News

During a ceremonial sign unveiling, Baylor University celebrated the naming of the Moody School of Education, made possible by a transformational $30 million gift from the Moody Foundation.

More than 6,000 educators from all over Texas filled Baylor’s Foster Pavilion for this year’s Culture of Joy event, hosted by the Baylor Center for School Leadership (SCL). The annual event is designed as a professional learning experience to inspire and educate Christian school leaders in bringing joy into their schools and classrooms through feedback, engagement, and well-being. This year’s pep rally style celebration on Aug. 3 highlighted educator success and explored how joy can be central to daily practice, with inspirational messages from Baylor and school leaders as well as fun activities like the school mascot dance-off.

Baylor’s EdD in K-12 Educational Leadership has moved to a hybrid course schedule to better accommodate professional educational leaders. While the program has always included virtual and remote elements within the coursework, starting in June 2026, the class schedule will require fewer visits to the Baylor campus. 

Program director Dr. Janet Gibson, clinical assistant professor in the Department of Educational Leadership, said the change was carefully considered, with focus groups held over a year’s time that included current students, prospective students, and EdD program alumni.

Artificial intelligence is changing how students learn, teachers teach, and principals lead, according to new Baylor University research examining the experiences of award-winning school leaders. The study, published in Frontiers in Education, was led by Dr. William L. Sterrett, professor and chair of educational leadership in Baylor’s Moody School of Education; Dr. Jayson W. Richardson, professor of education at William & Mary School of Education, and Meredith A. Frey, a Ph.D. student at Baylor in P-12 educational leadership.

Moody School of Education's Baylor Center for School Leadership (BCSL) hosted Catalyze on June 1-2, gathering over 100 educators at the Hurd Welcome Center. This two-day event brought together school teams around shared adaptive challenges, leveraging collective leadership to drive lasting, measurable change. 

Catalyze is built around school-based teams working collaboratively to identify a shared adaptive challenge at the school.

The idea of hunger on a college campus — especially at a private, highly resourced university like Baylor — seems unimaginable. Yet nearly a decade of research led by Dr. Nathan Alleman, associate professor of Educational Leadership and Graduate Program Director for the Higher Education and Student Affairs (HESA) MDEd program, and his then‑students — Dr. Cara Cliburn Allen and Dr. Sarah E. Madsen — revealed a more complicated and sobering truth.

Thirty junior education majors at Baylor University’s Moody School of Education stepped beyond traditional classroom settings this month to participate in a hands-on leadership development experience at Baylor’s Eastland Lakes Team & Leadership Center. Through ropes courses and team-based activities, the future teachers explored how leadership skills can emerge through shared experiences. The experience was sponsored by Moody’s Department of Curriculum & Instruction, which partnered with Moody’s Department of Educational Leadership, and Baylor University’s Campus Recreation.

Dr. Jeffrey Petersen, professor of sport management and director of the MSEd program in sport management in Baylor’s Moody School of Education, received the Research Fellow Award from the Applied Sport Management Association (ASMA). The award recognizes “scholars who have demonstrated a commitment to ASMA and its vision, as well as distinction in sport management research and scholarly contributions to the conference and the official journal, the Journal of Applied Sport Management.”

Baylor's Moody School of Education has established a formal collaboration with Teach For America, creating new avenues for TFA educators and alumni to pursue graduate studies through Baylor’s online, hybrid, and residential programs. The agreement is one of several with educational organizations and school districts that are designed to expand access to advanced professional learning opportunities.

The Baylor Center for School Leadership (BCSL) celebrated a significant gift on Monday, Jan. 19, establishing the Dr. Linda Howard Tinsley Endowed Fund for the Baylor Center for School Leadership, which supports the long-term sustainability of Catalyze, an annual retreat experience for educator teams.

Established by alumni Jack and Linda Tinsley, the endowment will permanently support Catalyze, a signature event of the BCSL, which brings together teams of teachers and administrators to develop a plan of action using improvement science tools.

Dr. Bill Sterrett, chair of the Department of Educational Leadership, has just completed a two-year term as the co-chair of a new initiative launched by Baylor’s Office of the Provost.

Baylor University’s Chair Leadership Training initiative is an effort designed to connect and support the university’s 70+ academic leaders — primarily department chairs but also leaders in roles such as associate deans and directors. Sterrett described the group’s mission as “connecting silos” across campus academic units.

