Art & Art History Chair Honored as Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year

Contact: Lori Fogleman, 254-709-5959
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Heidi J. Hornik, Ph.D., professor of art history and chair of the Department of Art & Art History at Baylor University, has been selected as the 2025 Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year, announced by Provost Nancy Brickhouse, Ph.D., during the spring faculty meeting on Feb. 4. Hornik will be honored formally April 11 during Academic Convocation, which concludes the annual J. Harry and Anna Jeanes Academic Honors Week.

The Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year Award – named after the 1918 Baylor biology graduate and highly decorated Baylor faculty member – is awarded to a Baylor faculty member who makes a superlative contribution to the learning environment at Baylor. The award specifically honors:

• Teaching judged to be of the highest order of intellectual acumen and pedagogical effectiveness,
• Research recognized as outstanding by the national and/or international as well as local community of scholars, and
• Service regarded as exemplary in building the character of intellectual community at Baylor.

“I have been fortunate to be in an environment that recognizes and rewards teaching, scholarship and service – all of which have been important to me over the course of my career,” Hornik said. “I am truly honored to have been nominated by our departmental faculty nominating committee this year. They collected over 30 statements of support from my external professional colleagues and Baylor faculty, as well as former and current students. Knowing that these people wrote on my behalf to strengthen my nomination is humbling. I am very appreciative.”

As Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year, Hornik will receive a commemorative plaque, a monetary award and the opportunity to present a lecture on a topic of her choosing within the next academic year. Nominations for the award come from students, alumni and faculty, with the recipient selected by a designated committee, including DeAnna Toten Beard, Ph.D., vice provost for faculty affairs and professor of theatre history. 

“Like the namesake of this award, Dr. Hornik has made a significant impact on the learning environment at Baylor through her work as a classroom teacher, international scholar and dedicated administrator,” Toten Beard said. “And having read a good deal about the illustrious Cornelia Marschall Smith, I can say with confidence that she would have loved the chance to take a class in Renaissance Italian art from Heidi Hornik.”

An internationally known art historian and author on religion and the arts, Hornik joined the Baylor art history faculty in 1990 after receiving her B.A. from Cornell University and M.A and Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. Her broad impact across the University is evident, whether in the classroom, mentoring students, as a published author and renowned scholar in her field, as department chair and through selfless service on several University committees.

“Numerous research book publications and journal articles have garnered an international reputation for Dr. Hornik in the burgeoning field of religion and the arts, demonstrated by her frequent travels to Italy as a scholar and consultant among the world’s best in the field. She has taught admirably for decades in a department known for strong teaching and has served as advisor for numerous undergraduate theses,” said Lee C. Nordt, Ph.D., dean of the College of Arts & Sciences at Baylor. 

“She has now served as chair of the Department of Arts & Art History for four years, while somehow maintaining her commitment to excellence in the classroom and through research,” Nordt said. “And I cannot even count how many critical university committees she has served on, or led, or the number of students she has mentored. Dr. Hornik is truly a combined, departmental, university and global citizen.”

While serving as department chair, Hornik teaches advanced art history courses in Italian Renaissance, Mannerism and Baroque, as well as the Survey of Western Art. She is a published author and journal editor, undertakes research each summer in the archives, libraries and museums in Florence, Italy, and has lectured in Naples, Florence, Rome, Frankfurt, Cambridge, Oxford and throughout the United States. She also has served as a Visiting Scholar in residence at Harvard University and a Visiting Fellow at St. Edmund’s College, Cambridge University.

In addition, she has directed a dozen undergraduate theses and served on seven dissertation and master’s committees, which earned her university-wide recognition for outstanding mentoring. As chair since 2020, she expanded the learning environment in her department while facilitating faculty searches for seven tenure-track positions.

