Baylor Line - Spring 2014

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Baylor Line SPRING 2014

Magazine of the Baylor Alumni Association

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Real Story.

After years of controversy, the Baylor Alumni Association reveals the truth behind the ongoing alumni relations fight at Baylor

Annual Membership Meeting of the Baylor Alumni Association MEETING:

Saturday, May 31, 2014, 1:00 p.m.

Hilton Waco — Brazos Ballroom 113 South University Parks Drive, Waco, TX 76701 PURPOSE:

Election of officers and directors for the 2014-15 year NOMINATED OFFICERS:

President: Keith Starr ’83 (Tyler) Treasurer: James Nelson III ’04 (Waco) Secretary: Emily George Tinsley ’61 (Houston) NOMINATED DIRECTORS:

Sharon McDonald Barnes ’78, ’80 (Rosharon) Babs Baugh ’64 (San Antonio) Matt Miller ’57 (Houston) Jim Nelson ’68, JD ’75 (Austin) Stan Schlueter ’69 (Austin) Stacy Sharp ’76 (Amarillo) L. Wayne Tucker Jr. ’85, MBA ’86 (Dallas) RETURNING DIRECTORS:

Jan Huggins Barry ’72 (Arlington) Gary Baxter ’03 (Tyler) Amy Hightower Brees ’79 (Austin) Marie Brown ’92 (Aubrey) George Cowden III ’76, JD ’78 (San Antonio) Carroll Dawson ’60 (Houston) Jack Dillard ’72, JD ’73 (Austin) Matt Dow ’81 (Austin) Randall Fields ’70, MBA ’71, JD ’77 (San Antonio) Wayne Fisher ’59, JD ’61 (Houston) William Hillis ’53 (Waco) David Hudson ’77, MBA ’78 (Dallas) Roland Johnson ’76, JD ’79 (Aledo) Shelba Shelton Jones ’76 (Dallas) David Lacy ’79 (Waco) Cully Lipsey ’73, JD ’75 (Bryan) David Malone ’73 (Austin) Jackie Baugh Moore ’86 (San Antonio) Robert Morales ’93 (Beeville) James Nortey ’08 (Austin) Fred Norton ’80, JD ’83 (Texarkana) Lyndon Olson Jr. ’76 (Waco) Tony Pederson ’73 (Dallas) David Potts ’94 (Katy) Nicole Williams Robinson ’97 (Garland) Tyrone Smith ’95 (Katy) David Vanderhider ’06 (San Antonio)

IN THIS ISSUE S P R I N G 2 0 1 4 , VO L . 76 , N O. 1

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A necessary voice

A message from BAA President George Cowden III

4 The real story After years of controversy, the Baylor Alumni Association reveals the truth behind the ongoing alumni relations fight at Baylor

30 Legal agreements The 1993 License Agreement and the 1994 Official Recognition & Building Agreement between Baylor University and Baylor Alumni Association

39 Why independent?

52 the

Baylor Line Vol. 76, No. 1 Published by the Baylor Alumni Association since 1946

CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER/EDITOR Chad Wooten ’03 ART DIRECTOR John Sizing jspublicationdesign.com CONTACT INFO General: The Baylor Line P.O. Box 2089, Waco, TX 76703 Phone: (254) 732-0393 Online: BaylorLine.com

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Distinctive among alumni organizations serving private universities, the Baylor Alumni Association has a tradition of independence as a self-governing organization that uniquely strengthens its partnership with Baylor University

52 Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center From 1976 until 2013, the Hughes Dillard Alumni Center welcomed thousands of Baylor alums, students, employees, and friends

POSTMASTER: Send address changes to The Baylor Line, P.O. Box 2089, Waco, TX 76703

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MESSAGE FROM THE PRESIDENT

A necessary voice Determining the future direction of your BAA

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the outside. It makes no sense whatsoever.

You can debate what triggered the change in attitude toward the alumni association. It could be a misinterpretation of what it means to have an “independent” alumni association, although past university administrations have embraced that concept. It could be the decision to change how the Board of Regents is selected, leaving the door open for the same voices to repeatedly influence university policies. Or it could be the role that the alumni association and the Baylor Line have played as independent voices, asking necessary questions during past university controversies.

Looking ahead, our primary consideration must be what is best for Baylor. Obviously, there is disagreement over whether an independent voice for alumni is in Baylor’s best interest. It seems to me that Baylor would be well served if the university would embrace a group of alumni willing to raise a critical voice without fear of censorship. I hope you will read the article that Dr. Bill Hillis ’53 wrote on page 8. His message is more articulate than mine. Please also see the article that David Lacy ’79 wrote on page 12, titled “Who Will Ask the Questions?” In this article, he enumerates the kind of probing questions that Baylor alumni should feel free to ask in an open forum, without fear of future reprisals.

