Q&A with the Chair: Dr. James Kendrick

Can you tell us a little bit about your background and what brought you to Baylor?

“I grew up coming to Baylor as a kid because both of my parents went to Baylor, both my parents are Baylor grads. My dads originally from Waco, so I came up to Baylor Homecoming a lot when I was a kid. It was always a school that I had in the back of my mind when I was thinking about going to school. I applied to some other universities and looked at other schools and decided that I wanted to come here as an undergrad … When I went off to graduate school, I always had the idea that, man, I would love to come back and teach at Baylor. But I know that in academia, you don't always get to choose where you go, you have to go where the job is. And so, I sort of put it out of my mind that that was actually going to happen. I was like, ‘That would be great if it worked out.’ And then, as it turned out, the year that I was doing my dissertation, a job opening for a tenure-track professor came up in what was then the Department of Telecommunications and then turned into the Department of Film and Digital Media. And it was exactly the stuff that I do… It was just sort of a perfect, perfect fit. I applied for it, and lo and behold, they gave it to me. I've been here for 20 years now.”

What inspired you to pursue a career in film and media?

“I always loved movies, and I was always the guy who took them more seriously than everybody else. Especially when I was in college. I was an English major, originally, in college. My original goal was I was going to be the next great American novelist, but I loved movies, I loved reading about movies … I always wanted to be a writer, and so that's why I actually pursued a master's degree here at Baylor in journalism because I thought I wanted to have a job writing … But then, throughout my whole master's degree, I kept writing about film. I kept taking all these journalism classes and producing research papers on film, and that was really kind of, I think, then the light bulb when I was like, this is what, this is what I want to do … So, then I ended up applying to PhD programs in film and media studies. … Further connection with the journalism department here is that really my real start in writing was writing movie reviews for The Lariat … And what was a real thrill was writing movie reviews and seeing them published, people reading them and talking to me about them, and things like that.”

What excites you most about working with Baylor students?

“You know, I've been a Baylor student, and I've been working with them for 20 years, and I've generally found that Baylor students are incredibly open. They love learning, they love talking about different ideas. You know, they'll come in, they'll have strong opinions, and that's great, and that's what they should, but they're always willing to think things through from another perspective, and that's the dynamic I love in the classroom. I love just sitting down and having a topic that we're talking about and just diving into it, and not necessarily having an agenda or an endpoint that we know we're going to get to, but rather just how can we think about this? What challenges us about this? How can we rethink it? Things like that.”

As Interim Chair of the department, what are some goals or priorities you have for this academic year?

“Well, you know, yeah, coming in as interim chair, my main job is just to keep the department moving forward. And there are so many great faculty members in this department, and there's been great leadership in the past. And, you know, it's doing amazing things … I think at this point, the idea is that this department advances the most as possible for students and all the staff. So, yeah, I think what we want most is the students to get all the knowledge from us, professors, and do the best for what's outside the world … When you have a department with great faculty, the best thing you do is just let them do what they do, because they were hired because they were great scholars and great teachers … And you just enable them to do what they do.”

What advice would you give to students pursuing careers in journalism, PR or digital media?

“I would say for students who want to get into the media industry, the classroom is great, and you should be in the classroom, but you need to be out in the field as well – internships, jobs, experience … Get out and do the thing that you want to do. Learn about it in the classroom but find ways to do it as well.”

Is there a fun fact about yourself that most students might not know?

“Well, when I was saying that, you know, my roots with Baylor run deep; they actually run a lot deeper than just my parents going here. My dad's family actually moved to Waco in the 1890s, my great-grandfather, because he wanted his daughters to go to Baylor, which at the time was not a common thing. And he wanted his sons to go to A&M, which is what happened. So, they actually moved here, and they built a house in 1904 that's still standing on Kendrick Lane, well, if you've ever been over in that area, next to Kendrick Elementary and Kendrick Baptist Church … And so, my grand aunts used to ride their horses to Baylor. So that's how long and deep my roots in this university go.”

Is there anything that you want to tell the students as they're getting ready for complications, not sleeping and studying? 

“One of the things I emphasize, because I used to actually teach the new student experience course for film and digital media, and one of the things I was always telling those freshmen is to make use of the resources on campus. One of the things Baylor does so incredibly well is that they build in so many resources for students, things like the Writing Center, Career Resources Center. There are so many offices and people who are here because, sometimes I think college students, especially when they're first and they're having a hard class, they sort of feel like we're trying to defeat them. But no, we want you to succeed, we want our students to be wildly successful, we want everybody to make A’s, we want them all to go get great jobs and we want to enable that. I think the university does a fantastic job of putting together all kinds of resources that students can utilize. So, if you're struggling in an area, there is a resource out there for you. You just need to ask the question to find it."

*These responses have been edited for clarity and brevity.