Robbins Healthcare Alumni Newsletter - Fall 2026
Event Updates and Information from Baylor University’s Robbins MBA in Healthcare Administration and Dallas EMBA Healthcare Administration Concentration
Executive Director Remarks
Forest Kim, PhD, FACHE
Welcome to the fall edition of the Robbins Healthcare MBA alumni newsletter. We are pleased to share news from our residential and professional EMBA programs.
Rural Health Mission Trip Makes the Front Page!
Faculty and students from the Robbins Healthcare MBA, School of Nursing, School of Arts & Sciences and Honors College traveled to Knoxville, Tennessee; Clairfield, Tennessee; Jellico, Tennessee; and Williamsburg, Kentucky, for the Institute’s first mission trip. The trip was a resounding success – so much so that it made the front page of the local paper!
In addition to presenting the results of our consulting projects to Interfaith Health Center and Dayspring Health Center, our team made a meaningful impact through simple acts of service: working in a community garden, greeting soon‑to‑be mothers at a community baby shower, and hosting a table at a senior bingo lunch. Yet perhaps our greatest contribution was the ministry of presence. That 14 students and seven faculty and spouses would travel to Appalachia to witness how God is at work through so many dedicated men and women – and to hear their stories – meant more than we could have imagined. In the words of one Dayspring staff member:
"Your presence encouraged our team, strengthened our mission, and reminded us that when we serve together for His glory, lives are touched in ways we may never fully know."
More than our impact on those we served, the trip shaped each student, faculty member and spouse in profound ways. After hearing the testimony of a physician assistant who has served the same community in Clairfield for more than 30 years, one student shared, “I saw myself in her. That’s me in 30 years.” Another student, who had limited exposure to the Christian faith prior to the trip, prayed for the first time – and saw that prayer answered in a powerful way the next morning. A nursing faculty member expressed a desire to return to the region, sharing that she had developed a “deep appreciation for both the community and the ministry’s work taking place there.” One spouse returned home motivated to serve her local community, while another felt stirred to focus the next stage of her professional life on caring for underserved populations.
Beyond these stories, I am excited about the long‑term fruit this trip will yield as God waters the seeds that were planted. As the first of our mission trips, we look forward to many more. Thank you to all who prayed for and supported this effort. We especially acknowledge Mary Jo Robbins for her generous financial gift that made this trip possible.
Strategic Planning Yields Assessment and Goals
During the summer, the Robbins Institute faculty and staff engaged in a strategic planning meeting to conduct an environmental assessment and identify goals for the upcoming academic year. The team produced a SWOT analysis noting several strengths, including Baylor’s Christian mission, strong finance skills among our students, robust residency and job placements, and extensive experiential learning opportunities woven throughout our curriculum.
The most notable weakness – and threat – identified was funding and the need for increased endowment support. Opportunities include new program growth through the launch of our online MBA healthcare leadership concentration and the proposed physician executive MBA. The faculty and staff also recommended launching an annual preceptor and educational conference in the spring.
The Robbins Institute faculty and staff developed three goals and one stretch goal for the coming academic year that align with key factors in the SWOT analysis:
Incorporate a 4‑credit hour healthcare practicum that spans the entire first year of the residential program’s curriculum [aligns with experiential learning strength]
Increase the Robbins Institute endowment by $500K [addresses funding weakness and threat]
Launch the online MBA healthcare leadership concentration and submit the physician executive MBA program for the Provost’s Incubator Fund [meets new programming opportunity]
Launch a spring preceptor and educational conference [stretch goal aligned with opportunity]
We look forward to discussing these goals with our advisors, students, and alumni in the coming days.
Launch of Online MBA Healthcare Leadership Certificate
I’m excited to share the Robbins Institute’s latest educational offering: an online MBA Healthcare Leadership Certificate. The certificate will be offered both as a stand‑alone credential and as an embedded concentration within the Online MBA (OMBA). The concentration will consist of four courses: US Healthcare Systems, Healthcare Strategy and Innovation, Healthcare Operations, Management and Finance, and Leading with Integrity.