What do we hope comes from publishing this issue of the Baylor Line? We want it to start a dialogue about the future direction of your BAA. These are difficult times for the Baylor Alumni Association, but we are committed to the same intention of supporting our great university that animated the BAA when we opened our doors 155 years ago. Please let us hear your views, because without you there is no Baylor Alumni Association. Please feel free to contact me and the BAA Executive Committee at baylorline@ bayloralumniassociation.com. Thank you for your continuing support of the BAA. I look forward to hearing from you.

GEORGE COWDEN III

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FOR MANY OF US INVOLVED WITH THE Baylor Alumni Association, the last few years have been painful and, to be honest, confusing. The BAA has been Baylor’s recognized general alumni organization since 1859, serving as an ardent supporter and a loyal defender through good times and not-so-good times alike. We truly believe that our alumni—among the most committed and proud in the entire country—have been crucial to our alma mater’s vitality and success over the past 155 years.

One of the questions most frequently asked is: “How did we get to where we are?” In this issue of the Baylor Line, we attempt to answer that question.

Compiled from the archives of the BAA and personal interviews, this issue provides a year-by-year look at how the relationship between the BAA and the Baylor Board of Regents has disintegrated.

The BAA Executive Committee debated the merits of opening old wounds with a cover story that chronicles this sad history. Ultimately, we decided that it is worthwhile to provide background and context for alumni, parents, faculty, and students who may have only seen or heard pieces of the story.

The facts show that the BAA has faced attempts by some Baylor regents to weaken or eliminate the alumni association’s relevance; to turn against us our desire to remain an independent (yet very supportive) voice; and to sever our coordinated operations with the university. Those efforts culminated last year with the ouster from campus of remaining BAA staff members in December and repeated threats to sue the BAA over the continued use of Baylor marks and logos, even though the BAA has a license agreement with the university. The narrative that emerges in this issue is a long-term, concerted effort to marginalize the BAA in favor of one voice—the Board of Regents—and one point of view, with no independent alumni voice to ensure accountability.

You may also ask, “Why destroy an association of loyal supporters whose only purpose is to support Baylor?” This is puzzling to many of us in the Baylor family, as well as others looking at the situation from

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It seems to me that Baylor would be well served if the university would embrace a group of alumni willing to raise a critical voice without fear of censorship.

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REAL

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STORY After years of controversy, the Baylor Alumni Association reveals the truth behind the ongoing alumni relations fight at Baylor

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 7, 2013,

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dawned bright and clear on the Baylor campus. As the chimes in Pat Neff Hall struck the half hour, several students walked their dogs along Fountain Mall while a number of Baylor staff members bustled toward Waco Hall. Clearly, something important was happening on campus that day, as workers laid out food, posted signs, and swept the sidewalks in front of the Judge Baylor statue.

Later that afternoon, thousands of Baylor supporters would throng to Floyd Casey Stadium when the Bears took on the University of Buffalo. But before the Bears would finish a 70-13 rout of the Bulls, the Baylor family had another contest to wage—one that was more than a decade in the making.

Nearly twenty years to the day after the Baylor Alumni Association (BAA) and Baylor University signed an agreement (page 30) that granted the association a long-term license to use the names “Baylor Alumni Association” and “The Baylor Line,” BAA members would vote on a new proposal that would negate the long-term license and another agreement (page 37) signed in 1994 that gave the BAA official status with Baylor and the right to indefinitely occupy the HughesDillard Alumni Center. The termination of spring 2014

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GAME DAY—Many of the fifteen hundred BAA members who voted in Waco on September 7 went straight from Waco Hall to the afternoon football game at Floyd Casey Stadium.

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Given the ongoing consequences of what some observers have dubbed “Baylor’s civil war” and of the turmoil surrounding Baylor’s leadership over the last two decades, the BAA’s leaders now believe the time has come to provide a forthright account of this recent history, connecting the dots between seemingly isolated actions from the Sloan era to the present and examining the issues and people behind them. Bringing such topics out into the light of day is a critical step, they say, to understanding the full context of current circumstances.

“Sunlight is the best disinfectant,” said George Cowden III, current president of the BAA. “At this crucial time in the history of Baylor’s alumni relations and in its administration and governance, the BAA is exercising the right that Baylor gave us in the 1993 License Agreement to take positions that ‘may be contrary to the administration of the University or its Board of Regents’ in telling this story as an independent voice.

