The Baylor Honors College is testing a new program that will benefit both freshmen and upperclassmen.

The new Honor Guide program, which enters the experimental phase this fall, will pair an upperclassman with two to four honors freshman to mentor during the 2012-2013 school year. Only available to honors students, the new program will be announced at the Honors Freshman Assembly at 7 p.m. tonight in Bennett Auditorium. Alamogordo, N.M. senior Allison Harlaine, the president of the Honors Student Advisory Council (HSAC) will make the announcement.

The Army psychiatrist charged in the Fort Hood shooting rampage should be forced to shave his beard to avoid any potential jury bias in his pending murder trial, say some military experts and the judge overseeing his pending court-martial.

The biology department implemented the new pre-biology designation for most current and future freshmen beginning with the class of 2016. The pre-biology designation is not a major, but an indication that a student is interested in preparing for a major in that area. It functions like the pre-business and pre-nursing designations.

Baylor’s men’s rugby club is in the Allied Rugby Conference, but it belonged to a different conference in 2011.

Last year, the Baylor rugby club was in the Southwest Rugby Conference.

However, Baylor remains on the Southwest schedule, and the league still considers Baylor a member.

Baylor, along with Texas and Sam Houston State, left the Southwest this offseason for the Allied Rugby Conference.

Texas’ and Sam Houston’s resignations from the Southwest were approved by the league, while Baylor’s was not.

Baylor volleyball’s current class of freshmen was rated as the No. 16 recruiting class in the nation by to Prepvolleyball.com.

With the infusion of freshman talent, the team needs veteran leadership to guide it through the grueling season.

Senior setter Kate Harris is the backbone of the team, and the team relies on Harris for her leadership and inspiration.

“She’s the heart and soul of this team,” Baylor head coach Jim Barnes said. “Hard work is her middle name. She’s always the first to practice and the last to leave.”

I would like to imagine that when people see the University of Texas ranked No. 15 in the country, they laugh, roll their eyes and throw away whatever news source gave them such a standing.

They lost to every ranked team they played and then also lost to Missouri, finished the Big 12 season 4-5 and nearly missed bowl eligibility for the second year in a row.

I know its defense was pretty good, but it was this same defense that gave up 55 points to Oklahoma, 38 to Oklahoma State at home and 48 to Baylor in the rain.

All things Baylor will pass.

To think otherwise would be foolishness, it has happened before and it will happen again.

For example, there used to be a very large pool where our very large practice field is now. Brooks College and Flats — the insular havens for “potterphiles” and married couples ­— is a completely new creation. It used to be a men’s dormitory called Brooks Hall. The face of Baylor has fundamentally changed over the years, and will continue to change in the future.

August 29th, 2005.

On undeniably the darkest day in the rich history of the city of New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina absolutely destroyed the city, its coast and the surrounding area.

The city was filled with standing water of several feet for days, the storm surge reached twenty feet high and sustained winds exceeded 140 miles per hour.

People looted houses, martial law was in effect, businesses were closed, families were separated across miles of state lines, people died from both natural means and from violent ends.

Order was no where to be found.

What better way to spend your Labor Day weekend than dancing with friends to the sounds of conjunto music and enjoying great food?

Waco Missions Club brings San Antonio’s Los Hermanos Farias to Waco for its pre-Labor Day event this Sunday.

Waco Missions Club member Frank DeLeon said the club began with mostly charity work.

ABC has acquired the television rights to Spike Lee’s upcoming Michael Jackson documentary, the network announced Tuesday.

The acclaimed filmmaker, who had previously collaborated with Jackson, has been prepping “Bad 25,” a documentary tracing the late king of pop’s creative vision during the making of “Bad,” the follow-up to his groundbreaking “Thriller.” It is one of two major projects pegged to the 25th anniversary of the 1987 hit-filled album.

China is rolling up the red carpet for Hollywood.

Just six months after Chinese and American leaders reached a new agreement allowing more foreign movies into the world’s most populous nation, officials there are trying to torpedo the box office returns of some of Hollywood’s biggest summer films.

Not so fast, Mr. Candidate!

Silversun Pickups is the latest band to take issue with politicos in this election year. The alt-rock band from L.A. recently sent a cease-and-desist letter to presidential candidate Mitt Romney to stop using the group’s 2009 song “Panic Switch” at campaign functions. The Romney campaign said it won’t play the song again.

Welcome Week 2012

Traditions Rally
will serve as the official football home opener rally at 7 p.m. this Friday at Floyd Casey Stadium. Grab your student ID, and come out for food, live music, and fun. sponsored by Baylor Athletics, Student Activities, the Baylor Activities Council, and Greek Life

Soccer vs. Nebraska 7 p.m. this Friday at Betty Lou Mays Field.  Kick it with the girls as they fight…

Greek Week
is underway. Events will be hosted by BU sorority and fraternity members throughout the week. Be You. Be Greek.

Tuition is rising, but donations are flowing in.

Baylor received a $7 million gift from the estate of Baylor alumnus Richard Goode. The gift will benefit the Richard and Liesel Goode Endowed Academic Scholarship Fund.

Who thought something as small as a mosquito could cause such a big problem?

A recent outbreak of the West Nile virus has occurred in the Waco-McLennan area, resulting in 32 confirmed cases and one confirmed death, according to the Waco-McLennan County Public Health District’s website.

It’s a historic, but not unanticipated, move.

In the spring, the Board of Regents announced the appointment of a faculty member, Todd Still, chair of the Faculty Senate, and a student, Student Body President Kelly Rapp, as non-voting members of the Board of Regents. The new regents began serving their one-year terms at the beginning of the fiscal year.

Instead of celebrating their acceptance into Baylor during Welcome Week with a refreshing Dr Pepper float, 10 students decided to celebrate becoming Baylor students with a few drinks, leading to their arrests.

So far, the protests have been muted and only two people have been arrested as of Monday night. That’s in stark contrast to four years ago, when hundreds of protesters were arrested at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minn.

The number of parking spaces may be shrinking, but the prices are going up.

Baylor parking permit fees have risen in the past years, even though Baylor has recently eliminated 100 parking spaces due to the construction along Third Street. Students must now pay $300 for a parking permit for the 2012-2013 year, a 22 percent increase from the $245 permit of the previous year.

President Barack Obama declared a state of emergency in Louisiana on Monday as that state and others along the Gulf Coast prepared for Tropical Storm Isaac.

The White House said Obama informed Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal of the emergency declaration in a phone call.

‘Where can I put it?’ can be a big question in a small living space like a dorm room. This year, due to a record number of incoming freshman, the question becomes ‘Where can we put them?’

What has Michael Moore and digital technology wrought?

Now anyone with a political agenda and low-cost digital camera can make a movie and call it a documentary. Even enterprises that at best are vanity projects and at worst badly disguised and overly long attack ads are taken seriously by audiences— and box-office observers.

When Creedence Clearwater Revival called it quits in 1972, that looked like the end for the rock band that gave us “Proud Mary,” “Bad Moon Rising,” “Have You Ever Seen the Rain?” and “Susie Q.” And if lead singer-songwriter John Fogerty had his way, the end might have been more permanent.