The certificate is designed for working healthcare professionals seeking advancement into administrative or leadership roles, as well as professionals outside healthcare who want foundational knowledge to transition into the healthcare sector. You can learn more about the OMBA Healthcare Leadership Certificate in the article in this newsletter or by visiting our website.
As always, thank you for your ongoing support of the Robbins Institute. We’d love to hear from you. Please don’t hesitate to reach out to us with any questions or suggestions.
Best,
Forest
Read More Here
Welcoming New Leaders, Strengthening Connections and Exploring Innovation
As we begin a new academic year, the MBA in Dallas program EMcontinues its commitment to developing healthcare leaders who combine strong business acumen, innovative thinking and values-based leadership. This month, we welcomed our newest cohort of students, hosted a successful regional healthcare leadership event and look forward to an exciting residency experience focused on innovation and corporate entrepreneurship.
Welcome, Class of 2028!
On Aug. 24, we proudly welcomed the newest members of the Baylor Healthcare Administration MBA program during orientation activities for incoming students and the broader Baylor cohort.
Uzochukwu Ibe, MD
Interventional Cardiologist
CompHealth
Lara Spalding
Associate Vice President, Product
Premise Health
Our newest students bring diverse professional experiences from across healthcare, but they share a common purpose: growing as leaders who can serve and strengthen the organizations and communities they impact.
We are excited to welcome these future healthcare executives to the Baylor family.
Their journey begins in a community committed to growth, mentorship and lifelong learning, values that were also on display at a recent healthcare leadership event.
Building Healthcare Leadership Through Mentorship
Earlier this month, the Baylor Healthcare Administration MBA program was proud to host the North Texas ACHE Mentorship Mid-Year Event: Round Robin at the Baylor Louise Herrington School of Nursing. The event brought together healthcare executives, mentors, mentees, students, alumni and emerging leaders from across North Texas for an evening of meaningful conversation and professional development. Through a structured round-robin networking format, participants engaged directly with experienced healthcare leaders, discussing career development, leadership challenges, industry trends and opportunities for growth. As a proud supporter of ACHE, Baylor values opportunities that connect students and alumni with one of the healthcare industry's premier professional organizations.
Just as mentorship plays a critical role in leadership development, experiential learning remains a cornerstone of the Baylor Healthcare Administration MBA experience.
Baylor in Texas Residency: Looking Ahead
This fall, students will participate in the Baylor in Texas Residency, an immersive learning experience focused on innovation and corporate entrepreneurship. Planned visits include Tesla and AlertMedia, where students will examine how organizations drive innovation, operational excellence, resilience and leadership.
These experiences provide valuable perspectives on how organizations foster innovation, respond to disruption, and build cultures that encourage creative problem-solving.
The Baylor Difference
Through a curriculum that integrates healthcare operations, economics, finance, policy, technology, analytics and leadership, the Baylor Healthcare Administration MBA prepares leaders to navigate both the challenges and opportunities shaping healthcare today.
As we welcome a new class and continue engaging with healthcare leaders across Texas, we remain grateful for our alumni community whose leadership and accomplishments exemplify Baylor’s mission of advancing healthcare through excellence, integrity and service. Sic 'Em Bears!
A call to our alumni: Help shape the future of healthcare leadership
As a Baylor Healthcare MBA alumnus, you understand the value of this transformational journey.
You’ve experienced this transformation firsthand. Now, you can help others begin that journey to develop leaders who will shape the future of healthcare.
For further information, please contact Eric Hayes, associate director, Graduate Enrollment at Eric_Hayes1@baylor.edu or complete our MBA candidate online referral form.
