Dr. Anne-Marie Schulz Baylor Interdisciplinary Core

Best wishes to you all,

BIC

2012 BIC Homecoming Events

Friday, November 2nd

2:45 p.m. Alumni Lecture: The Un-lived Life Is Not Worth Examining - Brian Jamel Dixon ‘02 Location: Bobo Spiritual Life Center (open to the public) 3:45 p.m. Dr. Pepper Hour Location: Bobo Spiritual Life Center (open to the public)

5:30p.m. BIC Faculty & Alumni Reception Location: The Wright Residence 400 Baker Lane, Waco, TX 76708

Saturday, November 3rd

TBA Tailgate-potluck sponsored by BICLC (BIC Student Leadership Council)

2012 Baylor Homecoming Events Friday, November 2nd

6-11 p.m. Bonfire

Saturday, November 3rd

TBA BU vs. University of Kansas

A Note from the Director...Hello BIC Alumni, It has been an eventful year in the life of the BIC. Our enrollment topped 600 for the first time since 2005. Our SAT scores also continue to rise. This year the average was 1304. We continue to attract minority students to the program at a slightly higher rate than Baylor overall and we also attract sig-nificantly more out of state students. We added a new full time faculty member to our ranks this year. Dr. Ivo No-vakovic joins us as a lecturer. Ivo has been teaching part time for us for several years, so many of you may remember him from World Cultures I, Biblical Heritage and Social World II. Dr. Sam Perry, a BIC alum like you, spent much of the summer revamping the World of Rhetoric course. It is meeting with rave reviews from students and faculty alike. Students start the semester read-ing Plato’s Gorgias and the Phaedrus. What a great introduction to rhetoric! We also look forward to several new Capstone courses this spring. Ivo will be offering one on the intersection of science and theology, Dean Hibbs and his wife, Stacey, will join forces to teach a capstone on citizenship. In the fall, Chuck McDaniel plans to offer a capstone that draws upon his background in economics and business. Many of you remember our office manager Theresa Williams. She has taken a new position at the Academy of Teaching and Learning, working for Dr. Le-nore Wright (Interim Director of the ATL and BIC faculty member as well). We all miss Theresa. With endings, come new beginnings and we look for-ward to welcoming a new office manager very soon. I’m starting my second term as BIC director and I’ve been meeting with each of the faculty teaching groups to hear how classes are changing and refin-ing themselves to enhance the BIC experience. We are also in the process of hiring a tenure track faculty member to join the World of Rhetoric sequence. In sum, it’s an exciting time for the BIC. We look forward to seeing you at the third annual BIC homecoming this fall.

In This Issue

““Every day I examine myself on three counts”” page 2 “Maastricht: Borderless Humanity” page 2

“BICer in the Big Apple” page 3

“A Brief History of the Yoga and Phi-losophy BIC Capstone” page 3

“Examining Life, Again: a recent alum’s expe-rience creating art in France” page 4

“Faculty Updates” page 5 “Alumni Updates” page 7

For the 2012 Spring Semester, I was honored to be apart of the Baylor-Maastricht Program, where some thirty students spend three months studying and traveling in the Old World. Unlike other study abroad opportunities, where the duration of your semester is spent close to one location, Maastricht was built to have the travel boundar-ies mostly determined by you. Every weekend was a new adventure, visiting a new corner of the world I had only dreamed of in pictures. With a total of 14 countries and over 20 cities in Europe, I was dedicat-ed to see as much as I could while I could. While Rome, London, and Munich were some physical highlights, the real journey was applying some of the concepts I was learning at the Center for European Studies back in Maas-tricht. The major reason I decided to go this se-mester was because Dr. Tom Hanks was leading and teaching. In his BIC Capstone course on WWI and WWII, we examined the mental construct of “Us and Them”. Every people group in history has had the tendency to ostracize and take advantage of those that ap-peared different. We see this in the origins of the slave trade, in the roots of imperialism, in the Great War Era propaganda, and how most American’s view the Middle East today. We are a world divided, or so I could conclude pre-WWII. In each of my European classes, a spe-cial emphasis was placed on the increasing globalization of the world. After Nazi Germany fell, the leaders of the participating countries

