Baylor University has received a $3 million gift that will help undergraduate honors students study about the intersection of faith and learning in higher education.
The gift from Jim and Sharon Harrod of Horseshoe Bay, Texas, will establish an endowed faculty chair position “to support exceptional scholarship and transformational learning within the Honors College and the study of great thinkers who have stood at the intersection of the Christian faith and culture at large,” a Baylor statement explained.
The Honors College connects four interdisciplinary programs — the Honors Program, University Scholars, Baylor Interdisciplinary Core and Great Texts. Undergraduate students in the program are encouraged, for example, to investigate the writings of scientists along with the writings of poets, historians and philosophers.
“Baylor is committed to an unambiguously Christian approach to higher education, where faculty take inspiration from the great Christian thinkers of our time to lead our students to think more deeply about their world and how their faith informs and shapes their approach to life, to family and to vocation,” said President Linda A. Livingstone. “For Baylor to lead and participate in national and international conversations about this intersection of faith and knowledge, we must recruit nationally renowned faculty and resource them to engage in this compelling research.”
Thus, the Jim and Sharon Harrod Endowed Chair of Christian Thought will bring to campus “a distinguished Christian scholar who will promote deep study of the relationship between faith and knowledge, while fostering rich avenues for transformational learning among Baylor’s students within the Honors College,” the university statement said.
The Harrods quoted C.S. Lewis to explain why this program is important to them: “An appetite for knowledge and beauty exists in the human mind and God makes no appetite in vain. We can therefore pursue knowledge as such, and beauty as such, in the sure confidence that by doing so we are either advancing to the vision of God ourselves or indirectly helping others to do so.”
Neither Jim nor Sharon Harrod graduated from Baylor, although their two daughters and one son-in-law did and now a grandson is enrolled at Baylor. Jim Harrod is a U.S. Navy veteran who later became an early part of the financial services firm Edward Jones. The couple now is retired.
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