We hope that a candid presentation of the facts as we know them will form the basis for a new beginning, ultimately leading to resolution, reconciliation, and the well-being of Baylor University.”

This is the real story.

Dissension in the ranks In the spring of 1995, the Baylor Board of Regents announced BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

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these agreements and dissolution of the BAA’s charter would be exchanged for a newly licensed “Baylor Line Corporation,” to publish the association’s magazine, and a non-voting seat on Baylor’s Board of Regents.

During the preceding summer, both the university and the BAA had publicized the September vote on what was called the “Transition Agreement,” but the proposed compromise was not without its share of controversy. Some people claimed it was nothing more than the BAA capitulating to a veiled takeover from the university. Others said that the alumni organization needed to stop complaining and become part of the positive forward movement Baylor had been enjoying in recent years by dissolving and merging with the university.

Even the process of the vote was not without its problems. Because the BAA’s bylaws called for in-person voting on significant organizational changes, only those association members who made the trip to Waco would have the opportunity to have their voices heard. And the vote had to pass by a two-thirds majority of those present, rather than a simple majority.

While members of the Baylor Line student organization jubilantly ran onto the field at Floyd Casey, an independent accounting firm was counting the votes that would determine the future of the “other” Baylor Line and the 155-year-old organization that published it, the Baylor Alumni Association.

its selection of Dr. Robert Sloan ’70 as Baylor’s twelfth president. During the weeks following Sloan’s first day, the alumni association served as a sponsor of a statewide tour to introduce Sloan to media and alumni in cities ranging from El Paso and Amarillo to Corpus Christi and Texarkana. Then-BAA executive vice president Ray Burchette ’57 accompanied Sloan on these trips that crisscrossed the state, allowing him to establish a connection with the new president that would extend the close interaction between the association and Sloan’s predecessors in office.

This amicable relationship continued through Baylor’s staging of the much-publicized first on-campus dance, held on April 18, 1996, and the renovation and expansion of the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center, which was completed in June 1998 at a total cost to the association of $2.5 million and for which Sloan provided an endorsement in fundraising materials. Although the university helped support the fundraising effort, 100 percent of the construction costs were paid from BAA donations.

But signs of strain also began appearing between the Sloan administration and the BAA in the late 1990s. According to Burchette and others at the alumni association, Sloan developed a resentment toward the BAA concerning the editorial content in the Baylor Line, the BAA’s independent alumni magazine that had been published since 1946. One of Sloan’s first negative assessments of the magazine’s perfor-

“Sloan made no attempt to hide his deep conviction that the Baylor Line articles were attacks on him personally and part of a concerted effort to undermine his presidency.” mance as an alumni communications vehicle was his stated displeasure over the coverage of the university’s contemplated sale of Baylor Health Care System (BHCS) in early 1997 for a reported $1.2 billion to a for-profit corporation—a possibility that had generated controversy, especially in the Dallas area.

In two stories, successively published in the 1997 spring and summer issues, the Baylor Line reported on the relationship between Baylor and BHCS, and the university’s eventual signing of an agreement with BHCS granting the system’s trustees control over its own future and providing for a reported $51 million contribution to Baylor University’s health-related programs. Various other Baylor Line stories, including articles concerning eating disorder treatment at Baylor and a drug BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline of events in the relationship between Baylor University and the Baylor Alumni Association

President: Abner McCall Term: 1961-1981 “I think this [autonomy of the alumni association] is something we ought to strive for, because there may be times in the future when the alumni association will need to speak with a more independent voice about the university.”

August 1978: The Baylor Alumni Association files articles of incorporation with the Texas Secretary of State to become legally incorporated as a separate, taxexempt nonprofit organization.

President: Herbert Reynolds Term: 1981-1995 “The [independent] association can speak out on matters of interest and concern, particularly when the university regents or administrators feel some inhibition to do so, for whatever reason.”

September 1993: BAA and university sign agreement granting BAA a longterm, fully paid-up license to use the names and marks of Baylor Alumni Association and The Baylor Line.

May 1994: BAA and the university sign agreement recognizing BAA as “the official alumni association of Baylor University and all its academic units” and providing for the “exclusive right to occupy and use the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center…for an indefinite term.”

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raid on campus, irritated Sloan. The Line, although obviously biased toward Baylor, had a long-standing tradition of balanced reporting and telling a comprehensive story, even if things weren’t always pleasant.