“It was critical that these new faculty invoke strong learning environments, and all have been beautifully compatible with Baylor and the Art & Art History department,” Hornik said. “Supporting faculty through tenure and promotion, continuing to bring my new research into the undergraduate classroom and to serve as is requested of me remain my goals for the future.”

Hornik’s books include Michele Tosini and the Ghirlandaio Workshop in Cinquecento Florence, the first biography on the artist, and The Art of Christian Reflection, which was the subject of her work while at Harvard. With Mikeal C. Parsons, Ph.D., she has authored three interdisciplinary books on art and theology: Illuminating Luke: The Infancy Narrative in Italian Renaissance Painting, Vol. 1; Illuminating Luke: The Public Ministry of Christ in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting, Vol. 2; and Illuminating Luke: The Passion and Resurrection Narratives in Italian Renaissance and Baroque Painting, Vol. 3. Together they co-edited a volume on Interpreting Christian Art and completed a fourth book, The Acts of the Apostles Through the Centuries in the Blackwell-Wiley Reception History Commentary on the Bible Series. 

Hornik’s most recent book is a co-edited volume with Ian Boxall and Bobbi Dykema for the Society of Biblical Literature Press, The Art of Biblical Interpretation: Visual Portrayals of Scriptural Narratives.

In 2019, Hornik was selected as Senior Editor by Oxford University Press for the Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion and Arts in the West. She serves as past President and an executive board member of the Midwest Art History Society. She also is Founding Editor and Chief of Venue, a digital peer-reviewed scholarly journal of the Midwest Art History Society. Hornik has been called on often to serve the University, including as chair of the University Tenure Committee, chair of Robert Foster Cherry Award for Great Teaching committee, a member of the University Research Committee and most recently as a member of the Strategic Planning Group that helped guide the process leading to the University’s Baylor in Deeds strategic plan.

About Dr. Cornelia Marschall Smith

The Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year honor was inaugurated in 2004 by the Office of the Provost and is named for Cornelia Marschall Smith, Ph.D., a 1918 Baylor biology graduate who earned a master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1925 and her doctorate from Johns Hopkins University in 1928.

Smith was a professor of biology at Baylor from 1940 to 1967, chair of the biology department from 1943 to 1967 and director of Strecker Museum from 1943 to 1967. She retired in 1967 but maintained an office in Armstrong Browning Library to assist charitable causes. In 1980, Baylor honored Smith with an endowed chair known as The Cornelia Marschall Smith Professorship in Biology. She was celebrated among her colleagues, students and alumni for fine teaching, generous mentoring and her many interdisciplinary interests. She was a lively and continuing contributor to the Baylor intellectual community until her death on Aug. 27, 1997, at age 101. 

ABOUT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

Baylor University is a private Christian University and a nationally ranked Research 1 institution. The University provides a vibrant campus community for more than 20,000 students by blending interdisciplinary research with an international reputation for educational excellence and a faculty commitment to teaching and scholarship. Chartered in 1845 by the Republic of Texas through the efforts of Baptist pioneers, Baylor is the oldest continually operating University in Texas. Located in Waco, Baylor welcomes students from all 50 states and more than 100 countries to study a broad range of degrees among its 12 nationally recognized academic divisions. Learn more about Baylor University at www.baylor.edu. 

ABOUT THE COLLEGE OF ARTS & SCIENCES AT BAYLOR UNIVERSITY

The College of Arts & Sciences is Baylor University’s largest academic division, consisting of 25 academic departments in the sciences, humanities, fine arts and social sciences, as well as 11 academic centers and institutes. The more than 5,000 courses taught in the College span topics from art and theatre to religion, philosophy, sociology and the natural sciences. The College’s undergraduate Unified Core Curriculum, which routinely receives top grades in national assessments, emphasizes a liberal education characterized by critical thinking, communication, civic engagement and Christian commitment. Arts & Sciences faculty conduct research around the world, and research on the undergraduate and graduate level is prevalent throughout all disciplines. Visit the College of Arts & Sciences website.