Browsing: News

Fifty years ago, Baylor’s campus was transformed as the Board of Trustees voted to integrate the student body. That same year, the first black student enrolled.

In discussions prior to the November 1963 vote, students expressed feelings about integrating. In a letter to the Lariat in 1957 one student wrote, “It is the place of Baylor as a Christian institution to take a lead in integration.” Another student said, “I think a Negro should stay with his people, and we should stay with ours.”

The growing secularization of the Christmas season has left some Christians wondering how they should celebrate.

According to a 2010 Gallup poll, 95 percent of Americans celebrate Christmas, but only half of them describe the holiday as “strongly religious.” In the end, the poll concluded that although the holiday has religious roots, it is celebrated by nearly all Americans, including 80 percent of non-Christians.

South Africa’s first black president spent nearly a third of his life as a prisoner of apartheid, yet he sought to win over its defeated guardians in a relatively peaceful transition of power that inspired the world.

As head of state, the former boxer, lawyer and inmate lunched with the prosecutor who argued successfully for his incarceration.

Hesitant to be pegged as a theologian, Dr. Jimmy Dorrell, a part-time lecturer at George W. Truett Theological Seminary, said his ideology stems from an urgency to maintain a practical Christian faith and not from a desire to engage in theological discussion.

“I’ve always hated intelligent, fluffy theology,” he said. “If it’s true, I have to learn how to live out of it.”

It’s going to be below freezing in stadium stands on Saturday, Baylor officials said, and this raises concern for the safety of Baylor football fans braving the storm.

The Weather Channel predicts a high of 26 degrees with a low of 23 for Waco on Saturday.

Nelson Mandela, who became one of the world’s most beloved statesmen and a colossus of the 20th century when he emerged from 27 years in prison to negotiate an end to white minority rule in South Africa, has died. He was 95.

South African President Jacob Zuma made the announcement at a news conference late Thursday, saying “we’ve lost our greatest son.”

Ever since the U.S. Department of Education Office for Civil Rights released its Dear Colleague Letter on April 4, 2011, Baylor has taken a proactive approach to addressing how it handles sexual assault and sexual violence cases.

The letter put universities on notice about the need to make a concerted effort on Title IX issues, said John Whelan, Title IX coordinator and associate vice president for human resources.

Baylor seeks to establish a greater presence in Washington D.C. through a multiphase series of events.

“Our mission statement says that we educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service,” said Dr. Karla Leeper, vice president for board and executive affairs and chief compliance officer. “One of the most effective places to have impact as a leader or a servant-leader is in Washington, D.C.”

Hundreds of kids from three Texas cities are coming to Baylor on Friday to have fun eating lunch, receiving gifts and meeting Santa Claus himself.

Santa’s Workshop is an annual Christmas event that gives children the opportunity to interact with the Baylor community, students and volunteers.

The event will take place from 10 a.m. to noon Friday at the McLane Student Life Center, during which the kids will eat lunch, make arts and crafts and meet Mr. Claus and Mrs. Claus.

With a flick of the switch, a 76-foot Norway Spruce officially became the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree Wednesday night after it was illuminated for the first time this holiday season in a ceremony that’s been held since 1933.

Mayor Michael Bloomberg turned on the lights just before 9 p.m., setting off a dazzling 45,000 multi-colored LED lights and a 9 ½-foot-wide Swarovski star that topped the 12-ton tree.

Waco weather to some people seems erratic and spastic since it can oscillate from warm to cold temperatures throughout a given week.

According to local Waco specialists, is because of Waco’s location on the globe.

“There’s this constant battle of cold fronts that want to push down, and at the same time we get this maritime tropical air flowing off the Gulf of Mexico,” geology professor Dr. Donald Greene said. “You know the saying: ‘If you don’t like the weather, just wait a few days and it’ll change.’”

Baylor announced on Wednesday a $1 million donation from alumni Steve and Penny Carlile to create the Steve and Penny Carlile Plaza on the Paul L. Foster Campus for Business and Innovation, the new complex to house the Hankamer School of Business.

Terry Maness, dean of the business school, said the plaza, which will be located on the corner of Third Street and Bagby Avenue, will be one of the major entrances into the business building.

Baylor Urban Missions is giving children of the Waco community a chance to have fun while learning more about Christianity and the Christmas story.

The Baylor children’s ministry group, Kings Club is partnered with Mission Waco. Kings Club has separated into two groups to further interact, teach and play with the children at Kate Ross and Ashton Oaks Apartments.

“I knew immediately that something wasn’t right, but I didn’t know. It didn’t even occur to me that I could leave. It didn’t occur to me that I could walk away. It didn’t occur to me to say stop. I just, something felt funny in my stomach but I didn’t know what to do,” said Christopher Anderson, executive director for MaleSurvivor, a national organization that provides resources to help with hope, healing, and support for male survivors of sexual assault.

