Jon Singletary is out as dean of the Garland School of Social Work at Baylor University.
Provost Nancy Brickhouse informed faculty Sept. 25 Singletary will “step down” effective Oct. 15. The news came just hours before the Garland School’s Board of Advocates gathered for a dinner and two days of meetings.
Singletary had been under fire for several weeks, after outside conservative forces made national news of the School of Social Work’s renewal of a grant to study loneliness among women and LGBTQ churchgoers. Under intense pressure from anti-inclusion forces, Singletary was forced to decline the grant — which set off protests from the other side.
Jon Singletary
The provost’s message to faculty and staff neither says Singletary voluntarily resigned nor was fired. It says the dean “informed me of his decision to step down.” Inside sources at Baylor told BNG this should not be construed as a voluntary resignation and appears to be part of a larger effort to position the university in a nonaffirming stance. Earlier, deans of the university’s various schools were instructed to scrub their websites of names of “controversial” people who serve on their various advisory boards and boards of visitors.
Brickhouse said of Singletary’s resignation: “As many of you are aware, these are incredibly difficult times for professionals in the field of social work, and Jon felt the need to step away to take better care of himself, as well as to dedicate more time to his family.”
Singletary will go on sabbatical and then he “intends to return to the faculty and focus on interdisciplinary research and approaches to tackling the growing crisis of mental health in our country,” the provost said.
Luci Ramos Hoppe, clinical associate professor and director of the undergraduate social work program, has been named interim dean.
Singletary was named dean in 2016 and succeeded the school’s founding dean, Diana R. Garland, who died in 2015 of pancreatic cancer. Garland came to Baylor and founded the school after being fired at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary in Louisville, Ky., when President Al Mohler declared the principles of social work are “incompatible” with evangelical Christianity.
Singletary joined the School of Social Work faculty in 2003, first serving as associate dean for baccalaureate studies from 2011 to 2014 and then associate dean for graduate studies from 2014 to 2015. Earlier, he was director of the Baylor Center for Family and Community Ministries from 2005 to 2011, where he helped launch the Texas Hunger Initiative and the Strengthening Congregational Community Ministries Project.
Currently, he holds the Diana R. Garland Endowed Chair in Child and Family Studies.
This is a developing story and will be updated as new information becomes available.
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