came together and were determined to create a more lasting peace. As a result, international institutions were put into effect that previously would have never been deemed possible. Soon after, more and more international organizations be-gan occurring, from worldwide corpora-tions to human rights activists. We began to interact more as a world rather than a country as technology in transportation and communication developed. Now, when I arrived in the Netherlands, I was a tad worried. As the stereotypical American, I never did have any connection to another people or nation besides my own. But being thrust into Holland didn’t feel like being thrown into a country, it felt like being thrown into the world, a world so much larger and more beautiful than the US. Don’t get me wrong, I love America--it is my home and, hands down, my fa-vorite country, but as I travelled, I met more and more people of vary-ing cultures and languages, even going so far as to have a conversation in Spanish with some French men in an international hostel in Croatia while traveling with a girl from Whales and a guy from Nova Scotia. This multiversity was amazing! Crossing from national boundary to national boundary in a matter of hours with Europe’s great train sys-tem broke more and more boundaries within myself in relation to other peoples. There I really could see a world without “Us” and “Them”. I could see a globe of “We”. This trip was priceless to me, it opened my eyes to how little I knew about this world, and gave me the hope of a future founded in an Earth based on human commonality rather than division. Not world peace, but world renaissance.

Maastricht: Borderless Humanity

This phrase: “wú rìsān xing wú shān” by Confucius, is something of a Chinese equivalent to “the unexamined life is not worth living.” It is an accurate summary of my time in Beijing from February-July 2012, as living in a culture so fundamentally different from my own has re-minded me of a skill I develop more every year in BIC: reflection. Reflection on this journey started with the long history of Beijing. Studying at Tsinghua University, I lived a short distance from some of the most famous places in all of China: the Forbidden City, the Temple of Heaven, and Tian’anmen, for example. All of these were places I visited often, each time appreciating more their stories and generation after generation of history. One specific, unforgettable opportunity to interact with China’s rich tradition came in early May, when I ran a half-marathon on the Great Wall. Such an occasion forced me to marvel at both the Great Wall’s grand presence as well as how 5,614 steps can quickly become very steep. Besides its incredible sites and places, one of the most amazing things about China is its food. Since February this year, I’ve eaten duck, scorpions, spiders, spices that I still regret, and possibly every type of dumpling imaginable. I spent many weekends meandering Bei-jing’s “Tea City,” talking to tea-traders about their homes in distant

provinces and what kind of teas they had brought with them. Best yet, I ate home cooked Chinese meals with Beijing friends. Without a doubt, food has been my favorite way of transcending cultural barriers. The lasting impression Beijing has left on me, however, has ulti-mately been through neither its famous places nor its delicious food, but through its people. Many of the conversations I have had with col-lege students, teachers, friends and sometimes even strangers on the subway have led me to a deeper comprehension of the complexity and diversity of Chinese culture. I find this especially appropriate when I think of the BIC, as it has always been about finding out more of who I am, what kind of world I live in, and under-standing the lives of those I share it with. For me, China has become part of an-swering all three.

By Wesley Hodges ‘14

By Jared Strickland, ‘13“Every day I examine myself on three counts”

Return To “In This Issue”