When Diane Dillard ’76, JD ’79, served as president of the association’s board in 1999, she also encountered criticism of the organization from Sloan. Dillard, the daughter of former association executive director Jack Dillard, told the Line that a tone of hostility and mistrust was established even before she took office. As president-elect, she attended a meeting with Sloan that included other association officials. “President Sloan was angry with the association and furious with

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the Baylor Line over the magazine’s stories on the medical center. At the meeting, he quite clearly threatened our very existence,” she said. “He told us he thought that the alumni association should be part of the university’s development office, where the association and the Baylor Line could be controlled by the president. He made no attempt to hide his deep conviction that the Baylor Line articles were attacks on him personally and part of a concerted effort to undermine his presidency.”

A few years later, the issues eventually surfaced as the university entered a transition period, creating an ideal time for the administration to effect major changes in alumni relations

The Importance of an Independent Voice

SINCE 1859, THE BAYLOR ALUMNI Association (BAA) has existed to serve the ever-growing family of alumni at Baylor University, an institution we all hold dear. As Baylor itself has evolved and grown into a world-class institution of higher learning, the role and purpose of the BAA is more important than ever before.

Today, as Baylor strengthens its commitment to undergraduate and graduate education in an era of limited resources, the BAA’s role as a leading support group for the university may need to change to fit the times. However, in accepting this changing role, the association should never be forced to relinquish its independent voice.

The BAA’s track record shows how a commitment to an independent voice makes the association more effective–it allows the BAA to play a valuable and irreplaceable role in defending and supporting Baylor’s commitment to academic excellence and the Christian faith.

Maintaining a balance between learning and faith puts Baylor in a

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delicate position, especially with a self-perpetuating governing board of thirty individuals who have limited checks and balances to their authority.

For this reason, many alumni and Baylor’s strongest supporters believe that an association endowed with an independent voice best serves the university. Any multi-faceted institution like a university with multiple constituents, participants, and contributors must be able to consider the opinions of the many, not just the selected few, if it is to continue to strive for excellence.

An independent voice challenges, questions and vets alternatives–all in an effort to forge better decisions.

An independent voice should not be obstructive, confrontational, or resistant to change. Constructive dialogue will keep the Baylor family informed, engaged, and connected.

The new BAA should continue to function as a separately governed, managed, and incorporated organization. In fact, previous Baylor leaders requested that the organization be fashioned in this manner, seeing an

independent voice as a strengthening and an enabling characteristic.

With more than 150,000 alumni worldwide, the BAA’s $1.5 million budget is currently funded entirely by generous alumni and friends through membership dues and annual contributions, allowing the BAA to remain unaffected by the budgetary decisions of the Board of Regents and campus leadership.

Over the years, the BAA has independently contributed alumni services and programs for the sole benefit of the university, and BAA members have made individual gifts to Baylor totaling millions of dollars.

Through the Baylor Line magazine, alumni are provided with a publication whose content reflects the full range of their interests and concerns, including balanced coverage of controversial issues. This approach is the foundation of the magazine’s relevance and credibility, which in turn builds a strong, trust-based relationship between readers and the university.

The BAA also continues to be supportive of multiple scholarships to

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at Baylor. In March 2002, Dr. Randy Lofgren ’63, who the previous year had succeeded Burchette as the BAA’s executive vice president after serving in Baylor’s Office of Development since 1988, delivered to Sloan a nine-page proposal for Baylor to contract with the alumni association as its “vendor of choice” for a wide range of services directly linked to Imperative IX of Baylor 2012, the ambitious ten-year vision that had been adopted by Baylor’s Board of Regents the previous fall. “Enhance involvement of the entire Baylor family,” read Imperative IX, and the alumni association’s proposal was entirely structured around ten premises contained within that objective.

President: Robert Sloan Term: 1995-2005 “The alumni association’s independence is the foundation of its effectiveness.

If you are not independent, then your praise does not sound credible and your critique can be shut down. But when you are independent, you can be both of those—with strength and credibility...”

Summer 1995: BAA sponsors and hosts statewide welcome tour for President Sloan.

by William Hillis, MD help students pay the exorbitant tuition that the university finds itself charging.

As he was preparing to leave office in the spring of 1995, President Herbert Reynolds, one of the most beloved and trustworthy chief executives in Baylor University history, spoke eloquently about the value of an alumni association with an independent voice.

“I think that there are certain occasions when it is most helpful for alumni to have an independent voice that is not bridled by forces internal or external to the university,” Dr. Reynolds said. “To the extent that the Baylor Alumni Association has that kind of autonomy, it has proved to be very beneficial; the association can speak out on matters of interest and concern, particularly when the university regents or administrators feel some inhibition to do so, for whatever reason.”

