PINEVILLE, La. (ABP) — Trustees of Louisiana College announced Sept. 30 that conservative seminary scholar Malcolm Yarnell will be the embattled school's eighth president.
Yarnell, assistant dean of theological studies and associate professor of systemic theology at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, was offered the job after a closed-door session of trustees Sept. 24.
“Today is a great day for the college,” emphasized Ed Tarpley of Pineville, who headed the presidential search committee.
“Malcolm Yarnell is an outstanding theologian and teacher. He has a love for students and faculty, and he is truly a man that all Louisiana Baptists can be proud of.”
The college's trustee board has been divided between the conservative majority and a moderate minority, and the school is now under investigation by its accrediting agency, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Trustee chair Joe Nesom resigned June 27 as fellow trustees prepared to remove him from office. Nesom denounced “unwise unilateral actions taken by certain board members.”
At a news conference announcing Yarnell's decision to accept the post, Tarpley was asked if he had confidence in the new president's ability to heal tensions at the school.
“Dr. Yarnell is a peacemaker,” Tarpley responded. “He's a consensus builder. He's going to be someone who's going to come in and listen to everyone and do what is best for the students, the faculty and the entire Louisiana College community.
“And I think, with all those characteristics, he'll be able to come in and start the healing process and move Louisiana College forward,” Tarpley said.
Tarpley rejected the idea when asked if there were concerns that Southwestern Seminary and its president — longtime conservative leader Paige Patterson — will exert undue influence on Louisiana College matters.
“Dr. Yarnell is his own man,” Tarpley stressed. He will be making his own decisions. He is a man of great character and wisdom and maturity. He is very well educated and has outstanding qualifications and great experience. There is no question that Dr. Yarnell will be someone who will chart his own course at Louisiana College.”
And while Tarpley declined to discuss specifics of the presidential search process, he did say it was clear at the end of the six-month effort that Yarnell was the most outstanding candidate. The vote reportedly was divided when trustees met Sept. 24, but they united behind their choice after the vote.
In June, college president Rory Lee resigned amid controversy over new policies that require new faculty members to submit a statement outlining their “worldviews,” as well as a policy forcing faculty members to have all classroom materials approved by the academic dean.
Another policy adopted recently requires a committee of trustees to approve the contract before a new faculty member can be hired. That policy, reportedly unique among Baptist colleges, is similar to one criticized by the college's accrediting agency in 2001.
Many faculty members have protested the policies, saying they endanger academic freedom. Conservative board members have defended the policies as necessary to maintain the school's fidelity to its Baptist roots.
“I anticipate a bright future for this Louisiana Baptist Christian liberal arts college,” Yarnell said in a statement after the trustees Sept. 24 vote. “The trustees have an innovative vision for the school which combines orthodox theology with academic excellence, and I fully support that vision.”
Yarnell, a Louisiana native, previously was academic dean and vice president for academic affairs at Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Kansas City, Mo. — like Southwestern, a Southern Baptist Convention seminary. He holds a bachelor's degree from Louisiana State University, master's degrees from Southwestern and Duke University and a doctor of philosophy from Oxford University.
He has been pastor of churches in North Carolina and Louisiana.
Yarnell, an advocate for the conservative movement in the SBC, has written articles arguing for closer governance of Christian colleges by local churches and against self-perpetuating trustee boards.
“One does not have to choose between scholarship and faith; one does not have to be either a brilliant infidel or a dull-witted adherent of Scripture,” he wrote in the Pathway. “One can be both Christian and intellectual; indeed, the best intellectuals are Christian.”
“Of course, we do teach the long Baptist struggle for religious liberty,” he said in a Baptist Press article, “but we carefully extricate religious liberty from its entanglement with theological liberalism which a recent generation of Baptist scholars have advocated.”
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— With additional reporting from Lacy Thompson