Baylor School of Education recognized nine new or soon-to-be graduates as outstanding students at the 40th annual Recognition Banquet on May 15, 2025. Students were honored for their excellence in academics and fieldwork in education programs and their readiness to impact the world. Newly added awards were given in all-level special education, ESL, gifted education, and the Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT). Read all about these impressive future teachers — Navy Casady, Kaitlyn Genzer, Samantha Jones, Will McNierney, Amy Heick, Laura Workman, Anna Garner, Ellie Ramsey, Audrey Nolen.

The newest issue of Baylor Impact newsletter (Spring 2025) is now online. If you are an SOE graduate and did not receive a newsletter in the mail, please let us know by emailing BaylorImpact@baylor.edu. This issue features exciting news about SOE programs, faculty, students, and alumni who are making a difference. The cover story, Promising Futures shares how a School of Education’s scholarship program is removing barriers associated with income so that more high-ability students can participate in Baylor TIP (Talent Identification Program) through the Baylor Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

Dr. Jeffrey Petersen, professor of sport management and program director of the MSEd in Sport Management, received the 2024 Centennial Professor Award for summer research projects and focused his project on the finances of collegiate sports through research at Notre Dame University. Petersen and sport management graduate student Rachel Hickey dug into the archives of the world’s largest collection of sport documents.

School of Education faculty Dr. Bill Sterrett, Dr. Rishi Sriram, and Dr. Sandi Cooper partnered with Baylor engineering and physics faculty to provide a 10-week summer experience for undergraduate students focused on collaborating with the Baylor Point-of-Needs Innovation (PONI) Center, Baylor’s Mayborn Museum, and regional partners.

This fall, more than 100 Texas school districts moved to a four-day school week with another 19 districts moving to a hybrid schedule, but does this move benefit students? This is a question Baylor University education expert Bill Sterrett, Ph.D., is asking as he looks at how the four-day week could potentially affect student learning, attendance, teacher retention, and cost savings. As of now, Sterrett says the data is inconclusive.

The spring issue of Baylor Impact, the newsletter of the School of Education, is now online. The cover story celebrates the 10th Anniversary of the Baylor Center for Developmental Disabilities. Updates from the SOE's Center for School Leadership and Baylor TIP are also in this issue, along with faculty, student, and program accolades. Don't miss the big news about paid internships for student teachers.

School of Education professors Dr. Jon Eckert, Dr. Erik Carter, and Dr. Kelly Johnston led discussions with graduating seniors this spring, adding to the senior job prep seminar to share how seniors can live out their faith in the classroom. A key theme was the imperative to reach and support each student individually.

A team of Baylor educators traveled to Lahore, Pakistan, to empower Pakistani women through leadership workshops and sport engagement, funded by a U.S. State Department grant. The four-day workshop in Lahore brought together educators from 10 secondary schools and four universities in the region.

Dr. Bill Sterrett and Dr. Mar Magnusen in the Department of Educational Leadership are co-principal investigators.

Gaga for Gaga Ball, a fundraising project launched by Dr. Mar Magnusen, associate professor of Sport Management, and the students taking his Athletic Fundraising and Development course at Baylor, aims to provide two gaga ball pits to Crestview Elementary School in Waco ISD.

It’s official — Dr. Mar Magnusen and his students in the MSEd Sport Management program set a Guinness World Record for the “Longest Line of Sleeping Bags” (1,203) set at Baylor's McLane Stadium on July 4. The project was designed to help homeless veterans in Texas.

The presentation was dramatic. Everyone waited anxiously in a jam-packed but hushed elementary school gymnasium in Beaumont, Texas, as the governor spoke: “A teacher who has shown excellence, who has helped you learn more, and done a great job, and this teacher’s name is Jenna Dean.” The crowd erupted with applause, and the surprised teacher walked to the front of the assembly.

Baylor professor Bill Sterrett stood behind a large check made out to Ms. Dean for $25,000. While he serves as the educational leadership department chair in Baylor’s School of Education, Sterrett is also part of a unique group of K12 educators, as a previous recipient of the Milken Educator Award, known as the “Oscars of Teaching.”

Baylor School of Education’s master’s program in Sport Management has launched a project to help homeless veterans in Texas and set a Guinness World Record at the same time. And they need help from the Baylor family and beyond.

Operation Warmth for Warriors has set a goal of providing 1,000 sleeping bags for homeless Texas veterans. Organizers have a bulk source for quality bags for $20 each. To reach their goal, they need to raise $20,000, and contributions can be made at this Baylor page:

Baylor Operation Warmth for Warriors

Dr. Mar Magnusen, associate professor of sport management in the Department of Educational Leadership, said the sleeping bag project will not only help veterans unable to find housing, but the distribution through veterans’ service providers will create a connection point for future services to veterans.