Dr. Reynolds wisely understood that the more voices Baylor is able to engage in conversation on its campus ultimately serves the greater good of the univer-

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—)

sity. Some views will be positive.

Unfortunately, at times, others will ask vexing questions. Regardless of initial positions, all opinions should be shared in an effort to reach the best, most-reasoned decisions for Baylor.

That is the BAA’s mission. And it is one that the organization has taken seriously since 1859.

William Hillis, MD, is professor emeritus and Cornelia Marschall Smith Distinguished Professor of Biology at Baylor University. Hillis joined the Baylor faculty from Johns Hopkins University in 1981 to serve as chair of the biology department.

He also served the university as executive vice president from 198589 and vice president for student life until 1998, when he returned to full-time teaching. He is a 1953 Baylor graduate.

Summer 1997: Sloan endorses BAA fundraising effort for alumni center renovation.

Spring/Summer 1997: Baylor Line publishes articles covering the decision to sell the Baylor Health Care System, reportedly upsetting President Sloan.

March 2002: BAA submits request for $850,000 in programming funds to support Baylor 2012 as “vendor of choice.”

April 2002: University declines $850,000 request but agrees to fund $350,000 for fewer programs.

June 2002: University creates the Office of Alumni Services and begins publication of the Baylor Magazine, hiring BAA executive director Randy Lofgren to run the department.

October 2002: President Sloan gives the BAA board two options: Merge with the university or give the name “Baylor Alumni Association” to Baylor.

May 2003: University and BAA sign a “Memorandum of Intention and Understanding” that guaranteed the continu(continued on page 11)

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VETO POWER—Under the Sloan administration, the university rejected the BAA’s budget proposal and created a new Office of Alumni Services.

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Following the university’s overtures of support for the plan, The association’s proposed annual contract to fund twelve the association’s leadership was surprised and disappointed programs totaled $850,000. Programs covered by the prowhen, on April 12, 2002, the Sloan administration declined posal included metropolitan-area volunteer networks and the association’s proposal for a full-scale, $850,000 conregional chapters, Homecoming, the Alumni-in-the-Making tract for services. Baylor did commit, however, to providing program aimed at fostering ties with current students, the $350,000 for the next fiscal year to support a more limited Legacy program for children of alumni, the Baylor Line, range of services.

Heritage Club for graduates from fifty years ago or more, the But as Lofgren continued meeting with university adminalumni awards programs, online alumni community-building istrators, the Sloan administration’s plans regarding alumni activities, and the Between the Lines monthly e-mail newsletrelations became much more evident. On June 12, 2002—just ter that had been created in July 2001 and had a readership of forty thousand alumni at the time.

The proposal, delivered while the “It is important for alumni to have a voice and to BAA was in the midst of sponsoring be able to speak out, whether it is to be a friendly a series of alumni meetings across the nation designed to give Baylor adminiscritic or to be an enthusiastic cheerleader. Both of trators an opportunity to promote Baylor those are legitmate functions.”

2012, was the culmination of two years of crafting and implementing a long-range two months after delivering the BAA’s plan—Lofgren first plan for the association. During this time, the association had informed the association’s officers of his decision to resign as increased its staff to twenty-one employees and had drawn executive vice president in order to accept an offer by Bayupon its quasi-endowment, which had stood at $5.5 million lor to become associate vice president for alumni services. in June 2000, to expand its programs in preparation for the In that capacity, he would be directing a new unit within plan’s implementation. The association’s previous discussions Baylor’s university relations division to be called the Office of with Baylor administrators concerning the long-range plan— Alumni Services. In a press release sent by e-mail to Baylor particularly during two key meetings in 2000 and 2001—had employees—which described the alumni services office’s led association representatives to believe the decision-makers responsibilities as alumni networking, lifelong learning, and in Pat Neff Hall backed the direction of the BAA’s ambitions.

conferencing and career services for alumni—Sloan described the catalyst for the new office’s creation as being Baylor 2012.

“The structural changes that led to Dr. Lofgren’s appointment to this new position support the community-building goals of the ten-year vision,” Sloan said.

On that same day, June 12, 2002, several other BAA employees resigned (along with Lofgren) to accept positions in the new Office of Alumni Services. The BAA board of directors and remaining staff members had no prior knowledge of this new department until Lofgren’s announcement in a staff meeting that morning. In the words of one former employee in attendance at the meeting, “it certainly felt like an ambush.”

