Baylor University

The Graduate School at Baylor University serves students in over a hundred programs across the humanities, arts, and sciences with resources designed to holistically support their academic and professional development.  Graduate students are a key part of Baylor’s scholarly and research community, producing nearly 800 professional presentations and over 600 research articles per year. Their work is supported by a wide range of programs and opportunities within their departments and across campus. The Graduate School provides generous travel grants to help students present at professional conferences and conduct dissertation research. Baylor’s Graduate Research Center offers a place within our central libraries specifically designed for graduate students. Our Graduate Writing Center and Dissertation Writing Lab help with the variety of writing tasks students undertake. And the Graduate School provides a select number of summer dissertation fellowships for students in the final stages of their doctoral degree.

Baylor alumni pursue a wide range of careers. More than 50% of PhD graduates over the past five years are in full-time faculty roles, with another 20% in post-doctoral positions. The remaining 30% serve full-time in industry, government, K-12 education, clinical practice, and the social sector. The Graduate School’s professional development programs meet this variety by helping students prepare for a wide range of career paths. Our GPS and TeaCHE programs assist those planning for an academic career. We collaborate with our Office of Career and Professional Development to help those pursuing work outside the academy. For international students who are non-native English speakers, we coordinate with Baylor’s Center for Global Engagement to provide English language support.

Baylor University’s academic strategic plan, Illuminate, includes a goal of reaching R1 status in the Carnegie research rankings.  To reach this goal we will need to increase the number of research doctoral graduates, research expenditures, and research staff.  The Graduate School will be one of the primary engines in achieving each of these goals.  Illuminate targets faculty appointments and research centers working toward five signature academic initiatives: Health; Data Sciences; Materials Science; Human Flourishing, Leadership and Ethics; and Latin America.  Our graduate students will be crucial to the success of each of these initiatives.