WACO, Texas (ABP) — The tense relationship between Baylor University and the Baylor Alumni Association may have reached a potential turning point — or boiling point — Sept. 19 when the university presented the alumni association a proposal asking the group to give up its independent nonprofit status and come under the authority of Baylor administration.
The proposal would consolidate the alumni association’s independently produced Baylor Line — which has sometimes taken positions critical of university administration and the board of regents — and the university-produced Baylor Magazine into a single publication, with the school maintaining editorial control.
In exchange, Baylor would cover operating costs for the alumni association, provide a seat on the board of regents to a member of the current Baylor Alumni Association’s board of directors, make the executive director of the alumni association vice president for alumni affairs and give the association’s current employees the option of working for the university.
Baylor Regent Bob Beauchamp presented a detailed proposal from Regent Chairman Dary Stone and Baylor University Interim President David Garland to the Baylor Alumni Association board.
The association’s board passed a motion to create a study committee composed of alumni and faculty to examine the proposal.
The alumni association’s board “will strongly consider the merits of the proposal received from the board of regents and interim administration,” according to a statement by Baylor Alumni Association President David Lacy and CEO Jeff Kilgore.
The alumni association “has always given any request from the Baylor administration full consideration in keeping with the responsibilities with which it is entrusted,” the statement said.
Even so, the statement noted the request for the Baylor Alumni Association to give up its independence and become a department within the university “raises questions with many alumni, considering that only two years ago, both (the alumni association) and the Baylor board of regents agreed upon and expressed their commitment to the independence of (the alumni association), strategic plans that support the mission of the university and a harmonious relationship.”
Kilgore noted the proposal from the university generated “a degree of shock” among some alumni association board members, who had anticipated their meeting would focus on events related to the association’s 150th anniversary, including the launch of a “United for Baylor” five-year plan to increase scholarship giving to children of alumni and raise money for Baylor University.
The written proposal presented to the alumni association board acknowledged “conflict of purposes” between the university and the association, and it called for the Baylor Alumni Association to become part of the school’s division of university development.
“Baylor needs a vibrant, nonpolitical, supportive alumni organization communicating with its alumni around the world,” the proposal stated.
Baylor Alumni Association — formed 150 years ago — has functioned as an independent entity for about 30 years, when Baylor incrementally began decreasing its funding for the group by mutual consent.
But the organization’s relationship with the university has been strained for about the last seven years, when Baylor developed its own alumni services office — the Baylor Network — and began publishing its own magazine mailed to alumni and donors.
Earlier this year, the university removed the alumni association from its toll-free phone line, alumni association staff lost their university e-mail addresses, and the alumni association lost its link on the “Alumni and Friends” page of Baylor’s website.
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Ken Camp is managing editor for the Baptist Standard.