Regents postpone indefinitely a call for Baylor president’s resignation_100404

Posted: 10/01/04

Regents postpone indefinitely a call
for Baylor president's resignation

By Ken Camp

Managing Editor

WACO–Baylor University regents voted to postpone indefinitely a call for President Robert Sloan's resignation, and they unanimously rejected a request by the university's Faculty Senate to hold a facultywide referendum on Sloan's administration.

After a motion was introduced at the Sept. 24 meeting calling for Sloan's resignation, a second motion called for the matter to be postponed indefinitely, Chairman Will Davis announced after the executive session.

“It does not kill the idea for ever and ever. It can be brought up at another time,” he said, but he declared the matter “dead” for now.

Davis declined to reveal the vote margin on the motion to postpone, but one regent characterized it as “very close.”

When asked if any regents had negotiated a deal with Sloan to secure his resignation without a vote, Davis replied: “Not that I'm aware of, and I think as chairman of the board, I would be aware if such an agreement had been made.”

The motion to postpone a call for resignation was one in a series of votes by regents on Sloan's leadership. The board voted 31-4 in September 2003 to affirm Sloan. But his support had eroded by spring, and at the board's May meeting, a motion to ask for Sloan's resignation failed by an 18-17 secret ballot.

Regents took no vote on Sloan's presidency at their July retreat, other than unanimously affirming the Baylor 2012 10-year plan that has become the often-controversial centerpiece of his administration.

Sloan insisted he remained optimistic about Baylor 2012 and committed to leading the university.

“Of course, it's been a challenging time,” he said. “It's been difficult for all of us. But I am focused on serving Baylor University to the best of my ability. … I have every intention of continuing to serve as president and to focus on the continuing implementation of Baylor 2012.”

Sloan pointed to the incoming freshman class as evidence that Baylor's 10-year plan is on the right track. While overall enrollment at Baylor is down slightly, the freshman class was the fourth-largest in the school's history, had higher SAT scores and showed greater diversity, with minority students making up 30.3 percent of the class.

“The marketplace of Baptist families and Christian families is giving a resounding 'yes' to Baylor University,” he said. “Students want to come to a school like this, and parents want to send their children to a comprehensive academic institution that is committed to a strong Christian identify within the Baptist tradition, academic excellence and excellence in every aspect of student life.”

While Davis described the Sept. 24 board meeting as “collegial,” a regent said the mood was “very tense.” A majority of the board members expressed their views during extended discussion of Sloan's leadership, he added.

In spite of division, Davis insisted Sloan can heal those divisions and lead the university effectively.

“I support Dr. Sloan,” he said. “I think he's a very fine president–a very fine man. I think he has skill and talent, and I think he can lead Baylor.”

Clifton Robinson, a steering committee member of the Friends of Baylor organization, agreed.

“I believe Dr. Sloan is reaching out to all the dissident groups and making every effort humanly possible to resolve problems with them,” said Robinson, founder and co-chairman of National Lloyds Insurance Company of Waco.

While saying he was “thrilled” with the regents' decision to postpone a vote on dismissing Sloan as president, Robinson added he hoped the question is settled.

“I think it makes Baylor look a bit dysfunctional to have the board vote at every meeting on the administration,” he said.

Twice in a little more than a year, the university's Faculty Senate passed votes of no confidence in Sloan's leadership.

At a recent retreat, the group voted 29-1 to call for an independently administered secret-ballot survey asking all university faculty whether they believe Sloan should remain as Baylor's president. Davis said the regents unanimously turned down that request and he personally did not believe it was appropriate to put the issue to “some kind of popularity contest.”

The regents' vote came the same day Baylor started parents' weekend and dedicated a $103.3 million science building. The 508,000-square-foot facility consolidates the chemistry, biology, geology, physics and neurology programs under one roof, along with most of the university's pre-professional healthcare programs and five multidisciplinary research centers.

New facilities have been a key component of Baylor 2012, Sloan's ten-year vision for making Baylor a top-tier university.

But capital expansion at the university–coupled with unprecedented levels of debt–during Sloan's tenure as university president have raised the ire of his critics. They also faulted him for increasing tuition, failing to foster good relationships with alumni and faculty, and imposing narrow religious restrictions on faculty.

Prior to the regents' meeting, 22 former Baylor regents submitted a resolution calling for the current board to replace Sloan immediately with an interim leader and initiate a nationwide presidential search.

The resolution accused Sloan of creating “the greatest divisiveness and distrust in the history of Baylor.”

“As a consequence, the faculty and staff have become demoralized, deflated and uncertain, and alumni and friends of the university are astounded that such problems have been allowed to continue for so long to the detriment of so many,” the resolution stated.

Signers included John Baugh, founder of the Houston-based SYSCO Corporation and a major Baylor benefactor. Baugh had addressed the regents at their May meeting, warning he would ask for loans to be repaid and his financial gifts to Baylor be returned unless the board took action to rescue the university from “the paralyzing quagmire in which it … is ensnared.”

Sources close to the university estimated gifts by Baugh and his family at more than $15 million, plus $3 million in outstanding loans.

Following the Sept. 24 regents meeting, Baugh said he felt university leaders were “still bogged down,” but he would not make a decision regarding his gifts and loans until he knew more about “what went on behind the scenes” or until “the direction they take is definitive.”

Other former regents who signed the resolution include George Anson, C.T. Beckham, Travis Berry, Dan Bagby, Glenn Biggs, Os Chrisman, George Cowden, Buckner Fanning, Randy Fields, Jack Folmar, Gale Galloway, Vernon Garrett, Jack Hightower, Gracie Hatfield Hilton, Sid Jones, Milfred Lewis, David McCall, Kelly McCann, Ella Wall Prichard, Ralph Storm and Hal Wingo.

Sloan, 55, is a native of Coleman and a graduate of Baylor University, Princeton Seminary and the University of Basel.

Before assuming the Baylor presidency in 1995, he was dean of Baylor's Truett Theological Seminary.

Sloan served on the Baylor religion faculty from 1983 to 1995, and he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1980 to 1983.