Director's Remarks
Dan Woods, EdD, RN, MHA, FACHE, CPHQ, NE-BC
Dual Degree MBA/MPH
We are pleased to share a new pathway for our students: a dual degree that pairs the Healthcare MBA with the Master of Public Health degree (MBA/MPH). Students earn both degrees in three years after completing 82 credit hours, with 18 hours counting toward both programs – an efficiency that lets them add population health, epidemiology and health policy coursework without extending their time to graduation. The nine-month executive residency remains fully intact, so our preceptor sites will continue to receive residents on the same timeline and with the same level of preparation, now with added depth in community and population health. Admission requires acceptance by both programs, and dual-degree students receive 50 percent tuition remission. The Healthcare MBA Program remains the academic home for these students, so there are no changes to advising, residency placement or the cohort experience our stakeholders know. As health systems take on more accountability for the health of the populations they serve, we believe graduates who can speak both the language of the balance sheet and the language of community health will be especially well-positioned to lead.
New Residency Locations
This year we are pleased to report 15 residents placed with health systems across the country. Alongside the longstanding relationships that continue to anchor our program, we are glad to welcome four new residency sites: St. Vincent Hospital in Worcester, Massachusetts; Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers, Arkansas; Cook Children’s Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas; and University of Michigan Health in Lansing, Michigan. Every one of these placements represents a health system willing to invest its time and talent in a student’s development, and that generosity is what makes the residency the defining experience of our program. To our preceptors, mentors and site leaders, both new partners and those who have hosted residents for years, thank you. Our graduates carry your influence into every organization they go on to lead.
Brad Holland – The Business of Medicine
When Bradford Holland, MD, FACS, MBA ’25, decided to run for president of the Texas Medical Association (TMA), he took stock of his business training and came up with exactly one item: a macroeconomics course from 1991.
“That was the entirety of the business training that I had for that role,” Holland said.
He has been leading TMA as its president since April 2026, following a year as president-elect and four years as speaker of the House of Delegates.
Holland is also an otolaryngologist, a head and neck surgeon, a Fellow of the American College of Surgeons and an attending surgeon at Coryell Ear, Nose & Throat, with a decade of clinical faculty service in Baylor’s Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders.
He could handle the policy. He could handle the public health. What he wanted was fluency in the part of healthcare that had become, as he put it, one of the biggest challenges facing the field.
“The business of medicine was becoming certainly one of the biggest challenges to healthcare and medicine, and understanding that was really my goal,” he said. “I thought the Baylor MBA in Dallas for Executives and Professionals, specializing in Healthcare Administration, would be the best route to educate myself on that aspect I felt I was lacking. And I was right.”
Holland has no trouble naming what skills transferred immediately from the classroom to his desk. The trouble is narrowing it down. The first was health insurance, where understanding the mechanics of the industry proved extremely beneficial. The second was marketing, less obvious for a surgeon but essential for someone now leading a statewide organization of roughly 61,000 physicians and medical students. The third was accounting, from balance sheets to the flow and flux of the numbers to financial modeling.
“Three very tangible examples that I needed really right away,” he said.
The business focus never displaced the clinical one.
“I’ve always had a good appreciation for the patient side of things," he said.
What the MBA added was a view of how major institutions see the changes reshaping care.
The learning didn’t all come from the front of the room. Sitting elbow to elbow with leaders from across the delivery system gave him that view from the inside.
"It was as much learning from the professors and faculty as being in a cohort of folks representing a wide swath of healthcare and different perspectives," he said.
The people were a large part of the appeal; the professors and the classmates alike. He never wanted an online program. The value was in the room, and in Dallas the cohort met face to face.
Holland would put both the faculty and the classmates up against any other institution teaching an Executive MBA.
“These are professors who have been out in industry, but they’re outstanding teachers too," he said. “And the quality of students that Baylor attracts makes it all a top-notch program."
Holland started the program already valuing servant leadership and Christian leadership. What he hadn’t done was study them.
