Eldest Daughter tells me that Robert Sloan, President of Baylor University, resigned today, effective at the end of May. From the statistics in this article from Waco TV station KWTX, almost everything at Baylor had improved under Sloan’s leadership.
Enrollment has grown from 12,202 in Fall 1995 to 13,799 in Fall 2004, an increase of 14 percent.
In Fall 2001, Baylor Regents endorsed Baylor 2012, the University’s 10-year vision that calls for Baylor to become a nationally prominent research institution while simultaneously strengthening its Christian mission.
Faculty additions have brought credentials from some of the world’s great universities, including Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and MIT. Overall faculty has grown from 644 in 1995 to 780 in 2004.
Three Schools —Engineering and Computer Science (1995), Honors College (2002) and Social Work (2004)— have been established.
Annual gifts to the University have grown from $18.5 million in 1995 to more than $45 million in 2003 , the University’s fourth-best giving year, with more than 3,500 first-time donors. Gifts to the University during the Sloan administration total almost $400 million. Endowment has almost doubled, from $341 million in 1996 to $722 million in 2004
The average SAT score of entering freshmen has improved from 1160 in 1995 to 1190 in 2004.
The five-year, $500 million Campaign for Greatness begun in November 1999 finished successfully one year ahead of schedule and exceeded its goal by $27 million. More than 35,000 individuals, foundations, companies and organizations committed their support during the endowment campaign.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Read the news report. So what’s the problem., and why is Dr. Sloan resigning? Well, if I understand what’s going on (and I very well may not), there’s a contingent of faculty who want Baylor to remain a sleepy little semi-Baptist, semi-Christian university out in Waco. Let’s not make waves. Let’s not be vocal about that “Christian” label, in particular. The university under Sloan has been hiring professors from many different Christian traditions (Catholic, Methodist, Episcopal, even Baptist) who are actually serious about applying their faith to their academic studies. Some think the problems started over a tragedy in the summer of 2003 (just before Eldest Daughter arrived on the scene at Baylor) when a basketball player murdered another basketball player. However, I think it started with this:
Baylor University in October(2000) terminated well-known Intelligent Design scientist William Dembski as head of the Michael Polanyi Center for Complexity, Information, and Design. The center was placed in limbo, without a name or certain future at the university in Waco, Texas. Dembski, who retains his Baylor professorship, says he was overwhelmed by politicking within Baylor.
Some people were afraid that the serious study of “Intelligent Design” would damage the reputation of Baylor. Sloan and others thought it would strengthen that reputation in the long run and would honor the Author of Design.
Go here for a Christianity Today roundup of articles on the history of the controversy at Baylor.
I am praying that Baylor will retain and even strengthen the vision for a first class university with a distinctively Christian worldview—even under new leadership.