WACO, Texas — The Baylor University Board of Regents approved a five-year follow-up to its "Illuminate" Strategic Plan that includes framework for growing the university and becoming a top-tier research school.
The board affirmed the plan, which will be implemented from 2022 to 2027, last Friday. The plan includes hiring 20 new faculty per year, or 100 total.
"Undergraduate students will be able to work with scholars at the very top of their discipline and be able to do research with them, publish with them," said Baylor University provost Nancy Brickhouse.
The "Illuminate" plan also includes the completion of renovation on residence halls including Collins, Memorial, Allen-Dawson and Kokernot halls.
The university hopes the strategic plan will help in their mission to become a Research I institution, a designation given to top-tier research universities.
"The plan is to actually blow past the R1, we think we're going to be able to achieve that in the next several years," Brickhouse said.
Students also applauded the school's new plan, from the faculty additions to the residence hall renovations.
"There's like this old, Baptist, Texas Baylor and this kind of like 'new/research' Baylor," Baylor senior Annie Huntington said of the school. "Like I probably wouldn't have gone to Baylor 20 years ago, I'm not from Texas. So I think that faculty members that match that new vision would honestly be a really good thing."
Other projects included in the plan are upgrading and unifying the university's Honors College, and moving forward with capital projects, such as a football operations center and a life-size mammoth sculpture for the outside of the Mayborn Museum.
