<p>If you were to read all my posts (which I know you won’t do) you will see that I have been vocal in support of anyone’s right to believe or not believe whatever they wish and to go to whatever school they wish to attend. I happen to have felt attacked by you, which is no matter. We are strangers, we are unlikely to ever meet and apparently you feel that I am standing in a pile of muck somewhere. So be it. I am not anti-religious. I do object to the notion that an atheist or anti-religious agenda informs all the organizations that you so cavalierly tossed out (oh, wait, were you were kidding?). In fact, I object so strongly and feel it’s so ludicrous that I think my response was warranted. If you can dish it out you ought to be able to take it. You are not the last word in snarkiness.</p>
<p>Thanks for the links. By my calculations (keeping in mind very limited math skills ;)) less than 1% of the faculty/staff isn’t Christian. Does anyone know how this compares with JHS’s list of colleges in #357?</p>
<p>36% of the current freshman class isn’t Christian. Interesting compared to faculty/staff? or not?</p>
<h1>382</h1>
<p>In the continuing spirit of trying to interpret the thoughts of others… on first reading I assumed he was saying he might be struck by lightning. Maybe I need to read again more closely. :)</p>
<p>I am still wondering about Hunt…
but maybe I just need to read closer there, too</p>
<p>Oops. [Smacks head.] I guess I am dumb. Thanks, alh. I am actually getting a little heated up over this, which is ridiculous. But there you have it. In any case, many people of faith have stood next to me without incident …</p>
<p>It looks like about 10% of the faculty may not be Christian (the “Other/Unspecified” category, although given the much longer list of denominations to which undergraduates belong that could well include many Christians). With students, and making the very charitable assumption that “Other” means non-Christian, it would also be about 10%. However, given that many popular non-Christian religions are specified for students, including Atheism, No Religion, Hindu, Islam, Buddhist, and Jewish, it is hard to be certain that “Other” does not mean “Other even more obscure Christian sects.” There probably aren’t really over 600 professing Jains, Baha’i, Zoroastrians, Taoists, Wiccans, etc. If you exclude the “Others” from consideration, 5-6% of the students are non-Christian. I would note, also, that the student numbers include 3,000 graduate students.</p>
<p>It also looks like just under a fifth of all undergraduates have ministerial vocations.</p>
<p>Bottom line: That is pretty darn Christian, although there is a fair amount of diversity among the Christians.</p>
<p>I once had a friend, Jewish, whose father was a professor at Baylor. I had no idea how lonely he must have been.</p>
<p>^Technically, that is the first definition of “dumb.” Technically, another meaning for “dumb” is “lacking intelligence.” (I’m not smart, but I can use a dictionary.) But, yes, of course; what I meant was “stupid.” And “sacrilegious.” And a hazard to all God-fearing people.</p>
<p>I have always seen Baylor as an extremely Christian school, but was surprised to learn it isn’t more Baptist. The vocational part is pretty interesting. I wonder how many go on to the seminary there. A fair number of the Baylor faculty seem to be Baylor graduates. I won’t pretend to calculate percentages.</p>
<p>JHS – It’s not that unusual for Christian universities to employ Jewish professors in their religion departments, teaching courses in the Hebrew Bible. Learning about the “Old Testament” from someone who doesn’t see it as a prelude to Jesus but as a complete work in itself is a wonderful opportunity for a student who has only thought of it from the Christian perspective.</p>
<p>I haven’t checked this through statwise, but I think Baylor’s pre-health professions (quite a nice array in addition to very strong pre-med, dentistry in particular is big) are the #1 major choice. (Strictly speaking, that would mean bio should rank first. I recall that being a motivation for their official pro-evolution position. And just to head off any confusion, Baylor College of Medicine severed ties with Baylor a long, long time ago. Baylor grads do very well with med school placement, however.) </p>
<p>Education and business are also big draws. </p>
<p>Waco’s proximity to Dallas makes it ideal for internships and jobs. There is a big alum base in the DFW metroplex.</p>
<p>When I was at Boston College, I think half of the psych dept. faculty was Jewish. I got a second bachelor’s (this one in philosophy) from a small Catholic college while I was in the Navy. This college had two philosophy instructors, and both made no secret of their atheism. The concept that these religious colleges (at least the Catholic ones) are fire-and-brimstone factories is pretty odd.</p>