Return To “In This Issue”

v

BICer in the Big Apple

Though the city itself is immense, I can’t help but feel suffocated by the constant presence of pave-ment, towering buildings, and the never-ending stream of people. Even though technically Waco and New York City are located within the same nation there really is no way to prepare you for the culture shock. In New York they don’t just speak English, they speak every language known to man, and they don’t pause and wait to see if you have understood them. In fact they don’t pause for any-thing at all. It is not a place for the faint-hearted; it is a place for the adventurous and the curious. After just a couple days in the city my confidence problems faded away and I discovered the thrill of exploring and figuring things out for myself and learning all about the people, the history, and the art. Luckily, I had been trained through the vari-ous BIC courses to appreciate art and culture and to view it with an open mind. There are so many different parts of the city claimed by a particular culture, like the infamous China Town, which is literally across the street from Little Italy—home to the country’s greatest cannolis. I have been blessed with the privilege to expe-rience the city and all its glory with the Baylor in New York film internship program. One of the main things we do is learn about art in all if its forms. Whether it be museums filled with clas-sical and modern art, the architecture that sur-rounds the city, Broadway performances, culinary styles and influences, or graffiti. The program is an

amazing opportunity to take advantage of since it allows us to step outside of the typical classroom set-ting and experience learning and life in a whole new perspec-tive. It is one thing to learn about a culture in a book and then a

completely separate matter to experience it—all the while protected by the safety nets that are your Baylor professors. Spending a semester outside of the Baylor Bubble is an opportunity that should be seized by as many students as possible. I can hon-estly say in a very cliché way that this experience will change my life and help to prepare me for the time when that safety net is no longer there. And if that wasn’t enough of an incentive I am getting to spend my time in one of the greatest cities in the world, just soaking up the culture.

I came to yoga practice in my late twen-ties a year after I got a job at Baylor (Fall 1993). Baylor was a very different envi-ronment than any I had encountered. It was both religiously and politically more conservative than anywhere I had lived previously. I felt a bit at sea existentially. I had recently married and acquired a ten-year-old stepdaughter to help rear. I was struggling with the demands of my first job, which at that time included a 4-4 teaching load, along with expectations to publish research. I desperately needed a space to relax. My mother suggested I try yoga. She had practiced yoga in the 1970s and had recently returned to the practice. I attended my first yoga class at the old Lake Air Mall the Saturday after Thanksgiving in 1994. Every Thanksgiv-ing, I say a special prayer of Thanksgiving for the circumstances in my life that led me to yoga practice. From the beginning, yoga has changed my life. It has made me calmer, more relaxed, more focused, more present, more attentive to the demands of everyday experience and more expe-riential in my relationship with God. As a philosopher, I tend to have a rather in-tellectualized view of God, this was true even as a child. However, the experience of a good yoga class or solitary practice brings me in touch with how the Psalm-ist describes the calming effect of being in the presence of God in Psalm 23.2. Simply put, yoga helps me experience the space where I can practice God’s command of Psalm 46:10 to “be still and know that I am God.” I also started teaching in the BIC shortly after I began my career at Baylor. I started teaching Indian Philosophy and reading

The Ramayana and The Bhagavad Gita. Even-tually, I started teaching yoga locally and I started attending regional and national workshops to improve my practice. In fact, some of the first people I taught were BIC students who came to my classes at the Y for extended learning credit. In 2000, I started training in the Iyengar Yoga tradition, a method known for its rigorous commitment to physical align-ment. Eventually, I opened a small studio in Waco and taught classes to the Waco community for many years. In 2007, I re-ceived my certification in Iyengar Yoga. Two years ago, Mark Long, asked me to start teaching him yoga. I started teaching a class to him and other interested staff and faculty at Baylor. Motivated by that experience, I proposed a BIC Capstone course on Yoga and Philosophy. I am teaching it this semester for the second time. Ten students enrolled last year and this year there are fourteen. We transform the Morrison 100 space into a yoga studio, complete with sticky mats, blankets, bol-sters and yoga blocks. In this practice-based class, we explore the various ways that traditional yoga phi-losophy and asana practice has become an important aspect of self-care for millions of Americans. As such, yoga provides a concrete model of the examined life. We examine the benefits of this model over the course of the semester. In each class, we will discuss yoga philosophy for 15-20 minutes and do a yoga asana practice 50-75 minutes. You can check out the course blog with links to the student blogs on the side bar. http://bicyogacapstone2012.blogspot.com/