“Microsoft them” These actions came as no surprise to Dr. Stan Madden, who helped craft university strategy as Sloan’s vice president for university relations prior to leaving that position in early 2003. “Robert asked me once what I would do if I wanted to get rid of the alumni association. And I said, ‘I would do a Microsoft,’” he told the Line. “What Microsoft has found is that any time they have a competent competitor who has found a market and if they can’t buy them, then Microsoft has enough money to do what the competitor does but just give it away until the competitor can’t afford to do it anymore, and then Microsoft can control the market. [With alumni relations] I wanted something where we would have a way of keeping people involved from birth to death, and I didn’t know if the alumni association, just because of the way it was set up, would ever be a part of that. But Robert literally wanted me to build another one just like it—put them out of business.”

The Microsoft idea, Madden adds, began as a joke. “Our original conversation about the Mircosoft strategy was held regarding the NoZe Brotherhood. Robert really resented some of the material in the Rope about him. The hotter the environment got, the more he resented the NoZe satirizing the situation. I told him once that if he could not tolerate the NoZe, he could always organize a parallel group. As nobody knew who they were, they could easily be replaced. That was where the discussion actually began. Later, when we were talking about the BAA, I said, ‘Microsoft them,’ alluding back to that earlier discussion. I was joking when I said that, but that’s exactly what happened.”

Public statements made by Sloan and other Baylor officials, however, were distinctly more polished. In the “Conversation with the President” column in the spring 2003 issue of the Line, Sloan discussed the changes he had made in Baylor’s approach to alumni relations. “We have had a very supportive relationship with the alumni association down the years, and I believe the alumni association continues to serve a very important function for the university. But from our point of view, it was a question of the alumni association—as primarily BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) ation of the association’s access to the alumni database, the use of the Baylor Alumni Association name, and office space in the alumni center, which the association had previously agreed to share with the Office of Alumni Services.

July 2003: BAA sponsors “A Baylor Family Dialogue,” during which two opposing panels discussed questions in four categories: finances, academics, leadership, and institutional values.

Sept./Oct. 2003: Two opposing nonprofit corporations are chartered in response to concerns about President Sloan’s leadership: Friends of Baylor and the Committee to Restore Integrity to Baylor (CRIB), whose stated mission, in part, was to advocate for “a leadership change at the top.”

February 2004: Sloan and the BAA sign a “Services Agreement,” outlining the services that the BAA would perform for Baylor and the fees that Baylor would pay for those services as a reimbursement of direct costs for services rendered.

October 2004: Regent chair Will Davis creates Special Committee on Alumni Relations to consult with and advise Sloan on any issues concerning the BAA. The committee would become more visible during the Lilley administration.

January 2005: After continuing controversy and two votes of no confidence by Baylor’s Faculty Senate, Robert Sloan announces he will step down as president of Baylor University.

President: Bill Underwood (Interim: seven-month term) Term: June 2005-Dec. 2005 “You’re supposed to have disagreement (continued on page 13)

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Who Will Ask the Questions? by David Lacy ’79

IF I TOLD YOU THAT FROM 2009 to 2013, Baylor’s total liabilities have almost doubled, while our endowment underperformed other top schools, would you say, “Well, sounds like things are going great in Waco”?

Or would you want to look closer at some recent decisions?

Our university is in an unprecedented construction boom, and we’re on the state and national stage as never before. We’re all excited about what the future can hold for Baylor, myself included. The momentum at Baylor is certainly positive.

But as loyal alumni, we have a charge to make sure that our aspirations don’t undermine the university’s long-term financial security, or jeopardize our ability to provide a top-quality Christian education that’s within financial reach for our students and their families.

This is the crux of the conversation about the BAA’s role as an independent voice in the Baylor family. We want the conversation about Baylor’s direction and values to be a good, open, family discussion based on the facts, such as:

• What is the right amount of debt for Baylor?

• What is the forecast for reducing that debt?

• What is the forecast for Baylor’s tuition over the next ten years?

• What type of investments make up the Baylor endowment?

• What is an appropriate rate of return for Baylor’s endowment?

All of the BAA’s discussions are based on the premise, which I have seen played out with other institutions that I support, that people will come to the aid of things they love if they know the facts. When organizations become transparent about their business dealings, the giving really starts. When institutions do

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things inclusively, they put everyone on the same side of the table and real progress can take place.

Some may say, well, a lot of this information is available on Baylor’s website. However, if you told most Baylor alumni that the university has almost doubled its total liabilities from $474 million in 2009 to $860 million in 2013, they wouldn’t believe it. But it’s true.

It’s true that during the same four-year period, the university’s endowment only increased from $880 million in 2009 to just over $1.06 billion in 2013. Further, these numbers include the new dollars raised and placed in endowment for this same four-year period, as well as distributions from the endowment earnings.

