The is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.
Veteran Baptist educator Robert B. Sloan died of a massive stroke July 3, according Heights Church in Houston, where Sloan was a pastor and theologian in residence, along with his son Paul T. Sloan, who is pastor and director of theology.
Robert Sloan, 77, was currently serving as president of Houston Christian University, formerly known as Houston Baptist University. He assumed that role in 2006 after stepping down from the presidency of Baylor University.
Sloan led Baylor from 1995 to 2005, succeeding Herbert H. Reynolds and launching the most ambitious expansion of the Baptist-affiliated school in history. In 2002, Sloan introduced “Baylor 2012,” a strategy to transform liberal arts school into a national university with Ph.D. programs and research professors, allowing it “to enter the top tier of American universities while reaffirming and deepening its distinctive Christian mission.”
Robert Sloan
Baylor 2012 also called for a dramatic building spree that expanded the footprint of the campus and the hiring of dozens of new high-priced research professors. The plan was controversial, in part, because of Sloan’s advance of intelligent design as an alternative to creationism and Darwinism. But the plan also was popular on the other hand for creating the School of Social Work.
Opposition to Baylor 2012 culminated in a 2004 vote to remove him as president that he narrowly won. He resigned as president in 2005.
Although controversial, Baylor 2012 set the stage for Baylor’s much later achievement of Tier 1 research university status.
Sloan was a polarizing figure in Baptist life and in higher education. He rose to the presidency of Baylor from the university’s George W. Truett Theological Seminary, where he had been the founding dean.
He joined the faculty of Baylor’s Department of Religion in 1983 after holding teaching positions at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth.
Sloan’s second act as a university president drew less national attention even though it was equally transformative.
When he began as president of Houston Baptist University in 2006, the school was one of the lesser-known institutions affiliated with the Baptist General Convention of Texas. The university experienced unprecedented growth under his leadership, expanding from 2,133 students in 2006 to 4,693 in 2025.
There, he led another strategic plan, this one called “The Ten Pillars: Faith and Reason in a Great City.”
Sloan cited the school’s “faithfulness to its historic Christian mission” as a reason for the growth.
In addition to launching a College of Engineering, Sloan led the university to expand its religious training, adding the master of divinity and doctor of ministry degrees and in 2016 beginning Houston Theological Seminary in partnership with Second Baptist Church of Houston.
Sloan was born in Coleman, Texas, in 1949, but was raised in Abilene, Texas, where he graduated from Cooper High School in 1967. He attended Baylor from 1967 to 1970 and was a member of the baseball team his freshman year. He graduated ahead of his class, earning a bachelor of arts degree in 1970. He then attended Princeton Theological Seminary, where he earned the master of divinity degree in 1973. He conducted post-baccalaureate research in church history at the University of Bristol, England, in 1973-74 and earned the doctor of theology degree from the University of Basel, Switzerland, in 1978.
He is survived by his wife, Sue Sloan, and their seven children.