A Brief History of the Yoga and Philosophy BIC Capstone

By Liz Kensing ‘13

By Anne-Marie Schultz

Return To “In This Issue” Return To “In This Issue”

Even three months after my Yale Summer Seminar at the In-stitute for Studio Studies, I’m still uncertain how to label my month abroad. Perspective has not come as soon as I had hoped; although, if I have any stable perspective on the summer, it was that it challenged me. My YSS session was hosted in Auvillar, France, a beautiful city in which we were graciously welcomed and accommodated despite (for the most part) a lack of famil-iarity with the language and cultural customs of the town. As the course description puts it, the experience was “an intensive study of painting and drawing focusing on the dynamics of the artist’s studio practice of developing and constructing work… crafted for those who wish to study and experience the inti-mate process of personal idea imaging through the language of painting and drawing...” We—as fellows—lovingly called the program “art boot camp,” for a lack of a more intense yet relatable title. During the course of the month we each produced more work than I thought possible—somewhere between 400 and 500 pieces each was the final count—while also participating in group and individual observations that helped expand not only our concepts but also ex-tended our reaches technically, holding an open studio, and giving a closing presen-tation at the end of our time together. We learned to make art through the process of making art. Lots of it. And, because of the process, the feedback, the disappoint-ing times where I fell short in my work (which happened often), and the times when my work finally did reach resolution, I improved as an artist. To receive that type of improvement from the program would have been sufficient; in addition, I was taught a new way to think about myself as an artist, as a “student,” and as an individual. Though the program was extensively art based, it is technically listed under Humanities in Yale’s course catalogue. Part of the program was—or at least felt like—a mental reprogramming of what I had been taught to think of as acceptable vocabulary in my academic career. Like becoming a part of any subculture, there was a vernacular to be learned. Certain words like “stu-dent, critique, assignment, finished” and so on were labeled as projections of a “down stream” mentality that was toxic to my survival in the program (and it was implied that this was prob-

ably also detrimental to my success after the program). I was asked to replace these words—and consequently the mindset that came along with their incorporation into my mental think-ing—with an “upstream” parlance that challenged. Language was not the only cultural change we, as fellows, encountered. Additionally, my hours were changed: while I used to work 6-8 hours a day in the art room, I started working something like 15 to some days 18 hours. And, while I may have had the distraction of things like the internet and texting at home, my summer was absent of my phone, my ipod, my laptop, and anything else that may have required a plug. I was forced to adapt and learn to ac-cept the changes as real, allowing them to shape me. Then, upon returning home, I had to re-examine how those changes could be (or if they should be) re-integrated into my life. Many of us experience this same phenomenon as freshmen

when we walk into our first Cultures class and experience “college” in the BIC. There’s an internal dialogue of what’s acceptable, a dis-cussion of how we will fit into this new envi-ronment and if we will like it, and whether or not we will succeed or fail. It’s at first unnerv-ing but also exciting (and sometimes it can be awful and it stretches you too thin with dead-lines that unfortunately fall all at the same time). Being part of the BIC was good for me in this aspect of summer: while I didn’t draw from any specific experience from my time in school, I was met with the BIC’s familiar chal-lenge of stretching my world view and re-ex-amining what I had once considered right or

normal. While this process would have usually been frighten-ing, the BIC taught me to appreciate the ebbs and flows that come with learning more about the world and to accept that while change is uncomfortable and hard, that doesn’t make it a bad thing. Instead, what was once considered an awkward ex-perience becomes rewarding even when the process isn’t always fun and acceptable—even when we feel like we’ve failed. The mentality to learn and to examine one’s perspective and reshape it is not one that ends: instead we keep growing, changing, and living the examined life.

Erica Wickett graduated from the BIC with a BA Studio Art degree in May 2012.Return to ”In This Issue”

Examining Life, Again: a recent alum’s experience creating art in France

Check out Chisholm Crossing,

a new websitefeaturing the best of Waco’sDining and Entertainment (and a blog by a BIC alum)!