<p>My friend’s father at Baylor was a scientist, and the family were not meaningfully observant Jews. It looks like it would be hard to be a meaningfully observant Jew at Baylor: With 27 Jews, and a 3:4 M:F ratio, you would need close to 100% attendance by the male students in order to have a minyan acceptable to anyone not Reform or Reconstructionist. That’s a tall order.</p>
<p>Who thinks that Boston College would be a fire-and-brimstone factory? You would have to be really unfamiliar with Catholic higher education to imagine that.</p>
<p>Baylor (Waco) is about 150 miles from Dallas, so it’s not like a student is going to have an internship during school. I’m sure it is occasionally done, but that’s a long commute. It’s not much closer to Austin. I’ve spent a fair amount of time in Waco, and it’s pretty awful.</p>
<p>^^ Waco is about 100 miles from both Dallas and Austin, but the point about being a long commute remains the same. It is not exactly in the middle of anything. Perhaps why the Davidians picked the place that became known as We Ain’t Coming Out! :)</p>
<p>MOWC and xiggi, you’re correct about the distance between Waco and Dallas. I should have clarified I meant “summer” internship. </p>
<p>alh, one reason the census of Baptists is lower than you expected is, some Baptists left the fold when the Southern Baptist Convention became politically dominated by fundamentalists. (The SBC used to be the equivalent of the Vatican for Baptists.) Baylor as an institution has, in fact, significantly reduced its ties to the convention. </p>
<p>So…in a small Texas town, for example, if the First Baptist Church stayed with the convention, then some moderate Christian families gravitated to the First Methodist or other dominant Protestant church in town. (Naturally, the decision often boils down to who’s got the most active youth group, takes the best mission trips or sponsors the best End Zone or similar post-Friday night football game dance, etc.) On the flip side of things, if the First Baptist Church broke with the convention ala Jimmy Carter (who famously severed ties over equality of women, but was already at odds based on his gay rights and abortion stances, among other things), then those former Baptists mostly joined or formed non-denominational Bible-based groups (as in “inerrancy of the Bible”). </p>
<p>Back to the long list of “Religious Affiliation” claimed by undergrads, I see 5,159 Baptist and 2,075 Non-Denominational. I wonder if “Non-Denominational” was defined? Normally, when I see that term in popular media, I interpret it to mean “low-key moderate Judeo-Christian.” But as discussed above, in Texas, the term can also serve as an umbrella designation to include Christians who identify as “the religious right.” I also see other categories that would benefit from definition, e.g., “Interdenominational” and “Other than listed.”</p>
<p>Not to mention categories with pretty ephemeral distinctions, such as “Anglican” and “Episcopalian”. </p>
<p>I have to say, my guess would be that in this context “Non-Denominational” means “pretty hard core”. I am not so certain what “Interdenominational” means, other than maybe Mom goes to one church and Dad to another. But maybe that’s where they put the QuaJewkers and the Juddhists. (J/k, but those are meaningfully populated categories in my corner of the world.)</p>
<p>And what about the Jewnitarians? (This was a coinage used by some of the Jewish-by-birth members of the Unitarian Universalist congregation I used to be a part of; probably not original to them.)</p>
<p>Not to split hairs, but Waco is 95 miles from Dallas and 84 miles from Fort Worth. It’s straight freeway and with the exception of Hillsboro, there’s nothing really much in between. I can make it in about an hour and ten minutes. I know many people whose daily one-way commutes from Fort Worth to Dallas are that long; however, it’s certainly not ideal especially for a college student. </p>
<p>I’m not sure anyone has brought this up, but I believe Baylor still offers about four+ guaranteed spots/year to it’s highly-ranked med school. Rice/Baylor is the bigger BS/MD program, but some are pulled annually from Baylor UG. Perhaps this might also have influenced her decision. Lots of kids turn down HYP for Northwestern’s HPME or Brown’s PLME program. </p>
<p>Although the (provisional) program does indeed exist, Baylor College of Medicine is NOT Baylor University’s medical school. Located in Houston, it has been a non-sectarian and independent institution since 1969. </p>
