Baylor Hosts Gifted Students for Immersive Summer Camps

Contact: Kelly Craine, 254-297-9065
Follow us: @BaylorUMedia on X and LinkedIn

More than 350 K-12 students from seven states, Mexico and Colombia are on the Baylor campus this summer for enrichment courses and immersive learning experiences at summer camps through the Baylor University Talent Identification Program (TIP) in the School of Education.

Baylor TIP, a program of the Baylor Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, identifies pre-collegiate students with exceptional talent and provides them with world-class learning opportunities that match their exceptional potential. 

“As the only Christian university that hosts a Talent Identification Program for adolescent students, Baylor TIP challenges students to fully develop the academic gifts that God has given them and to use those gifts for the greater good,” said Cheryl Taliaferro, Ph.D., director of pre-collegiate programs for Baylor TIP.

In addition to the TIP residential program, the Center is hosting three other camps – a TIP Intermediate day camp, Baylor’s long-running University for Young People and as a site for Texas-based DECATS (DeBusk Enrichment Center for Academically Talented Scholars).

Immersive experience

The TIP residential camps create a truly immersive Baylor experience, with more than 160 high-ability gifted students in grades 8 through 12 getting a glimpse of what a first year in college is like – taking challenging courses, engaging with roommates and new friends, enjoying recreational facilities and experiencing campus dining. They live in a Baylor residence hall and take weeklong, intensive courses, which have expanded to two weeks, allowing students to delve more deeply into a topic of interest, including new options in psychology and engineering.

“College freshmen have to juggle a lot of demands at once – a new environment, getting along with a roommate, doing their own laundry, making friends – all while taking classes that are often significantly more challenging than any classes they have taken in the past,” Taliaferro said. “Students in our residential program get to practice all of those skills in a safe and supportive environment over shorter periods of time and with guidance from both instructional and residential staff.”

Academically, students explored a subject of their choice, attending interactive classes daily, with an evening study session available. Course topics include Anatomy, CSI, Engineering: From Calculation to Construction (two-week session), Mock Trial, Multimedia Production, PSAT/SAT Boot Camp, Psychology (two-week course), Sports Medicine and World Design and Construction. All instructors have completed graduate-level coursework in the field they are teaching or have equivalent professional experience.

In addition, Baylor TIP benefited from the expertise of Baylor alumni, faculty and staff:

• Mock trial students held their final trials in a practice courtroom of Baylor Law School.
• Engineering students toured research labs at the BRIC, meeting professors and graduate students and learning about their current work.
• Sports medicine students toured Baylor’s exercise physiology lab with Michael Wiggs, Ph.D., and the Baylor football facilities with athletic trainer Joe Smith.
• Psychology students toured Baylor’s Psychology Lab.
• Multimedia production students used Baylor’s Studio A and sound booths in the Baylor Libraries to create podcasts, short films and silent films with help from Joseph Meyer, the Libraries’ creative media manager.
• TIP students learned about Baylor’s Honors College from Dean Douglas Henry, Ph.D.

Building on history and research

Baylor has offered enrichment courses for gifted students since 1983, when the School of Education’s University for  Young People first began hosting students on campus. In 1999, these courses came under the umbrella of a center, now called Baylor Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development, and the Center began offering a scholarship program, Project Promise.

This year, the Center received a $100,000 grant from the Jack Kent Cooke Foundation to support Project Promise students, providing gifted students with demonstrated financial need with full scholarships to attend not only residential TIP but also year-round programming and personalized mentoring. In its first 25 years, the Center provided 1,300 scholarships for gifted students from Waco for summer camp, and the new grant allows the Center, for the first time, to support students from across Texas and the U.S. in all programming.

Baylor faculty and graduate students also are conducting research this summer to learn how to improve academic success in high-ability students from families with limited financial resources. Todd Kettler, Ph.D., associate professor of educational psychology and executive director of the Center, said the main outcomes Project Promise is trying to achieve are high school graduation, transition to post-secondary education and a bachelor’s degree by age 24, markers that lag for low-income students.

“While 67% of students from high-income families earn a bachelor’s by age 24, for the lowest income quartile, that number is 16%,” Kettler said. “Family income has a profound impact on educational outcomes.”

The research team is focusing on one factor known to enhance the likelihood that low-income students attain those educational outcomes – a sense of belonging. Past research has shown that Project Promise has excelled in this area, possibly through its cohort model programming. 

“Our work in Baylor TIP and Project Promise is about building student capacity academically, but also psychosocially,” Kettler said. “As students grow to believe they belong in the academic arena, they tend to build an attachment to the program and/or the university. We are trying to understand the nuanced and subtle ways that attachment and belonging occur.”

Information on Baylor TIP admissions process and programming is available on the Baylor TIP website. Baylor also hosts programs for educators and parents and offers a partnership program for schools and districts. More on those programs can be found on the website of the Center for Gifted Education and Talent Development.

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 BAYLOR SCHOOL OF EDUCATION

For more than 100 years, the School of Education has advanced Baylor’s mission across the globe while preparing students for a range of careers focused on education, leadership, and human development. With more than 65 full-time faculty members, the School’s growing research portfolio complements its long-standing commitment to excellence in teaching and student mentoring. Baylor’s undergraduate program in teacher education has earned national distinction for innovative partnerships with local schools that provide future teachers deep clinical preparation. Likewise, the School of Education’s graduate programs have attained national recognition for their exemplary preparation of research scholars, educational leaders, innovators, and clinicians. Visit the School of Education website to learn more.