GRAPEVINE, Texas (ABP) — Baylor University President John Lilley has been fired for failing to “bring the Baylor family together,” reported Howard Batson, chairman of the university's board of regents.
Regents voted to remove Lilley from office, effective immediately, during their summer meeting July 24 in Grapevine, near the Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport. The vote was taken by secret ballot and the vote total was not announced to the board, Batson said.
Batson cited Lilley's inability to unite Baylor's various constituencies at least nine times in a 20-minute telephone press conference and several times in an interview with the Texas Baptist Standard shortly after the regents' vote.
Lilley became Baylor's president in January 2006, at a time when Baylor's constituency had divided over the administration of the previous president, Robert Sloan. Also controversial was Baylor 2012, a decade-long strategy for growing the world's largest Baptist university and increasing its influence.