WACO, Texas, (ABP) — After a year of controversy at the world's largest Baptist university, John Baugh, one of Baylor University's biggest benefactors, wrote a letter June 3 to the Baylor Board of Regents criticizing President Robert Sloan's leadership and calling for an open forum to discuss the issues at the July regents meeting.
“I am writing the chair a weekly series of letters that identifies [the issues],” Baugh told ABP. “One will take us back to the meaning of the fiduciary responsibility of the board of regents.” Baugh said another will be a compilation of the reforms in practices and policies he wishes to see.
A spokesman for Sloan declined to comment on the letter, deferring to regents.
Baugh's June 3 letter proposed opening the meeting to “all of us who love Baylor” in order to examine the current problems plaguing the administration, which he said would include a question-and-answer session with those in attendance.
“The most immediate, basic question with which we are confronted is whether the philosophy and methods that have been employed by President Sloan and his administration … have alienated the major constituencies of the university to the point that new leadership must be put into place for Baylor to strive and thrive in an unimpeded fashion,” wrote Baugh, founder of the Houston-based Sysco Corporation.
Will Davis, newly elected chairman of the board of regents, has not yet said whether the board will approve Baugh's proposal and open the July meeting. The board has another meeting scheduled for June in which the members will discuss the university's 10-year vision and whether it should be extended.
At the May regents meeting, Baugh — who carries the title of regent emeritus — addressed the board and warned he would retract gifts given to the university if something is not changed in the current administration. The Baugh family has donated more than $25 million to the university, including scholarships, study-abroad programs and a $5 million gift toward the construction of Baylor's George W. Truett Theological Seminary.
“Should the regents — either by specific decision or by default — allow the university's course to continue to be altered, we shall request the several million dollars currently on loan to Baylor by the [Baugh] Foundation to be paid without delay,” he said at the meeting.
Following the meeting, outgoing regents chair Drayton McLane told the Waco Tribune-Herald the board is confident in Sloan's leadership. McLane said Baugh spoke mainly about maintaining the values on which the university was founded.
“I've been in business a long time. One of the most difficult things is leadership,” McLane told the Tribune-Herald. “Change things, improve things, move them forward. Doing bold things certainly excites a lot of people. But as change happens, it causes some difficulties. We certainly understand that, but we are sensitive to every group.”
Current chair Davis and other members of the board of regents could not be reached for comment about Baugh's letter.
Baugh told ABP that Baylor's 150-year-old mission — which he defined as a Christ-centered education in which student-professor relationships are of the utmost importance — is being compromised under the current administration.
“Students and professors are the principal players,” Baugh said. “The rest of us are also players, whether full-time administrators or lay people, facilitating or providing whatever is needed to see that those principal players advance with the process of learning.”
In his address to the board, Baugh emphasized the need for change immediately, likening the state of the university to “a ship — its rudder torn from the stern by tornadic winds” caused by the university's administration.
When asked if he would call for another regents vote on Sloan's leadership, Baugh told ABP he didn't “want to get into that dogfight” but said he is writing Davis and the other regents “beseeching them to do what's right.”
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