Elshtain joins Baylor institute. Jean Bethke Elshtain, recent recipient of the Democracy Service Medal from the National Endowment for Democracy, has joined the Baylor University faculty as visiting distinguished professor of religion and public life at Baylor’s Institute for Studies of Religion. Elshtain—a prolific author—also serves as the Laura Spelman Rockefeller professor of social and political ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School. Elstain is a past recipient of the Goodnow Award, the highest award bestowed by the American Political Science Association for distinguished service to the profession. She has served on the board of the National Humanities Center and on the President’s Council of Bioethics. Currently she is a member of the Council of the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Scholars Council of the Library of Congress. At Baylor, Elshtain will conduct and produce new scholarship about the intersection of religion and public life, working alongside faculty as well as undergraduate and graduate students from political science, philosophy and the Honors College.