The endowment actually earned a bit over 30 percent for this four-year period, but that rate of return is about half of what the Dow Jones earned during those years, and less than many other college endowments.

Baylor provides a lot of data in the “Financial Highlights” section of its website, but most alumni don’t have the time or inclination to go hunting for it. We need someone to gather this information and present it to the Baylor family so that we all have the information.

Forbes Magazine recently published an article titled, “The 50 Top ROI Colleges 2014: The Grateful Grads Index.” The report ranked private colleges by the median amount of donations per student over a ten-year period, with extra weight for schools where more graduates give back. Princeton University, where 46 percent of graduates contribute and the ten-year median contribution was $29,330, ranked first. Of our peer private colleges here in Texas, Rice University ranked twenty-seventh, Austin College in Sherman ranked sixty-eighth, and Southwestern University in George-

town ranked eighty-fifth. Baylor didn’t make the top 100. Our lack of open, meaningful discussion is a weakness for Baylor as we all work to make our university a bigger and better place. If you looked at the top fifty private universities on Forbes’ list, there might be forty different structures for their alumni associations. But if you look at the governance of those same universities, I’m confident you would find very few that have a self-perpetuating Board of Regents like Baylor. The need for someone to serve as an independent voice becomes crucially important with a self-perpetuating governance structure like Baylor’s. There are very few things that I love more than open and honest dialogue between friends, but one of those is my love for Baylor. It is for this reason that I hope that we can have a family discussion of these important topics.

So… who “owns” a university? I’ve given this a lot of thought, and I believe it’s a group of stakeholders that includes alumni, students, faculty, staff, the parents who write tuition checks, administrators, donors, and the Board of Regents. Every one of these stakeholders has earned the right to ask good questions to university leaders, and to receive thorough answers in return.

The most successful institutions recognize that all stakeholders deserve to have access to good information and the right to ask good questions, because good questions lead to better decisions. I’ve never seen an institution—whether it’s a government, a bank, or a charity—that can run efficiently without checks and balances.

At Baylor, if it’s not the BAA asking questions about the university’s debt, the performance of our endowment, and rising tuition rates, who’s going to ask?

If not the BAA, then … who?

BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

a dues-supported organization—being able to meet the needs of our total alumni base, which has grown tremendously in recent years,” he commented. “Having said that, I think it is very important to recognize and appreciate the vital function that the Baylor Alumni Association has served in the past and continues to serve now, particularly as a support to the university.

Down through the years, one of the single greatest functions of the alumni association has been supporting the university in times of stress and conflict. It is important for alumni to have a voice and to be able to speak out, whether it is to be a friendly critic or to be an enthusiastic cheerleader. Both of those are legitimate functions. The alumni association’s independence is the foundation of its effectiveness. If you are not independent, then your praise does not sound credible and your critique can be shut down. But when you are independent, you can be both of those—with strength and credibility. . . . Independence provides for a free voice, but it also necessitates the support of its own membership.”

Simultaneous with the creation of the Office of Alumni Services, the debut issue of Baylor Magazine, published by the university’s Office of Public Relations, was mailed to almost 100,000 alumni and university supporters during the first week of June 2002. The new general-interest magazine was to be published bimonthly and sent to its readers at no cost. The publication’s staff members assured members of the Baylor Line staff that they would not cover alumni news or create a Class Notes section; they would, instead, focus on campusrelated news and events.

On the back cover of Baylor Magazine’s inaugural issue, Sloan wrote, “Why a new magazine, and why now? Those are good questions. The vast majority of Baylor alumni receive no consistent, timely communication from the university. Those who are members of the Baylor Alumni Association—fewer than 25 percent of our graduates—receive the Baylor Line on a quarterly basis. The rest of our alumni receive one issue annually, the Homecoming [fall] edition. We believe there is too much happening at Baylor to neglect this important audience.”

However, Stan Madden told the Line that the motivation for creating Baylor Magazine was not solely based on a quantitative issue—the Baylor Line’s limited distribution at the time. Such a perceived deficiency, he noted, could have been corrected by developing a plan for the alumni association to expand the Baylor Line’s distribution to all alumni, as it had previously done. According to Madden, who now holds The Ben H. Williams Professorship in Marketing at Baylor, Sloan’s decision to create another general-interest alumni magazine was based on other factors. “Robert felt like there was a need for Baylor Magazine because he didn’t get to control what was in the Baylor Line,” he said. Madden said that Sloan remarked on the fact that unlike most universities, Baylor did not have a publication that reflected the administration’s agenda. “The Baylor Magazine was started to give the university administraBaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) on a university campus; that’s what creates a vibrant academic environment. But you want the disagreement to be productive and beneficial.”

