ASHEBORO, N.C. (ABP) — The five colleges affiliated with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina would be able to elect their own trustees under a plan adopted by the convention's board of directors, but the schools will lose the convention's direct financial support.
The plan, which has the support of the schools and would be phased in over a four-year period, is intended to avoid a showdown over how much control the Baptist convention should have over the colleges — Campbell University, Chowan University, Gardner-Webb University, Mars Hill College and Wingate University.
A scholarship fund, to be administered by the convention, could continue to aid students from convention churches who attend the schools.
The board of directors approved the recommendation May 22, which came from the convention's Council on Christian Higher Education. Council chair Jesse Croom said the presidents of all support the proposal.
Issues of governance and finance for the schools have been matters “of discussion and distraction” to the convention for the past 50 years, said Brian Davis, executive director of the CCHE. The council “desires to address the issue once and for all,” he said, giving both the institutions and convention new levels of responsibility and freedom.
The convention currently does not own any of the institutions, he said, and there are no reversion clauses or buy-out requirements, as is the case in some other states conventions.
Specifically, the recommendation calls for a “restructured, mutually-voluntary relationship.” It requires the schools to “have a significant portion of trustees who are members of churches in friendly cooperation” with the convention, to continue to provide services and ministries to convention churches, and to “continue to promote and advance Christian principles and beliefs as reflected in traditional Baptist doctrine.”
Richard Hicks, pastor of Mt. Pisgah Baptist Church in Supply, asked what assurance school leaders could give “that when you've passed off the scene, it will still be a Christian and Baptist institution.”
Representatives from four of the five schools were present. All spoke of Christian commitment and Baptist principles as basic elements of their school's identity, insisting there are no plans to change that focus.
The board voted overwhelmingly in favor of the proposal, with just two or three negative votes apparent. It must now be approved by messengers to the Baptist State Convention over a two-year period.
The following morning, director Ken Jones proposed a bylaw amendment to deny scholarship funds to Baptist students attending any school with any trustees who are not professing Christians and members of a Christian church or who belong to a church that “affirms, approves, endorses, promotes, supports, or blesses homosexual behavior.”
Directors voted to postpone consideration of the motion until the January 2008 meeting of the board.
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