Planning a Homecoming

Trip to Waco?

On March 10, 2012, Lydia Bean mar-ried Norman Lee in a small, intimate ceremony in Robbins Chapel. (In case

you’re wondering, you may now call her Mrs. Dr. Bean!) Norman is a public artist from Houston and co-founder of the design company RE:sight. The couple is so happy to be to-

gether in Waco, where Norman telecom-mutes from his home office. This fall, Dr. Bean is on research leave, preparing her book manuscript, The Politics of Evangelical Identity. She can’t wait to see this book in print, so she can start her next research project on Hispanic evangelicals! In Janu-ary 2013, Dr. Bean will be back on cam-pus, eager to meet the new crop of BIC Sophomores and teach Social World II.

Candi Cann is enjoying her second year in Waco, and her daughter Maia lost her first tooth. They have expanded their family with a little kitten named Marie, who keeps Candi company while she works on her book, Alternate Afterlives, to be published by the University Press of Kentucky in early 2014. She is teaching WC1, WCV and Social World for the BIC.

Sharon Conry Natural World is con-tinuing to evolve with the addition of two new faculty members. It has been great

fun incorporat-ing the study of Neuroscience; which compli-ments all the other physical sciences. Ad-ditionally, we

have a new lab manual with exciting, practical experiments. As for me, I con-

tinue to travel to as many National Parks as I can during school breaks. This last spring I had the pleasure of hiking in Aca-dia National Park. What was so incred-ible is that the Acadia National Park is known for some of the earliest Sunrises in the United States: Cadillac Mountain. Needless to say, there is no sleeping in late when visiting Acadia National Park. Oh, but it so worth the early rise! Mark Long, Na’ib Shaykh al-BIC (assis-tant director of the BIC), traveled to Isra-el to work on setting up an exchange with Tel Aviv University for Baylor students. While there he visited Nazareth, Jeru-

salem, the Golan Heights, and Beit S h e ’ a n / B e i s a n (ancient Gilboa, where King Saul fell....also where the tree in Judas’ hanging scene in

JC Superstar is located). He completed research on an article titled, “Deterring an ‘Army Whose Men Love Death’: Dele-gitimizing al-Qaida” and submitted to In-ternational Studies. He read several great books suggested by others, to include Endo’s Silence, Duncan’s The Brothers K, and McDougall’s Born to Run. He also enjoyed water hose fights with his grandkids who were visiting from Colorado.

Chuck McDaniel is teaching Social World I and Biblical Heritage and Con-temporary Ethical Issues this fall, after a summer of research/writing on financial ethics and revisiting family roots in the quaint mountain village of Guffey, Colo-rado. He recently completed an article, “Reviving Old Debates: Austrian, Post-Keynesian, and Distributist Views of Financial Crisis” that was published in the Journal of Markets and Morality and a chapter, “The Role of Hu-man Security in the Contest Between the Egyptian Government and the Muslim Brotherhood,” for the book Religion and Human Security: Global Perspectives, which

was published by Oxford University Press. He and his wife Diane do much fall traveling to see their youngest son Austin play football for the University of Tulsa. He remains active in Habitat for Humanity, serving as a faculty advi-sor for the Baylor Habitat Student Or-ganization and also serving as a board member for the local Waco affiliate.

This semester, Ivo Novakovic is teach-ing World Cultures I, Social World I, Biblical Heritage and Contemporary Eth-ical Issues, and World Culture V (which concentrates on the transformations of the contemporary Russia and the former Soviet Republics after the dissolution of the Soviet Union). This summer he com-pleted an article about the early religious

art in his native Croa-tia (both from Eastern and Western liturgical traditions), which will be published in the Col-loquium of the Yale In-stitute of Sacred Music.

