20 questions for Baylor University

With families traveling long distances by car this week, there’s likely to be a resurgence of one of the most beloved of all time-passing games, Twenty Questions. In that spirit, I’ve come up with 20 questions for the leadership of Baylor University, which once again finds itself in a quandary about who should have a seat at the family table.

These are questions I genuinely do not know the answers to but would like to know — as would many Baylor alumni, donors, faculty, staff and students. These also are questions we may never know the full answers to. But it never hurts to ask.

1. What role did fear of the Trump administration play in this fall’s controversial decision to reject a grant from the Eula Mae and John Baugh Foundation to study loneliness in churches among women and LGBTQ Christians?
2. How far up the administrative chain did prior knowledge of the grant and the decision to reject it travel? How involved was the provost? How involved was the president?
3. To what extent was the board of regents involved in or aware of this series of decisions?
4. What pressure was brought to bear against the administration by regents who oppose LGBTQ inclusion?
5. Why has the board of regents been noticeably silent on this controversy? Not a single word has been said publicly about it. Surely the regents discussed this at their fall meeting but news releases from that meeting said nothing about it.
6. What role did a few notable Texas Baptist pastors play in demanding rejection of this grant? It is an open secret in Texas Baptist life who these pastors are; what’s not clear is why they have so much apparent influence.
7. What role did these same pastors have in the closure of Logsdon Seminary at Hardin-Simmons University and was any Baylor dean or staff member involved in that effort?
8. What could be so important that administrators would burn every bridge with the Baugh Foundation and Baugh family — given the deep ties between the family, the foundation and the university?
9. How does the administration reconcile the differences in philosophy between Baylor’s Truett Seminary and its Religion Department and School of Social Work, among others? Some days, it appears Truett Seminary is the tail wagging the bear’s paw.
10. What has been the reaction among donors, alumni, faculty and prospective students at Baylor’s School of Social Work? It’s not hard to imagine all these constituencies stepping back out of concern for the future.
11. What criteria will be used for selecting a new dean of the School of Social Work? Will that person be required to oppose LGBTQ inclusion?
12. What is the president’s status with the board of regents, to whom she is accountable? Are they pleased with her recent leadership or concerned? Is she pleased or concerned with their recent leadership?
13. What happens at Baylor after the current president leaves the scene — whenever and however that might be? There’s reasonable concern the regents might turn to a more conservative leader who has a track record of LGBTQ exclusion, and we hear some specific names being floated about, including presidents of other Baptist schools.
14. What is the state of academic freedom for faculty at Baylor? Are there limits on what can be said or taught about LGBTQ identity or other issues such as DEI?
15. Why has the provost reportedly asked deans and department chairs and faculty to resign from or obscure their relationship to Baptist Women in Ministry?
16. If an anti-gay stance can permeate the university, can conservatives likewise demand an anti-science stance in other departments? What’s to prevent the anti virus from spreading?
17. How much money have the anti-gay crusaders given to Baylor to be afforded such vast influence?
18. Why does the Baptist General Convention of Texas still hold sway over Baylor policies? We thought that source of influence ended three decades ago.
19. How will Baylor maintain its status as an R-1 research university if religious dogma controls academic research?
20. What harm would come to Baylor if the university acknowledged there’s more than one way to view LGBTQ inclusion theologically and culturally?

 

Mark Wingfield serves as executive director and publisher of Baptist News Global. He’s not a Baylor alumnus but has written so much about the university in his career he ought to have an honorary degree in investigative reporting.