“We hear it a lot, but to actually study it in an academic setting and to see what that looks like and have examples, that was very meaningful to me,” he said. "That’s the kind of leadership I think we should have. And if you talk about both servant leadership as well as Christian leadership, nobody does that better than Baylor.”
Today the payoff shows up most clearly across the table from state legislators.
“The economics of healthcare are what are driving everything, and the economics are killing us right now," Holland said.
He says having an educated basis behind that argument changes the conversation, and so do the credentials that come with it.
“People really do listen more attentively and understand that perspective with a greater appreciation," he said.
Holland’s advice for anyone on the fence comes out of his own hesitation, which was the time commitment. He wasn’t sure he could give up a weekend a month on a surgeon’s schedule.
“There’s never a time when it feels exactly right," he said. “Sometimes you have to take a little bit of a launch. It’s reasonable to have those hesitations. Can you afford the time? Is it going to pay off? I had those hesitations too. I can say not only that it paid off, but I would have regretted not making that commitment, not meeting those people and not having those classes."
By the end, he didn’t want it to be over.
“They was some of the best times I have ever spent," he said. “You can’t really do much in healthcare to make a difference unless you understand the economics. And I’m very pleased to have spent time doing so.”
We want to know you! Email Katherine_Swain1@alumni.baylor.edu to share your story and be featured here among fellow alumni.
Healthcare organizations need leaders who can navigate complexity, lead with integrity and drive meaningful change. That’s why we’re excited to announce the launch of the Healthcare Leadership concentration within the Baylor Online MBA.
Designed for working professionals, the new concentration combines Baylor’s rigorous business education with specialized coursework in healthcare strategy, healthcare operations, healthcare systems, innovation and leadership. Students will develop the skills needed to lead teams, improve organizational performance and make a lasting impact across today’s evolving healthcare landscape.
Grounded in Baylor’s commitment to servant leadership, the concentration prepares professionals for roles such as healthcare administrator, healthcare operations manager, healthcare consultant and director of healthcare services. Students who complete the concentration will also earn a Healthcare Leadership Certificate and a digital credential that can be shared across professional platforms.
As members of the Baylor healthcare community, you understand the importance of developing the next generation of healthcare leaders. If you know a colleague, team member or healthcare professional who could benefit from advancing their leadership and business expertise, we invite you to share this exciting new opportunity with them.
We continue to make progress on our fundraising efforts for the Robbins Institute. The goals of the endowment campaign are to:
- Ensure the development of future generations of Robbins Healthcare MBA administrative and clinical servant-leaders
- Create the foundation for a Department of Healthcare Administration with expanded healthcare administration programming
- Expand research efforts to shape U.S. health policy
You can give to the Alumni Endowed Fund using this link.
The Value of Giving Back
The true strength of the Baylor MBA is found not only in outcomes, but in the lives and leadership of its alumni. As graduates of the Hankamer School of Business, you reflect our shared commitment to Community, Humility, Excellence and Stewardship; values that continue to shape both your success and the future of the program.
The Baylor MBA experience is built on community: meaningful relationships, collaborative learning and networks that last a lifetime. Giving back helps ensure that future students have access to the same transformational experience. It is also an expression of humility; recognizing the faculty, peers and institutional support that helped pave your path and a commitment to excellence, allowing the program to attract outstanding faculty and provide innovative, relevant learning opportunities.
As stewards of the program’s legacy, your generosity is an investment in people, ideas and impact. Together, we can ensure that the Baylor MBA continues to develop principled leaders prepared to serve business and society with purpose.
Learn more about supporting the MBA program by visiting the Hankamer School of Business giving site or contacting our Advancement team.
| Trey Hagins | Cheryl VanAllen | Robert Gear |
| Managing Director of Development Hankamer School of Business 254-644-7125 Trey_Hagins@baylor.edu | Senior Director of Development Hankamer School of Business 254-749-6722 Cheryl_VanAllen@baylor.edu | Assistant Director of Development Hankamer School of Business 254-710-8670 Robert_Gear@baylor.edu |
This summer, 24 Baylor University students and faculty members traded the classroom for exam rooms, community centers and smalltown clinics during a weeklong rural health immersion trip to the western edge of Appalachia.
