Elisabeth R. Kincaid has been named director of the Institute for Faith and Learning at Baylor University, succeeding Darin Davis, who led the program from 2007 to 2023.
The Institute for Faith and Learning was founded in 1997 to promote the university’s mission of integrating academic excellence in research and teaching with deep Christian commitment. The institute sponsors conferences, mentors students and encourages teaching that is faithful to the Christian intellectual tradition.
Elisabeth R. Kincaid
Kincaid also will serve as associate professor of ethics, faith and culture in Baylor’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary and as an affiliate faculty member in the Department of Management in the Hankamer School of Business.
A native Texan, Kincaid is a theologian, lawyer and business ethics scholar, with experience in finance and campus ministry. She currently holds the Legendre-Soule Chair in Ethics at the College of Business in Loyola University New Orleans, where she also serves as the inaugural director of the Center for Ethics and Economic Justice.
She earned a bachelor of arts degree from Rice University and a law degree from the University of Texas School of Law. She practiced law with Haynes and Boone LLP and then worked in private equity. Upon discerning a call to return to the university campus to help students explore integrating Christian faith and work, she started Intervarsity Christian Fellowship Graduate and Faculty Ministries at Southern Methodist University and earned a master of theological studies degree at Perkins School of Theology, where she focused her thesis on the legal philosophy of the Christian philosopher Basil Mitchell. She then earned a Ph.D. from the University of Notre Dame, where she continued her interdisciplinary research in theology, law and business.
Her work at Baylor will include overseeing the institute’s annual Baylor Symposium on Faith and Culture and the Crane Scholars Program, as well as guiding the institute’s program of faculty formation experiences (seminars, reading groups and retreats) and contribute to the development of new initiatives for faculty spiritual well-being.
“I’ve watched with great admiration as Baylor has combined tremendous growth with continuing its commitment to its Christian identity and Baptist heritage,” Kincaid said. “The IFL’s integration of faith across academic disciplines has inspired much of my own administrative vision and especially my own interdisciplinary research. I’m thrilled and honored to serve as a leader in the next phase of the IFL’s service across the Baylor campus.”