Baylor’s campus will be full of Christmas cheer Thursday at the annual celebration of Christmas on Fifth Street, starting at 6 p.m. at Fountain Mall, Burleson Quadrangle, Traditions Plaza and the Bill Daniel Student Center.

The event will have entertainment for the whole family, such as a petting zoo, pictures with Santa, carriage rides, family portraits, a live nativity and “Elf,” a Christmas movie, showing on the lawn.

The investigation of drug distribution near Baylor’s campus continues as three more people sit in McLennan County Jail after a drug ring that targeted college students was raided Friday, said Lt. Joe Coy, the criminal investigator for the McGregor Police Department.

Le’Ann Keogh Koss, 60, Larry Phillip Koss, 58, and Connor Phillip Koss, 25, were arrested in the 5200 block of Chaparral near Lake Waco after McGregor officials obtained a search warrant, according to a press release by the McGregor Police Department.

An engineer whose speeding commuter train ran off the rails along a curve, killing four people, nodded at the controls just before the wreck, and by the time he caught himself it was too late, a union official said Tuesday.

William Rockefeller “basically nodded,” said Anthony Bottalico, leader of the rail employees union, relating what he said the engineer told him.

Tickets still available for shows at 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday in the Armstrong Browning Library. General admission tickets are…

One Baylor alumnus may have perfected the art of mixing business with pleasure.

Baylor alumnus Charles Poe, vice president of production for the Smithsonian Channel, is in charge of organizing the series of interviews in a Smithsonian film.

Whether he is hearing personal stories from people who witnessed the assassination of President John F. Kennedy or learning about a massive species of snake from the age of the dinosaurs, every project is an adventure.

A Texas inmate was executed Tuesday evening for the death of a corrections officer during a short-lived escape from prison six years ago.

Jerry Martin, 43, had requested that no additional appeals be filed on his behalf, clearing the way for his lethal injection.

From the death chamber gurney, Martin told relatives of the slain corrections officer that he was sorry. “I wish I could take it back, but I can’t,” he said.

Baylor has dominated Texas Christian University in more than just football.

After the first Baylor vs. TCU Young Alumni Challenge, Baylor graduates from the class 2003 to 2013 donated $131,575 more than young horned frog graduates in what was dubbed the I-35 Battle Royale.

After going on sale Monday at 10 a.m., Baylor football gave out their full allotment of student tickets by 2:15 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. Student Activities reported selling out of student tickets after distributing a record 6,700 tickets on day one of student ticket sales.

Don’t talk to strangers.

This statement has echoed in classrooms and gymnasiums all across the country for years as children are taught about the dangers they have to watch out for. Children are warned of “stranger danger.” They are taught from a young age that strangers are out to harm them and that they should never talk to or go with someone that they do not know. Children are told there are strangers out there that will touch them in places they are not allowed to touch.

Zombies exist. At least, in the form of sleep-deprived college students.

As part of an outreach by the Baylor Counseling Center, six zombies will appear Wednesday in various locations in the Moody Memorial Library to raise awareness of sleep deprivation. The zombies are students from the theater arts department.

Dust will not have to settle on the seats of the new Baylor stadium as the venue will be open year-round for community events.

Baylor is partnering with SMG and ClubCorp to offer stadium services.

“The stadium itself is a partnership between the university and the city,” said Lori Fogleman, assistant vice president for media communications. “Baylor will be handling the management of our athletic events in the stadium, but for city events, we wanted to make sure there were well-known companies that could accommodate their needs in a first class manner.”

Heritage Square in Waco will be decked out in the holiday spirit through Dec. 7. Those who visit Waco Wonderland…

The Active Minds organization will meet at 5 p.m. Wednesday in C123 Baylor Sciences Building. This organization is dedicated to…

Students from the Baylor chapter of Campus Kitchen Projects have found a niche as student chefs with the organization, which provides healthy meals for families and individuals in need. Canton senior Abigail Brantley, the organization’s kitchen director, and Victoria senior Amy Lott, a kitchen manager, spoke about the organization’s impact on the Waco and Baylor communities.

In preparation for the spotlight that will shine on the city of Dallas where President John F. Kennedy was assassinated 50 years ago, one Baylor student did his part to make sure conspiracy theories would be muted and the day honored appropriately.

Rowlett senior Charles Stokes, apart from his studies as a computer science major, is also the youngest member of the Dallas County Historical Commission and has been since his freshman year at Baylor. Now in his second two-year term as member for the commission, he took it upon himself to restore a defaced historical plaque on the Dallas County Administration Building where Kennedy’s believed assassin, Lee Harvey Oswald, planned and executed his attack on the sixth floor.

In modern day, discovering breaking news is as quick as swiping a text notification on a smartphone or as simple as stumbling upon a trending tweet. News now spreads so expediently and more concisely than any other time in history.

Undoubtedly, times have evolved since the primitive times of technology in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Families would gather around their television set to hear the latest news, mostly in 15-minute evening bulletins.