He is currently working on two larger projects that deal with the questions of religious imagination and theological ra-tionality, both of which he addresses from the interdisciplinary and transcultural perspectives. He examines the question of the inter-religious conversation (between Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism) about reason and justice. On a personal note, Ivo and his wife Lidija spent the last week of their summer break helping their daughter Andreja move from New York – where she just defended her dissertation on Hegel’s ethics – to Wil-liamsburg in Virginia, where she joined the Department of Philosophy at the Col-lege of William and Mary.

Over the last year, Sam Perry (‘03), published an essay in the Southern Com-munication Journal explaining the ways in which Douglas MacArthur figures him-self as a frontier hero and Southeast Asia as a frontier in his “Old Soldiers Never Die,” speech. He is continu-

Faculty Updates

ing to work on projects emerging from his dissertation, as well as looking at other representations of violence in protests and social movements. In the classroom, he and the other rhetoric faculty are im-plementing new curriculum in World of Rhetoric I, which focuses on primary texts and scholarly work that offer defini-tions of rhetoric and citizenship.

Lynn Tatum continues to split his time teaching WC II, Biblical Heritage, Capstone, and WC V for BIC as well as courses in the Religion Department. His primary extra-Baylor speaking engage-ments have focused on Academic Free-dom issues and the responsibility of pro-fessors to teach controversial issues (why would a belly-dancing, Baptist, religion prof who teaches on Middle Eastern is-sues be concerned about controversy?).

He has been invited to speak at several universi-ties and academic confer-ences across the nation on the issues of academic freedom. He is a past-

president of the Texas Conference of the American Association of University Pro-fessors [AAUP] and serves on the execu-tive committee of the national organiza-tion. He also serves on the board of the Baylor Alumni Association. Dr. Tatum is

also the proud father of two current BI-Cers—one a freshman and one a junior.

Xin Wang led a group of Baylor stu-dents for a five-week study abroad pro-gram in China. The students studied at Tsinghua University and travelled to-

gether on the Yang-tze River. Prof. Wang spent the rest of summer taking care of his two-year-old son Patrick. In addi-

tion, he was invited to DC by the US De-partment of Education for a grant review.

Jason Whitlark writes that this has been a year of transition for his family. His wife Jennifer has returned to teaching fourth grade and his daughter Hannah has started kindergarten. They are man-aging new schedules and new responsi-bilities and, he thinks, surviving. He was able to go to Lebanon this summer and work in an orphanage where one of our BIC graduates, Brent Hammoud, has been serving. Not only did he have a lot of fun ministering to the boys at Dar el Awlad, but he got to attend Brent’s wedding to his Lebanese wife, Ruth, held at the or-phanage. He got to participate in his first Dabke (a traditional Lebanese dance), see the oldest continuously inhabited city,

and touch the famous cedars of Lebanon (you know the ones Gilgamesh alleg-edly cut down). He continue to enjoy teaching World Cultures 1 and Biblical

Heritage and Contemporary Ethical Issues. Since Dr. Tip-pit has retired, he has been teaching Biblical Heritage with Ivo Novakovic. His re-search is presently focused on

two book projects. One is attempting to make a case for the structure of the Letter to “the Hebrews” using ancient rhetori-cal categories. The other is attempting to demonstrate how the Letter to “the Hebrews” addresses the Roman imperial context of its audience. Both are exciting and moving along steadily even if slowly. Lenore Wright continues to serve as the Interim Director of the Academy for Teaching and Learning (ATL) and As-sociate Professor of BIC & Philosophy while teaching World Cultures III in the fall semester and Feminism in the spring semester. She facilitates various faculty development programs within the ATL, including the Summer Faculty Institute (SFI) which she is privileged to co-facil-itate with Tom-Hanks. Wright’s most recent scholarly article, “Who’s Afraid of Naomi Wolf: Feminism in Post-feminist Culture,” is forthcoming in Feminism and Popular Culture (2013). She is currently working on a second book in which she analyzes the influence of mind-body dualism on early modern anatomical art, and she has also begun researching and analyzing the autobiographical elements of Simone de Beauvoir’s philosophy. She and her hus-band Henry have one son (HW), three cats (Miro, Sasha, and KK), and one ex-tremely smart rooster (Kernel). Drop by to see her in Jones Library 206 next time you’re in Waco!

