Bear Briefs

Music Professor Receives 2018 Grammy Nomination

Brian A. Schmidt, DMA, associate professor of choral music in Baylor’s School of Music, and the choir he founded, the South Dakota Chorale, are giving voice to the music of Holocaust victim Marcel Tyberg. They are receiving critical acclaim – and Grammy Award nominations – for their efforts.

Born in 1893 in Vienna, Austria, Tyberg composed symphonies, choral music and other works in the neo-Romantic style. He was arrested by the Nazi Gestapo, despite only one-sixteenth Jewish heritage, and later died at the Auschwitz death camp.

Prior to his arrest, Tyberg entrusted the manuscripts to Dr. Milan Mihich. They were later passed to Mihich’s son, Enrico, who sought ways to bring the work to light. Over the last 10 years, some of Tyberg’s orchestral, chamber and piano works have gained a following, but his sacred compositions – two Catholic masses – remained unexplored until a colleague brought them to Schmidt’s attention.

“I’ve always been interested in giving voice to unsung heroes of the past and present,” Schmidt said. “I like performing the music of composers who are rarely heard or unknown, but Tyberg’s story and music felt more like a calling.”

In addition to Schmidt’s and the South Dakota Chorale’s Grammy nomination for Best Choral Performance, the Tyberg: Masses album was nominated in the Best Engineered Album–Classical (with Boston-based Sound Mirror), Best Surround Sound Album and Producer of the Year–Classical categories.

Provost Search Committee Begins Work

Membership of the Baylor Provost Search Committee has been finalized and the committee is set to begin work. Dr. Charles Weaver, chair of psychology and neuroscience in the College of Arts and Sciences, and Dr. Cindy Riemenschneider, professor of information systems and associate dean in the Hankamer School of Business, will serve as committee co-chairs. The 22-member group, will include faculty representatives from each College/School, two members of the Faculty Senate, two staff representatives, one undergraduate and one graduate student.

The search committee will solicit candidate names from both internal and external sources and review a broad and diverse pool of candidates for this vital leadership position. President Linda A. Livingstone, PhD has noted, “Our hope is to conclude the Provost search by the end of the spring semester.”

Rising Stars Fellows Announced

Each fall, Baylor’s Office of the Vice Provost for Research selects early-career faculty members for an intensive mentorship experience that helps put them on the fast track toward an independent, externally funded research program. Participants meet regularly with their peers and former Rising Stars to discuss their research and share best practices for navigating the highly competitive funding environment. They also have the chance to travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with program officers and advocate for their important work.

The 2017-2018 Rising Stars Fellows and their academic units are as follows:

Matthew Andersson, Department of Sociology, College of Arts and Sciences
Ashley Barrett, Department of Communication, College of Arts and Sciences
Erik Blair, Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Computer Science
Stephanie Boddie, Social Work, Diana R. Garland School of Social Work
Corneliu Bolbocean, Economics, Hankamer School of Business
Tomas Cerny, Computer Science, School of Engineering and Computer Science
Elesha Coffman, History, College of Arts and Sciences
James Fulton, Department of Geosciences, College of Arts and Sciences
LesLee Funderburk, Family and Consumer Sciences, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences
Stephanie Gerow, Department of Educational Psychology, School of Education
Debra Harris, Family and Consumer Sciences, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences
Chloe Honum, Department of English, College of Arts and Sciences
Monique Ingalls, Academic Studies, School of Music
Seung Kim, Electrical and Computer Engineering, School of Engineering and Computer Science
Sunghwan Lee, Mechanical Engineering, School of Engineering and Computer Science
Kevin Magill, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, School of Education
Eric Martin, Great Texts, Honors College
Ashley Otto, Marketing, Hankamer School of Business
Jani Parsons, Keyboard Studies, School of Music
Jason Pitts, Department of Biology, College of Arts and Sciences
Matthew Quade, Management, Hankamer School of Business
Stacy Ryan, Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, College of Arts and Sciences
Alan Schultz, Department of Anthropology, College of Arts and Sciences
Emily Smith, Health, Human Performance and Recreation, Robbins College of Health and Human Sciences

Learn more about the 2017-2018 and prior year Rising Stars at: baylor.edu/research/rising-stars.

Baylor Author and Professor of History Wins 2017 Lilly Fellows Program Book Award

Andrea L. Turpin, PhD, associate professor of history in the College of Arts and Sciences, won the 2017 Lilly Fellows Program Book Award for her book “A New Moral Vision: Gender, Religion, and the Changing Purposes of American Higher Education.”

This biennial award honors an original work that exemplifies the principles of faith and learning in the Christian intellectual tradition, the vocation of teaching and scholarship, or the history, theory or practice of the university as the site of religious inquiry and culture.

“A New Moral Vision” examines the role of women as they entered United States colleges and universities and how their presence and engagement has shaped the changing ideas about the moral and religious purposes of higher education. In writing this book, Turpin has drawn on extensive research from a multitude of colleges and universities. The book finds its argument at the crossroads of gender ideals, religious beliefs, educational theories and social change.

“It recovers the voices of female educators who contributed to debates over the role of religion, and it also asks how the new presence of women in higher education affected changing ideas about the moral purposes of men’s education as well as women’s,” Turpin said. 

Doctoral Student Selected as 2018 Congressional Science Fellow

Zack Valdez, a current doctoral candidate, has been selected as a 2018 Congressional Science Fellow as part of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Science and Technology Policy Fellowships. Valdez’s fellowship is sponsored by the American Society of Agronomy (ASA), Crop Science Society of America (CSSA) and Soil Science Society of America (SSSA).

“I am grateful for this opportunity and hope to learn more about the legislative process involved in energy production and policy, natural resource and climate risk management, sustainable development and STEM education,” said Valdez, who will serve as science adviser on public policy for the U.S. Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

He also was awarded the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship in 2012 for his PhD research at Baylor, which focused on the impacts of agricultural management practices on soil organic matter quantity and quality in biofuel crops.