Each spring semester, selected students spend countless days creating films of all types that are shown at The Black Glasses Film Festival.

While film and digital media majors primarily enter in this festival, all students are allowed to submit their own films.

This year, the event will be held at 7 p.m. Friday in the Jones Theatre of the Hooper-Schaefer Fine Arts Center.

With more than 600 people still in Melody Ranch early Sunday evening and still more coming in, organizers expected the West First Benefit Concert to exceed their goal of $50,000 for victims of the deadly explosion by as much as $10,000.

“You see over $41,000 on the board up there now, but there are a lot of donations and T-shirt sales we haven’t counted yet,” said Nick Fuentes, co-owner of the night spot at 2315 Robinson Drive in Waco.

The annual Pulse lecture gives one undergraduate student the chance to present a published research paper. This year, Bastrop senior David Welch will present his paper on “hiddenness.” Welch’s lecture will center on his paper titled: “The Expanded Problem of Hiddenness for Christian Theodicies.” It was published in the 2012 fall edition of The Pulse, an undergraduate magazine sponsored by the Honor’s College.

A Mississippi man’s house is uninhabitable after investigators searched it but failed to find evidence of the deadly poison ricin, a lawyer said Monday, arguing that the government should repair the home.

Kevin Curtis was charged in the mailing of poisoned letters to President Barack Obama, U.S. Sen. Roger Wicker and a Mississippi judge, but the charges were later dropped. The investigation shifted last week to another man who had a falling out with Curtis, and that suspect appeared in court Monday on a charge of making ricin.

The defense team representing the Boston Marathon bombing suspect got a major boost Monday with the addition of Judy Clarke, a San Diego lawyer who has managed to get life sentences instead of the death penalty for several high-profile clients, including the Unabomber and the gunman in the rampage that injured former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.

Clarke’s appointment was approved Monday by U.S. Magistrate Judge Marianne Bowler.

You open this door with the key of hunger; beyond it is another dimension. You find yourself sitting at a table surrounded by strangers.

You receive your meager plate of grilled chicken and mixed vegetables and turn to leave when the question comes.

“Will this be together or separate?”

This is a letter to certain people who attended the West memorial service last Thursday.

It was an event to honor the 12 fallen first responders in the West explosion.

These men, who were volunteers, most of whom had wives and children, laid their lives down for their neighbors that fateful Wednesday night two weeks ago. They paid the ultimate price. Seeing those 12 coffins lined up at the foot of the stage with the families gathered by, and countless firefighters, the members of the West, Waco and Baylor community all coming together to honor these men filled me with indescribable heartache and pride all at once.

The Baylor baseball team capped off a three-game sweep against the Texas Longhorns with a 5-2 win Sunday afternoon at Baylor Ballpark. For the last home Big 12 series, the Baylor seniors went out with a bang by sweeping Texas.

Senior shortstop Jake Miller was 2-4 and scored a run. Senior third baseman Cal Towey had two RBIs and was also 2-4. Senior right fielder Nathan Orf was 1-3 with a RBI as well.

It was a dramatic finish for No. 14 Baylor, but the Lady Bears came out on top with a 5-4 win over the Kansas Jayhawks on Sunday to take sole possession of third place in the Big 12.

Sophomore outfielder Kaitlyn Thumann went 2-4 and hit a critical home run and a sharp hit in the seventh to score junior first baseman Holly Holl for a what would eventually be the winning run. Freshman infielder Robin Landrith continued her on-base streak, drawing two walks and hitting a key double.

The Baylor Bears defeated the Texas Longhorns 1-0 Saturday night at Baylor Ballpark and are looking to go for the three-game series sweep in tomorrow’s matinee game.

Sophomore starting right-handed pitcher Austin Stone took the mound for the Bears and pitched six scoreless frames and only allowed four hits. Stone also struck out a career-high 10 batters, which is also the most strikeouts that any Baylor pitcher has had so far this year. Stone was in complete control and only yielded three base on balls.

The No. 14 Baylor Lady Bears split its third consecutive double-header Saturday after defeating the Kansas Jayhawks 6-1 in the first game, but falling 6-5 in the second.

