Darden Retires as Most Awarded Professor in Baylor’s History
Darden’s impact on the journalism department and the goals he accomplished not only as a professor, but as an author and journalist, will always be remembered.
One of Baylor’s most accomplished professors, Robert F. Darden, is retiring this year after 35 years of being a part of the Baylor family.
Professor Darden is a Master Teacher and Emeritus Professor of Journalism, Public Relations & New Media. He is an award-winning teacher, researcher, and author, widely cited, quoted and interviewed on a variety of topics in the international and national media. Darden has taught a variety of classes during his time at Baylor including Intro to Mass Communication, Magazine and Feature Writing, Screenwriting, Film Writing/Criticism/Review, Reporting and Writing for Media, Writing for Media Markets, and Research Methods/Special Topics (graduate level).
He is the most awarded professor in Baylor University history, having received virtually all of the university’s teaching and research awards, including Outstanding Teacher, College of Arts & Sciences, Diversity Award (with the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program and on his own), Cornelia Marschall Smith Award for Outstanding Professor at Baylor University, and Outstanding Researcher, College of Arts & Sciences.
Nevertheless, Darden will greatly miss the connections he made with his students and the Baylor community. “What separates Baylor from everywhere else is the emphasis on individual teaching and interactions,” he said. He built strong relationships with his students and helped widen their eyes to the field of journalism. Darden enthusiastically spoke about “seeing those kids’ eyes get wide when they realize this is what they always wanted to do. They want to tell stories and there is a way to do that, and there’s a way to make a living at it.” Most of all, he will miss “being there to welcome each new generation of journalism majors… and to watch their careers go on.”
During his time as a professor, one of his favorite classes to teach was Screenwriting. This course involved analyzing movies and writing feature screenplays. Darden states that “the only way to get better at it is to watch a lot of movies and write a lot of movies. And that was a ball.” After teaching this course for 15 years, some of his students have had wonderful success in the industry and have gone on to make movies and TV series.
Aside from being an accomplished professor, he is the author of more than two-dozen books, most recently: “People Get Ready: A New History of Black Gospel Music” (Continuum/Bloomsbury, 2005), “Nothing But Love in God’s Water: Black Sacred Music from the Civil War to the Civil Rights Movement, Vol. I” (2014, Penn State University Press), “Nothing But Love in God’s Water, Volume II: Black Sacred Music from Sit-Ins to Resurrection City” (2016, Penn State University Press), and “Soon and Very Soon: The Transformative Music and Ministry of Andrae Crouch” (Oxford University Press, 2023 upcoming).
In recent years, this former newspaper journalist has been interviewed and featured by the BBC, several NPR programs (including “Fresh Air with Terri Gross”), the PBS series “The Black Church: This is My Story, This is My Song” with Dr. Henry Louis Gates Jr., and in numerous national magazines, newspapers, podcasts and webpages. His essays, features, editorials and columns have appeared in The New York Times, “The Oxford American,” “Christianity Today,” The Dallas Morning News, “Huffington Post,” and hundreds of others.
In addition to writing, Darden has a wide array of interests and hobbies including traveling, fiction, foreign films, ethnic cuisine and Black gospel music. He is also the co-founder of the Black Gospel Music Preservation Program at Baylor (BGMRP). It is the world’s largest initiative to identify, acquire, scan, digitize, catalog and make accessible America’s fast-vanishing legacy of vinyl from gospel music’s “Golden Age.” The BGMRP provides the gospel music for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African American History & Culture in Washington D.C. Another way he is involved on campus is in the band, “After Midnight,” comprising of Baylor professors for 23 years. This is a fun passion for Darden, and he hopes to continue playing music after retirement. “We play music that we love, and I want to do even more than what we’ve been doing,” he said.
Having many plans for retirement, Darden looks forward to traveling, spending time with his family and continuing his passion for writing. “I want to return to what got me interested in this whole thing 60 years ago. Creative writing and fiction novels. I’ve had a few novels published. They’re out of print many years ago, and it’s time to go back to my first love,” Darden said.