on our research team,” Everett said. “We wouldn’t have been able to do it without this gift, so it’s a huge step for us as a collaborative and a major step toward achieving our research one/tier one goals as well.”
Illuminate, Baylor’s academic strategic plan from 2018-2022, focuses on five initiatives, with the new food security chair falling under “Human Research, Flourishing and Ethics.”
According to Baylor’s press release, “Jim Snee serves as chairman of the board, president and chief executive officer of Hormel Foods, a global branded food company.” Tammy Snee has worked as a registered nurse for over 20 years. Together, they have found a passion for food security and believe in Baylor’s academic mission.
“The Snee family is an incredible family, and they’ve worked in the food business their entire careers, so they really get the impact food can have on the health and well-being of a community,” Everett said. “They have become big fans of what is happening at Baylor by being a Christian university that wants to achieve high levels of research.”
Greg Davis, associate vice president for development, said he believes the new Jim and Tammy Snee Family Chair in Food Security will create a positive awareness on campus as well as through global research.
“This is the final matching chair from that initial creation of the Baylor Academic Challenge, and it’s a significant one because it provides the opportunity to bring forward a significant scholar in the space of food security research,” Davis said. “The Snee family was excited about the opportunity and possibility and, with the matching funds, decided this was the perfect thing to jump into.”
The Give Light campaign began with an anonymous $100 million donation, which has become a $1.1 billion goal. According to its website, the BAC’s mission is to “spark the funding and creation of new endowed faculty positions at Baylor University.”
“When we announced the Give Light campaign, it was a $1.1 billion goal that, at the time, felt like such a highly ambitious goal that there were plenty of people that were uncertain if we could reach that,” Davis said. “We currently are at $1.06 billion, so we are very close to achieving that initial announced goal and expect to surpass that this academic year.”
Everett said Baylor plans to announce the faculty member selected for the new chair in the upcoming weeks.