With the pressure on, Baylor continuously made plays in two-out situations. Of the 11 runs Baylor scored, 10 were scored when Baylor had two outs.

The Baylor Bears took advantage of four errors from the Texas Longhorns to walk away with a 6-2 victory in the first of the three-game weekend series Friday night.

West Eulogies Part 3 from Baylor Lariat on Vimeo.

West Eulogies Part 2 from Baylor Lariat on Vimeo.

West Eulogies Part 1 from Baylor Lariat on Vimeo.

“The true college,” writes the African-American author W.E.B. DuBois (in words etched in stone in the walkway at Brooks Residential College), “will ever have one goal – not to earn meat, but to know the end and aim of that life which meat nourishes.”

In “The Souls of Black Folk,” which contains the most eloquent defenses of liberal education ever written by an American, DuBois opposed the exclusion of African-Americans from the right to vote and from civic equality. But he objected equally to the exclusion of African-Americans from the pursuit of a truly liberal education, to their being limited to a merely instrumental education, and education in a trade.

Waco freshman Annie Jaska trains 20 hours a week.

She wakes up early, controls her diet and runs 60 miles. If she ran those 60 miles in one stretch, she’d be in Killeen.

Julie and R.J. Robinson have been married for six years and are studying at Truett Seminary, both on track to receive a Master of Arts degree in Christian Divinity. They were married while attending college in South Dakota where they earned their undergraduate degrees. They received no scholarships specifically for being married from this school, just as married students studying at Baylor will receive no such scholarships.

When the couple was first married, Julie would write down their combined income and their bill amounts. Sometimes they would be up to $500 short of the amount they owed for bills, but Julie said that God provided for their needs in ways that they would have never imagined, and at the end of the month things would always work out.

One year before enrolling at Baylor for the 2010 fall semester, hospital corpsman Rachael “Doc” Harrelson was rendering aid to fellow shipmates in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Now Harrelson is more concerned about financial aid than rendering aid.

Colorado Springs, Colo., junior Chuck Voss is paying his own way at Baylor. It’s not cheap.

According to the Baylor Student Financial Services website, the total an average Baylor student pays for two semesters of undergraduate education is $51,214.

Food. Everybody needs it. On-campus residents can get most of their meals the same way, through a meal plan, but they don’t all agree on its value.

These preset plans have benefits and disadvantages, and Baylor offers different plans than other schools in Texas.

Choosing which college is the best fit is tough. Tough because impacts your future. With the cost of higher education said to be on the rise, you’re not just choosing a brand name for your diploma – you’re choosing how much debt you may carry after graduation.
The choice isn’t easy.

Although many factors come into play when selecting a college, including location and size, local tutor Rachael Fineske, a 2000 alumna, said she chose to attend Baylor because of her religious background her family’s influence.

What do Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, and Michael Dell have in common?

They’re all incredibly successful, and all three dropped out of college.

For students wondering if the cost of studying abroad versus at Baylor’s Waco campus, it isn’t very different at all.

Though some students might imagine a semester living somewhere in Europe would be out of their price range, the truth is that if you can afford a semester at Baylor, chances are you can afford a semester abroad, according to Alamogordo, N.M., senior Allison Hainline.

Students often take summer classes to get ahead in their degree. While these extra hours help with scheduling, many students struggle with the cost.

At Baylor a three-hour class costs $3,054 during the summer—that’s $1,017 less than a three-hour class during fall or spring.

According to USA Today, more than half of all national college graduates unemployed when they throw their caps and Baylor seeks to maintain a track record better than the competition.

This is being done through career placement services, networking events and maintaining a high quality of education.

Students attend college to learn, however in almost half of the country’s colleges, they are kept in the dark instead.

Since most colleges elect to keep student debt information private, there is no set national requirement. However, the national average student-load debt is increasing. In many cases, this leaves third-party watchdogs such as The Institute for College Access and Success (TICAS) to fill the gap. Colleges provide a common data set that these organizations use to gather their statistics.