WACO, Texas (ABP) — Baylor University President Robert Sloan will step down June 1, concluding one of the stormiest periods in the 160-year-old school's history, an era marked by expansion but also division.
Sloan will become Baylor's chancellor at the end of the spring semester, both he and Will Davis, chairman of the university's board of regents, announced at a news conference Jan. 21.
Sloan will focus on fund-raising, student recruitment and promoting the university's vision, he said. And he will relinquish all executive leadership for the Baptist school to his presidential successor, Davis added.
Sloan's future at Baylor has been a topic of debate — and at least three votes among the regents — during the past couple of years. But Sloan and the regents reached their decision for transition “by mutual agreement,” Davis reported.
Regents unanimously expressed their personal support for Sloan's move from president to chancellor during a Jan. 20 conference call, Davis said, noting all but two of the 36 regents participated in the evening call.
They are expected to make the decision official when they meet for their regular winter meeting, Feb. 3-4. At that time, they will decide how to proceed in searching for a new president, Davis said, noting they probably will select an interim president at their spring meeting, April 28-29.
Controversy over Sloan's leadership flared a couple of years ago, not long after the regents approved Baylor 2012, the university's long-range strategy to become one of the top schools of its kind in the nation.
Supporters praised Baylor 2012, as well as Sloan's vision for conceiving it. They lauded its core value of blending strong Christian faith and the highest academic standards. They also affirmed such goals as strengthening faculty research, raising academic standards of students, expanding campus facilities to “world-class” quality and making the sports teams strongly competitive in the Big XII Athletic Conference.
Opponents criticized Sloan's implementation of 2012, and some condemned components of the plan, including the cost. They said Sloan was pulling Baylor away from its traditional Texas Baptist moorings; some even predicting the school would become “non-Baptist” or “fundamentalist.” They claimed that beloved, long-tenured professors were being shuffled aside for younger research-oriented faculty, that typical Texas Baptist families no longer could afford to send their children to Baylor, and that the rapid expansion of campus facilities created unbearable debt.
The divisions split the fiercely loyal “Baylor family.”
Many alumni divided into two new groups, the pro-Sloan Friends of Baylor and the anti-Sloan Committee to Restore Integrity to Baylor. Each bought ads and waged partisan campaigns for their causes.
Faculty also divided, with 418 out of 838 eligible teachers calling for Sloan's dismissal in a recent referendum. Those negative votes comprised 85 percent of the ballots actually cast in the referendum, but Sloan's supporters noted many faculty loyal to the president boycotted the referendum.
The votes that have counted, however, took place in closed session among the 36-member board of regents. Just last September, the board voted — by what one regent characterized as a “very close” margin — to postpone indefinitely a call for Sloan's resignation.
The motion to postpone the resignation was one in a series of votes by regents on the university president's leadership.
In September 2003, the Baylor faculty senate gave Sloan a vote of “no confidence,” and five regents, three former regent chairmen and the editorial board of the campus newspaper all called for Sloan's removal.
The board responded by voting 31-4 to affirm the president.
But by the May 2004 regents' meeting, Sloan's support had eroded to the point that a motion to ask for his resignation failed on a 17-18 secret ballot. That followed a second faculty senate vote of “no confidence” in the president.
Sloan told reporters attending the news conference he first approached Davis about a transition last November.
Davis added: “Dr. Sloan said to me, ‘I believe it's time to resign.' I asked, ‘Would you take chancellor?' He said, ‘I'll have to think about it.'” That set a time-intensive process in motion, he added. Each of the regents was polled, and they agreed to move Sloan from president to chancellor.
Davis denied a rumor that Sloan would have been fired in February if he had not accepted the chancellorship, predicting Sloan could have survived another round with the regents.
Speaking from prepared remarks, Sloan told the news conference crowd that conflict associated with change and the desire to see Baylor succeed pressed him to make the switch himself.
