HOUSTON (ABP) — Houston Baptist University trustees elected Robert Sloan, the controversial former president of Baylor University, as president of the 2,300-student school Aug. 8.
Sloan will assume the presidency Sept. 1, becoming the school's third president since its founding in 1960. Sloan, most recently chancellor of Baylor, the largest Baptist university in the world, was the school's president from 1995 to 2005.
Sloan succeeds Doug Hodo, who served as HBU's second president, from 1987 until his retirement in July. HBU is a conservative school that relates to both the fundamentalist and traditional Baptist conventions in Texas.
Trustee chairman Ray Cox said Sloan “is a renowned Christian educator, scholar and author, and he possesses the leadership skills and vision for Christian higher education that make him the perfect choice to lead HBU into the future.”
Sloan said: “I have been deeply impressed by the vision of the trustees, the dedication of the faculty and staff, the energy of the students, and the remarkable level of commitment on the part of Houston Baptist University alumni.”
Sloan's tenure at Baylor was a period marked both by significant expansion at the university and deep division within the Waco school's constituencies.
During the last two year's of Sloan's presidency at Baylor, the faculty senate twice gave him “no confidence” votes, and the regents voted three times on Sloan's continued employment — once coming within one vote of removing him from office. Most of the criticism centered on Baylor 2012 — the university's long-range plan to become a top-tier national school — and Sloan's implementation of it.
Supporters praised his vision for blending a commitment to strong Christian faith and high academic standards. Opponents accused Sloan of alienating longtime faculty, saddling the university with debt, sacrificing classroom teaching in favor of research, and raising tuition so high that it priced Baylor out of the range of typical Texas Baptist families.
Before becoming Baylor's president, Sloan was dean of the university's Truett Theological Seminary. He served on the Baylor religion faculty from 1983 to 1995, and he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1980 to 1983.
Sloan holds a bachelor's degree from Baylor, a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a doctorate in theology from the University of Basel, Switzerland. He was born in Coleman, Texas, and grew up in Abilene. He and his wife, Sue, have seven children.
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