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Brent Baas
Solving Problems, Serving People
Written by Rachel Stallard, Photographed by Randy Mallory
Esteemed educators dressed in dark flowing robes,
velveted hoods with tasseled caps and mortar
boards follow in single file the footsteps of one
man as the music “Pomp and Circumstance”
plays for the packed auditorium.
Dr. Brent L. Baas, LeTourneau University’s Teaching
Faculty Organization president, leads this processional
holding the university’s mace aloft in front of him. These
commencement services are a celebration of academic
achievement for students who will soon go out and make
an impact on the world as they seek to follow God’s call
on their lives.
Baas remembers 30 years ago when he got
the answer to God’s call on his own life as a college
sophomore dabbling in accounting and psychology.
“I would see rooms full of typists and bookkeepers
doing repetitive, tedious tasks, and I thought, is this what
God has created these people to do?” he said. “Can I help
them become more of what God intended them to be?”
Baas has invested his teaching career helping
students learn and fulfill what God intended them to
be. Completing his undergraduate degree at Calvin
College in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in 1985, Baas pursued
his master’s at Western Michigan University and his
doctorate at Wayne State University in Detroit. He has
taught at LETU since 1992.
Over the years, Baas has watched computers evolve
from being clunky, wired terminals connected to a
mainframe to today’s smartphones that can summon up
a universe of answers with a fingertip on a touchscreen.
Baas reiterates to all of his students that a computer
is merely a tool.
“Our job is to help people,” he said. “They might be
banging their heads, fighting with a problem, and we can
do something about that. We can create a program to fix
it. However, one of the hardest things to realize is, you’re
never going to solve all the problems, nor were we meant
to.
“Challenges exist in life, and we have the creative
ability to address those,” he said. “Yet, every time we
think we have solved a problem, we’ve actually created a
situation for more potential problems.”
Baas saw this firsthand as a Fulbright Scholar in 2002,
teaching at a government school in northern Ethiopia
where he saw the incredible contrast from a modern-day
classroom to subsistence farming communities a few
miles away.
“It’s a real challenge when you have a farmer living
the same way as his father, his grandfather and his greatgrandfather;
and yet his son gets to attend a government
school, and learn there’s a bigger world out there, and he
doesn’t have to farm,” Baas said. ”It causes some stress
on the happiness and satisfaction of what has been.”
Baas grew up a missionary kid in Nigeria without
access to computers. He says LETU students today have
been playing with computers since childhood, and while
they may have broad experience, they benefit from
greater depth of understanding. All of LETU’s eight
computer science programs are designed to provide that
depth.
“History is built into each of our courses,” Baas said.
“There’s always an aspect of, ‘Where has this come from?
How did this start?’ and then, ‘Where is it going?’”
Baas says the historical aspect is important because
more elements of computer science have remained the
same than have changed over the years — such as the
human element, the programmers.
“Despite advances in technology, some things stay
the same,” he said. “Fundamental skills of problemsolving,
attention to detail and organization are all goals
our students must develop to be professionals. My
proudest moment is when I see a student learn how to
deal with frustration, because at some level, you’re going
to get frustrated. The computer is not going to do what
you think it should do.”
Even though LETU’s computer science department
doesn’t yet have a graduate program, LETU students
have competed successfully against other schools with
graduate programs. This year, LETU’s programming
team took 1st place in the region at the International
Collegiate Programming Competition, and this year marks
the fourth time since 2000 that LETU has sent a team
to World Finals. Past World teams have competed in
Honolulu, Vancouver and Prague. This summer, they will
travel to St. Petersburg, Russia.
“Our students are coming away with what we hope
all LeTourneau graduates have — that whole person
development,” he said. “They’re going to be responsible
men and women of integrity within their workplaces,
which is of particular importance when you’re dealing
with issues like security and privacy. Companies really
want people they can trust, who can be loyal.” •
26 | NOW Magazine | Spring 2013