“What I see looking ahead for Baylor is tremendously compelling,” he said. “Our commitment to the 2012 vision, which sets forth the goal of ascending to the top tier of American universities while maintaining our firm commitment to a uniquely Baptist and distinctively Christian identity, ensures that there is no more exciting place to be in Christian higher education than Baylor. …
“But the natural side effect of change is conflict. We moved quickly and boldly to implement the vision and found that Baylor is not immune to the discomfort and insecurity generated by change.
“My leadership has often been a lightning rod for that discomfort,” he acknowledged. “But the focus should always be on the vision, not on the president.
“Though I have worked hard to cultivate mutual understanding with those who disagree with various decisions or even my management style, the reality is that my role as president has become a distraction from the main goal of fulfilling the vision. The vision is more important than any one person. No one is indispensable.”
As chancellor, Sloan will put his energies into “fund raising, recruitment and promoting Baylor 2012 every way I can,” he said. “This university and the vision for its future remain my passion and my calling.”
Asked why he finally agreed to step down as president, Sloan pointed directly to the long-range vision for the school, which he crafted. “The board unanimously ratified Baylor 2012, … and the faculty senate in the fall unanimously ratified 2012,” he said. “The university, its purpose and leadership, is far more important than one person.”
Pressed to list things he would do differently if he had his decade-long tenure to relive, he said, “We don't have time” to list them all.
But he cited a litany of steps he would take all over again. “I have absolutely no regrets about our core commitments and decisions about Baylor University,” he said, citing the school's emphasis on Christian character, academic excellence, faculty research, quality athletics, improved facilities, new academic programs and new faculty, as well as a retooled tuition structure. “I wouldn't change one element of that,” he insisted.
Davis praised Sloan and spoke positively about the future.
“It has been a great pleasure to work with Robert Sloan,” he said. “Over the past decade, President Sloan has led Baylor through a period of tremendous growth and progress. … Even with this change in leadership, Baylor's vision going forward will be Baylor 2012, … our blueprint for the future.”
Baylor 2012 also will be Sloan's legacy, Davis predicted, explaining, “He was its foremost designer and first implementer.”
Prior to the news conference, rumors had circulated that Sloan would become Baylor's chancellor and that later, after a new president had been selected, the regents would change the university's administrative structure to make Sloan the chief executive officer again.
Davis stressed that would not happen: “He [Sloan] will not have any executive responsibilities, … any CEO responsibilities as chancellor. He will report to the president.”
In an interview, Davis said of the rumored change to make Chancellor Sloan stronger than the new president: “We couldn't do that. We'd lose all credibility if we did that.”
Baylor's next president has not been pre-selected, Davis said in the news conference.
“The parameters and role of the next president will be determined by the board of regents,” he said. Baylor 2012 “still is the model” for moving the university into the future, and the regents will look at presidential candidates “who can fit that model.”
Of the presidential search, Davis said, “It's starting tomorrow.” Actually, the regents officially will start the selection process in February and most likely will name an interim president in April, he said. The length of the search could last “from a few months … to a year, a year and a half.”
The transition from Sloan to the next president will be relatively smooth, Davis predicted, noting the two previous presidents, Abner McCall and Herbert Reynolds, both served as chancellor after they were president.
He also said he does not expect any faculty resignations or significant changes in administration because of Sloan's departure.
“The division we have faced during the last 18 to 24 months should subside,” he said. “There should be a sense of calm. Dr. Sloan made a decision he believes will be the best for Baylor at this time. I see no reason for division.”
Regents will help bring about reconciliation among Baylor's constituencies, Davis said, noting he has a communication plan to reach out to the various groups, including faculty and alumni.
As chancellor, Sloan will serve “at the pleasure of the board” and have an office on campus, Davis said. He declined to report how much Sloan will be paid as chancellor but said he makes $410,000 as president.
Sloan, 55, is a native of Coleman, Texas, and a graduate of Baylor, Princeton Theological Seminary and the University of Basel in Switzerland.
Before assuming the Baylor presidency in 1995, he was the first dean of the university'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. He and his wife, Sue, have seven children.
— Ken Camp contributed to this article.