Return to “In This Issue”

Alumni Updates 2000 Graduates

Omotoso “Niyi” Omoniyi (’00) MD.MPH views the BIC experience as

one of the most valuable from his time at Baylor. BIC provided an avenue through which he created eternal friendships with

both colleagues and my professors. He recently entered the world of fatherhood and has been enjoying parenting greatly. Since February 2012, he has been happily working as a pediatric hospitalist at Oakland Children’s Hospital.

Jason and Emily (Wininger) Callahan (both BIC ‘00) welcomed their son, Jennings Richard Callahan June 16, 2012 in Memphis. He joins sister, Emerson.

Laura Collins, Esq. (‘00) has accepted a position as Associate Counsel for the Board of Veterans’ Appeals at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. She has just moved to Washington, DC to work, so if you live in the area, feel free to get in touch! 202-632-5581 or lauracollins45@gmail.com.

2001 Graduates

Becky Oberg (’01) found her calling after a rocky post-graduate start. Not finding work, she dabbled in the restaurant business, and then enlisted in the Army. After being honorably discharged, she wrote an article about her experience which research unveiled was not an isolated incident. Her article was published and awarded first prize by the Society of Professional Journalists’ Best in Indiana Awards. Another article about a soldier in 2004 inspired a book, Freedom Underground, which you can find on Amazon. Ms.

Oberg wrote the forward for Desertation and the American Soldier, and in 2010 published a poem in the Journal of the American Medical Association. As an experience freelance journalist, she blogs at about borderline personality disorder at HealthyPlace.com; the blog, “More Than Borderline,” recently won a Web Health Award. Her time in BIC not only cultivated a love for learning, but taught Ms. Oberg not to accept anything at face value, and to connect various subjects, which has contributed to her success in the journalism field.

After graduation, Rob Sinclair (’01) spent 8 years working in minor league baseball doing media relations and radio play by play (the incomparable Frank Fallon taught him everything he needed to know during my years at KWBU). He worked in Idaho Falls, ID, Helena, Mt. Kinston, NC (two years), Rancho Cucamonga, CA, Myrtle Beach, SC, and Akron, OH (two years). Eight years, six cities, four time zones, two championship rings...and he couldn’t have scripted a better way to spend his 20s. In 2008 on a road trip to Bowie, MD (on his birthday weekend, no less), he had a great conversation with a lovely girl at a restaurant in downtown Annapolis after a game. that led to a phone number, which led to text messages, which led to phone calls, which led to visits, and eventually led to him moving to Annapolis to be with her. Her name is Ann, and they got married March 19th. He also retired from baseball (for the time being, anyway) and landed a job as a dispatcher with the Anne Arundel county police.

2002 Graduates

Jennifer M. Rice (‘02) and Victor H. Gabela III (Baylor BBA 2002) welcomed their daughter, Emma Isabel Gabela, on February 7, 2012. They are currently living in San Antonio.

2004 Graduates Angel Garcia (’04) married fellow BI-Cer Briana McGrathand and graduated from medical school. He has completed his residency in family medicine and is now doing a fewllowship in Sports medi-cine. He has one daughter, Kaili Alana.

Brooks Barber (‘02) is currently in the final phase of his PhD. degree at The Cath-olic University of America in Washing-ton, D.C. His dissertation will analyze the 12th century Muslim thinker al-Ghazali’s understanding of poverty as a spiritual ideal, and will then bring his thought on this subject into conversation with the medieval Christian debates about poverty that took place primarily in the Francis-can tradition. In short, he hopes to com-pare one small piece of what he sees as a shared medieval Muslim and Christian understanding of spiritual development and advancement towards God.

