Texas Tidbits

Posted: 12/15/06

Texas Tidbits

Baylor receives grant for lupus research. Baylor Research Institute—an affiliate of the Baylor Health Care System—has received a $6.2 million grant that will allow its immunology division to establish a Center for Lupus Research. The grant comes from the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases. According to the Lupus Foundation of America, about 1.5 million Americans have a form of lupus—90 percent of them women. 

Academy alumni support Gridiron Heroes. Representatives of the San Marcos Academy class of 1976 presented a $1,976 donation to Gridiron Heroes, a Texas-based support and outreach service organization that offers services to young athletes and their families affected by spinal-cord injuries. Eddie Canales founded Gridiron Heroes after his son Chris suffered life-threatening spinal cord injuries in a football game. Both the father and son are San Marcos Academy graduates.

BUA prof joins dialogue with Catholics. Nora Lozano, associate professor of theological studies at Baptist University of the Americas in San Antonio, participated in the first of a series of Baptist/Catholic theological dialogues as part of a Baptist World Alliance team. The dialogue took place Dec. 10-15 at Beeson Divinity School in Birmingham, Ala. BWA General Secretary Denton Lotz and Paul Fiddes, principal of Regents Park College of Oxford University and chairman of the BWA commission on doctrine and inter-church cooperation, led the Baptist team. The BWA General Council in Mexico City this past July approved holding theological conversations with the Vatican. The BWA team is drawn from the six continental federations of Africa, Asia, the Caribbean, Latin America, Europe and North America, and includes special observers. Topics of discussion—slated to continue through 2010—include the authority of Christ in Scripture and tradition, baptism and the Lord’s Supper, and hearing God’s word in the contemporary context.

DBU pays employees to lose. More than 100 Dallas Baptist University employees joined the school’s wellness program this semester, and about half of them weighed in with the campus nurse in hopes of earning a $100 bonus for losing at least 10 pounds. Engaging in a minimum of 30 continuous minutes a day of aerobic exercise or weight training five days a week qualifies participants to earn an additional $100 reward each semester. “The wellness program has been going on for 17 years, but when we added the financial bonus in the summer of 2003, more people started becoming interested,” explained the program’s director, Vivian Castleberry. Even though the cash awards cost the school thousands of dollars a year, the wellness program has saved DBU more because expensive insurance claims have dropped, said Eric Bruntmyer, vice president for financial affairs.

Correction: In the Dec. 4 “Texas Tidbits” column, an item titled “BUA names search committee” incorrectly identified Alfonso Flores. Flores, who was named to the BUA council of advisers, is pastor of First Mexican Baptist Church in San Antonio, not Houston as stated in the print version of that article. Our onlune version has been corrected.