grants undergraduate and graduate degrees, including doctoral and professional degrees. Baylor University's athletic teams, the Bears, participate in 19 intercollegiate sports. The university is a member of the Big 12 Conference in NCAA Division I.
== History ==
In 1841, 35 delegates to the Union Baptist Association meeting voted to adopt the suggestion of the Rev. William Milton Tryon and R. E. B. Baylor to establish a Baptist university in Texas, then called the Republic of Texas (a republic independent of the United States). Baylor, a Texas district judge and onetime US Congressman and soldier from Alabama, became the school's namesake. Some at first wished to name the new university "San Jacinto" to recognize the victory which enabled the Texans to become an independent nation, then before the final vote of the Congress, the petitioners requested the university be named in honor of Baylor.
In fall 1844, the Texas Baptist Education Society petitioned the Congress of the Republic of Texas to charter a Baptist …