The group included healthcare MBA students from Baylor’s Full-Time MBA program, along with students and faculty from the Louise Herrington School of Nursing, the Department of Medical Humanities and the Honors College. Participants split their time between Jellico and Clairfield, Tennessee, and Williamsburg, Kentucky, gaining firsthand experience with the challenges of providing health care in rural communities.
The trip was hosted by Dayspring Health, a community health center serving the region, in partnership with Christian Community Health Fellowship, a national organization that also operates a clinic in Waco.
“The Rural Health Immersion was designed to put both students and faculty inside the realities of rural health care rather than reading about them," said Dr. Dan Wood, program director of the Robbins Healthcare MBA and clinical assistant professor. “A case study cannot show you the distance a family travels for a primary care visit, the closed storefronts on a downtown block after a fire, or what decades of mining leave behind in a community’s economy and its lungs. Standing in Jellico and Williamsburg, talking with the people who live and work there, turns an abstraction into a face and a name.”
The itinerary was built around access. Students toured the Clairfield and Jellico clinics, visited Jellico Hospital and the Dayspring Rural Health Center, and sat with providers, nurses and front office staff to hear how a community health center keeps its doors open in a county where many patients are uninsured.
Students also saw how far a community health center’s reach extends beyond its exam rooms. They supported a community baby shower, helped host a senior bingo and brunch and met with the Clearfork Community Institute, the Jellico Library, the mayor’s office in Williamsburg and the Whitley County school district.
The group’s visit drew local attention. On July 22, students explored downtown Jellico and gathered at Solid Grounds Coffee Shop, a stop covered by the LaFollette Press. Jessie Thomas, director of student programming at Christian Community Health Fellowship, told the paper the region gave students a firsthand look at the history, culture and needs of an under-resourced community and a chance to imagine building a career in one.
For Jordan Camacho, a current healthcare MBA student, the people mattered as much as the places.
“My favorite part of the trip was creating relationships in the community as well as within our group," Camacho said. “The community was so welcoming, and we got to share so many experiences together that I will carry with me wherever I end up.”
For Wood, the week was aimed at something well past graduation.
“Many of our graduates will go on to systems where margin drives the decision-making," he said. “I want them to carry a clear memory of the communities that sit at the far end of those decisions, so that when they are the ones setting a budget, a service line or a staffing model, they understand who is affected."
Wood said the trip’s biggest lesson was not something anyone could have scheduled.
“These communities have every reason to be discouraged, and instead we found people holding one another up, neighbors helping neighbors, providers who stayed when it would have been easier to leave and hope that things can get better," Wood said. “That is God’s work in plain view: people helping people, communities carrying each other through hard seasons. Our students saw resilience they won’t find in a textbook, and it reframed what they thought ‘underserved’ meant."
For students on the fence about joining next year's trip, Camacho had one piece of advice.
“Absolutely say yes,” she said. “I think it’s a great rule in general to say yes to everything you can, but with this trip you will get a unique experience that you will not regret. You travel as a group but the conversations and experiences you have are something that develop you as an individual in the best way."
Learn more about the Robbins Institute for Health Policy and Leadership here.
Virtual Coffee Talks
Quarterly on the second Tuesday of last month of the quarter, we will host an informal virtual networking opportunity for alumni. This is an opportunity to discuss current events, ask the group questions, discuss challenges you are working through and to connect with one another.
Details
- Second Tuesday, last month of the quarter (March, June, September, December)
- Time: 12-1 p.m. CST
- Location: Virtual through teams – Email Andre Cisne to be added to the call.
We are looking forward to connecting with everyone! For any questions, please email Andre Cisne or Kara Abrameit.
