School of Music Professor Honored as Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year
Award honors Church Music Professor Randall Bradley, D.M.A., director of the Dunn Center for Christian Music Studies, for his outstanding contributions to Baylor’s learning environment
Church Music Professor Randall Bradley, D.M.A., director of the Dunn Center for Christian Music Studies, is the 2026 recipient of Baylor's Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year award.
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Randall Bradley, D.M.A., The Ben H. Williams Professor of Music and professor of church music who serves as director of the Church Music Program and the Dunn Center for Christian Music Studies in the School of Music, has been selected as Baylor University’s 2026 Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year. Provost Nancy Brickhouse, Ph.D., announced Bradley’s selection during the spring faculty meeting on Jan. 27.
The Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year Award – named after the 1918 Baylor biology graduate and highly decorated Baylor faculty member and department chair – 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 the intellectual community at Baylor.
“I am honored and overjoyed to be selected to receive the Cornelia Marschall Smith Award. I especially want to thank my colleagues at Baylor and beyond, and my former and present students who wrote letters of support on my behalf, as well as those who nominated me,” Bradley said. “Serving at Baylor for the last 26 years has been an honor and privilege for which I am most thankful. It has been my joy to teach, mentor and follow the lives of thousands of women and men for whom I have the greatest respect and appreciation. You have taught me much, and you have informed every aspect of my teaching and research. Being listed among such an august group of former award recipients is an honor for which there are no words.”
As Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year, Bradley will receive a commemorative plaque, a monetary award and the opportunity to present a lecture on a topic of his choosing during Family Weekend.
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.
“Dr. Randall Bradley is a rare faculty member. He has not only surpassed the bar in every area of faculty responsibility – research, teaching, leadership, service – but he has also been the driving force behind the creation of one of Baylor’s signature scholarly programs, the Dunn Center for Christian Music Studies and the associated Alleluia Conference,” Toten Beard said. “All the while, Dr. Bradley has been a consistent force for good in the lives of countless students and community members as the conductor of the Baylor Men’s Choir, a position he took on in 2000. As one former Men’s Choir member wrote in his letter of nomination, ‘Dr. Bradley is not only a remarkable professor and musician – he is a living example of Baylor’s mission in action.’ We are blessed with many extraordinary faculty at Baylor, but very few have had the reach and impact of Dr. Randall Bradley.”
“True embodiment of the Cornelia Marschall Smith ideal”
A member of the Baylor School of Music faculty since 2000, Bradley teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in church music and leads the Dunn Center for Christian Music Studies, which has risen as a preeminent and collaborative center of study for Christian music worldwide. Through Bradley’s vision and perseverance, the Dunn Center has been sustained by endowed support, which includes three major Lilly Endowment Inc. grants for Bradley exceeding $3.5 million and a $6 million estate gift from the late Baylor alumnus Harold Dunn for whom the Dunn Center is named.
Two of Bradley’s Lilly Endowment grants supported projects such as Baylor’s Building Bridges to the Future project that helped church congregations design, test and implement new models for nurturing the religious lives of middle and high school youth and for engaging them more fully in the congregations’ mission and ministries. Another Lilly Endowment grant funded the Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative that connected children’s worship scholars and practitioners while creating comprehensive resources to support the training of children’s leaders and nurturing of young worshipers.
A sought-after worship leader, conductor, lecturer and conference presenter, Bradley launched two of the School of Music’s enduring events for church musicians: Alleluia, a one-of-a-kind enrichment event to re-energize and inspire worship leaders, church musicians and volunteer teams, and the Hearn Innovators in Christian Music Series, which enriches Baylor’s academic and spiritual life by bringing prominent innovators and leaders in the field of Christian music to campus. A church music scholar, he also has published articles related to worship, church music and music education, as well as several books, including “Christian Worship: Its Theology and Practice” and “From Postlude to Prelude: Music Ministry’s Other Six Days,” which serve as popular resource books for ministers and textbooks at numerous seminaries and colleges.
In 2014, Bradley was instrumental in establishing doctoral programs in church music, including the D.M.A. and Ph.D., in addition to nurturing its rich academic offerings for undergraduate and master’s students. Internationally, he led the first School of Music & Missions trip to Kenya in 2005 and has led 16 student groups since then to Kenya, Malaysia, El Salvador, Argentina and Indonesia. He also serves as the longtime director of the Baylor University Men’s Choir, which recently celebrated its 25th anniversary with 300 alumni returning to Baylor for the milestone and to honor their director.
“Dr. Randall Bradley stands as a true embodiment of the Cornelia Marschall Smith ideal – a scholar, teacher and servant whose life and work have brought lasting distinction to Baylor University,” said Kevin Sanders, D.M.A., dean of the School of Music at Baylor. “Since joining Baylor in 2000, Dr. Bradley has transformed the church music program from a single‑faculty unit into a nationally recognized center of innovation and influence, from his development of doctoral programs that are among the world's most respected, to the Dunn Center for Christian Music Studies as a national model of collaboration, to his founding of Alleluia that continues to inspire hundreds of church musicians, students and faculty.
“Equally powerful is Dr. Bradley's personal influence as a teacher and mentor through his Music and Missions study abroad programs and leadership of the Baylor Men's Choir, which have shaped a generation of students in musicianship, community, faith and cross‑cultural engagement,” Sanders said. “We are thrilled for Dr. Bradley, who truly exemplifies the integration of faith, learning and leadership that defines this honor.”
Bradley is a B.M.E. graduate of Troy State University and later earned his M.M. in conducting and D.M.A. in Church Music from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
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 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 BAYLOR UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC
Celebrating more than a century of musical excellence, the Baylor University School of Music offers a comprehensive range of undergraduate and graduate programs serving approximately 350 students and presenting more than 300 performances each year, including the nationally televised production, A Baylor Christmas. Recognized for its high academic standards, the School is an accredited institutional member of the National Association of Schools of Music. In addition to its enrolled majors, the School of Music serves musical opportunities to more than 1,200 students across the Baylor campus. As part of a Christian research university, the School of Music integrates faith, artistry and scholarship – preparing students to become whole musicians and thoughtful leaders who pour into communities, elevate culture and serve the world through their art. Visit the School of Music website to learn more.