2005 Graduates Mimi Wiggins Perreault (‘05) is

working toward her Ph. D in journalism from the University of Missouri School of Journalism. Mimi, her husband Greg and their daughter Evangeline, 1, live in Columbia, MO. Mimi can be reached at

Mimi_Wiggins@yahoo.com.

The BIC program was the selling point for Greg Freed (’05) when he was considering colleges. While he intended to study Computer Science, the liberal arts and interdisciplinary style of learning pulled at his heart, so strongly, in fact that the made a major (literally) switch to Great Texts of the Western Tradition. While his four years of learning were so satisfactory, he graduated without a clue as to what would be next, so he ventured into publishing—any and all available proofreading and copyediting jobs. Freelance positions like this led

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later, the church expanded to include a Missions program, which they offered to Ms. Osborne to direct. She accepted, creating foreign trips to Peru, Alaska, Ghana, and in-state trips throughout LA. During her free time, Ms. Osborne returned to a play script project that she had started during her years at Baylor, turned it into a novel (with illustrations from her Baylor roommate), received a publishing contract, and Spy Recruit is now sold at Barnes and Noble. She then met her husband whom she married in December. This December, she will turn over the Missions Director position to another, to focus more on children’s ministry. Ms. Greneaux has had quite the journey and feels so grateful for the interdisciplinary education she received at Baylor, friends from the BIC, professors who became mentors and experiences that have shaped her paths.

2010 Graduates After graduating from Baylor early in

December 2009, Coley Davis Tatyrek immediately started the accelerated BSN Program at University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston. She graduated from UTMB in December, 2010, and then began

working as a Registered Nurse in the Emergency Department at Methodist West Houston Hospital. This May, she married her high school sweetheart, Justin Tatyrek, and they are happily embarking on their new life together.

Hana Manal (’10) received a Master’s in Industrial/Organizational Psychology from Western Michigan University this year and will receive an MBA in marketing and Finance in December from Benedictine University. Since graduation from Baylor and the BIC program, Ms. Manal has had an insatiable thirst for knowledge, and she considers herself a lifelong learner because of the program. The nature of the interdisciplinary education has allowed her to apply her Psychology degree and

skill set in creative ways. During graduate school, she served as project manager to a host of research studies in the traffic and pedestrian safety field, funded by the Michigan Department of Transportation. The BIC’s influence marked her success by allowing her to analyze problems more efficiently, express her opinions better, and appreciate challenges that came along the way. She is currently working at Pfizer in the Technical Learning and Capability department. She works to provide other Pfizer sites the best training materials by editing them and making them globally applicable. Return to “In This Issue”

him to A-1 Editing where he was able to help unpublished authors create more appealing packages for agents. This experience launched him into his next venture at Emerson’s Graduate Certificate in Book Publishing program, recommended via the Baylor chain of connections. Mr. Freed also received an MFA in Creative Writing to make himself more appealing to publishing companies. Temporary proofreading work at Scholastic and Penguin accompanied a move to NYC, where he found his current home of 16 months at Rosetta Books, a boutique digital publisher, as the manager for the entire supply chain from receiving manuscripts to their display at retailers.

2006 Graduates Tarra Thomas (’06) is entering her second and final year at Kellogg School

of Management. She is completing her MBA and will be starting a career in Consulting after graduating next year. Business school

has allowed her to travel more, meet awe-some people and grow personally and professionally!

2008 GraduatesErin Osborne Greneaux (’08) is living

the dream that she never even knew she had, nor wanted. As a Latin American Studies major, she had hopes (and a job offer) of moving to Guatemala to do international missions work. A trip during her senior year left her uncertain, and with a tug to stay stateside, she starting applying everywhere for missions work. Her hometown offered her a job far from what she wanted, but she moved back home and took it! She began working with the children’s ministry at East Bayou Baptist Church in Lafayette, LA, quickly jumping in with passion and advancing to “Creative Director” where she was responsible for writing curriculum, creating events and camps, and working on musicals. A year