PINEVILLE, La. (ABP) — The trustees of Louisiana College have responded to criticisms from the school's accreditation agency Nov. 14, but the response may not be sufficient to overcome a special study committee's concerns about recent academic freedom and goverance.
The Louisiana Baptist institution's trustees approved a response to an Oct. 20 report by a special committee of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. The committee had been asked to investigate several recent incidents on the campus in Pineville, La.
The committee found trustees and administrators had violated several of the association's principles — as well as its own stated college policies — regarding academic freedom and proper board governance. In the Nov. 14 response, trustees pledged to comply with the standards, but also took issue with some of the committee's findings.
The college has been roiled by controversy for several years, with much of it coming to a head in the past two years as a group of fundamentalists gained a majority on the institution's board of directors. All board members are appointed by the Louisiana Baptist Convention.
“The committee concluded, based upon extensive interviews with members of the board of trustees, senior staff and faculty that a significant portion of the board of trustees of Louisiana College are influenced if not controlled by the agenda of the Louisiana Inerrancy Fellowship and the Louisiana Baptist Convention,” the report read.
The study team said an agenda from the inerrancy group — established as a political movement within the Louisiana Baptist Convention — had unduly influenced the board's work.
Among the controversies on campus were two trustee-initiated policies that many professors said violated academic freedom — a 2003 move to require prior approval of class texts and materials by administrators and more recent actions that made the board more closely involved in faculty hiring and that required new faculty hires to be in agreement with the Southern Baptist Convention's 2000 “Baptist Faith and Message” statement.
“After interviewing trustees, the committee was concerned that the college's stated and documented traditional commitment to academic freedom was in jeopardy,” the committee said.
The committee also criticized several other actions by trustees — including making accusations against faculty members — that they said violated SACS's standards for proper board governance.
In their Nov. 14 response to the SACS recommendations, college trustees pledged several actions to bring the school more into line with the agency's guidelines. They include better education of trustees on their appropriate role, and the re-integration of the faculty in development of policies affecting academic freedom.
“Board members will decline involvement in the day-to-day administration of the institution, and faculty and administrators will rely on the board to take the lead when board policy is to be initiated,” the trustees said. “Policies that impact administration and faculty should be developed by the trustees in consultation with administrators and faculty.”
However, the response also takes issue with the study committee's characterization of the board having come under undue influence from outside groups.
“It is unclear what the special committee has in mind with regard to the suggestion that the Louisiana Baptist Convention is an 'outside entity' which may 'unduly influence' the governance of Louisiana College,” the trustee response said.
“The charter of Louisiana College specifically states in article IV, section 2, 'The Louisiana Baptist Convention shall elect the members who shall constitute the trustees of the corporation.' The Louisiana Baptist Convention exerts due influence in the election of the trustees who are to act independently of the convention and demonstrate independent judgment.”
Nonetheless, trustees did pledge to “request that the nominating committee of the Louisiana Baptist Convention present for election to the Louisiana College board only individuals who are clearly committed to the stated mission of the college, who are willing to work for its financial development, and who are able to exercise independent judgment on behalf of the college.”
SACS' board is expected to receive the report at its December meeting.
The controversy at Louisiana College has reached a fever pitch since June, with the successive resignations of the school's president, academic vice president and board chairman. In September, a trustee search committee announced that Malcolm Yarnell, a conservative theologian and administrator at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, had agreed to take the job.
But Yarnell suddenly declined the position Nov. 23, citing irreconcilable differences with the board over “governance issues” that he discovered as he was negotiating the terms of his contract.