June 2005: On first day in office, Underwood dismisses Provost David Lyle Jeffrey. He is told by Regent Buddy Jones not to take any actions concerning BAA.

President: John Lilley Term: Jan. 2006-July 2008 I want to work very closely with the Baylor Alumni Association and the university’s other outreach programs to keep alumni close to their alma mater and active in supporting our work here.”

October 2006: Special Committee on Alumni Relations gives Lilley a list of its concerns regarding the relationship between Baylor and the alumni association, which Lilley says he’ll investigate on his own and present his findings to the regents at their next meeting in February 2007.

July 2007: Lilley informs BAA that the university does not intend to renew the “Services Agreement” with the BAA. September 2007: BAA retains national firm to survey alumni about their perceptions of the university and BAA. University legal counsel questions BAA’s right to conduct this survey, questions survey validity, demands the results, and cautions BAA about publicizing results.

December 2007: University legal counsel requests BAA publicly commit to achieving the goals of Baylor 2012 and says changes need to be made around BAA’s “employment status, employee benefits, credit card security, and privacy.” (continued on page 15)

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the Real Story On October 21, 2002—the Monday before Homecoming—Sloan made two proposals: that the alumni association merge with Baylor or, should the group wish to remain independent, that it give the name “Baylor Alumni Association” to Baylor’s Office of Alumni Services and, perhaps, continue to function under the name “Baylor Line Society.” tion a way to tell their side of what was happening,” Madden said. “While the Baylor Line represented the university regarding news in many cases, Robert felt his message was filtered through others with a different point of view.”

Significantly, the research that Baylor’s Office of External Relations had conducted by an outside research firm when the university was formulating plans for Baylor Magazine failed to reveal a perceived need among alumni for another generalinterest alumni magazine. As presented in the February 2002 “Executive Summary” of that research, those who participated in focus-group discussions were simply said to have been “interested in getting more news about events, activities, and accomplishments at Baylor.” Several respondents were said to have been “very concerned that Baylor might spend an inordinate amount of money on a magazine that was redundant to the Baylor Line,” and one of the findings of the focus-group research concluded, “The concept of another Baylor magazine created a significant amount of confusion.”

Strained relations In the wake of Baylor’s creation of the Office of Alumni Services and the launch of Baylor Magazine in June 2002, the relationship between the BAA and Baylor entered a period of great uncertainty and tension. That fall, as the Office of Alumni Services began implementing networking programs that had been outlined in the association’s long-range plan, members of a negotiating team created by association leaders set to work. During their second meeting with Baylor officials—on October 21, 2002, the Monday before Homecoming— Sloan made two proposals: that the alumni association merge with Baylor or, should the group wish to remain independent, that it give the name “Baylor Alumni Association” to Baylor’s Office of Alumni Services and, perhaps, continue to function under the name “Baylor Line Society,” to reflect the name of the group’s magazine and primary remaining program.

“We were shocked and amazed—we were stunned, I don’t know what other word I can use—to hear the president of the university that we have all worked so hard for, to basically ask us to give up our very identity,” negotiating team member Joey Seeber ’86, JD ’90, said. “I remember walking out of that meeting and looking at the others and saying, ‘Was I dreaming?

Did that really just happen?’ Because it was such a 180-degree turn from where we had been not that long ago.”

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On November 1, 2002, then-BAA president Pruitt Ashworth ’70, JD ’80, wrote to Sloan to convey the executive committee’s decision regarding his proposal. “We believe that the proposal would destroy the Baylor Alumni Association,” he wrote. “Therefore, we respectfully decline your suggestion that the Baylor Alumni Association give up its name.” In a letter of response, Sloan said he recognized the association’s need to retain its name and confirmed that the university would maintain its commitment to provide $350,000 to the BAA for fiscal year 2002-03, but he added that the university expected the association to function with “full financial independence during the next budget cycle” for fiscal year 2003-04.

When the BAA’s Board of Directors met on February 1, 2003, the organization had reached the low point of its recent operations. The association’s staff of twenty-one had declined to four full-time employees, who constituted the Baylor Line’s staff, and two part-time employees. And as a result of quasiendowment resources being drawn upon to fund the longrange plan, the association’s quasi-endowment had dropped from $5.5 million in June 2000 to $2.8 million.

Meanwhile, university officials continued to defend their actions and to negatively portray the association’s independent status. “The model of the membership-driven alumni association was appropriate in the ’40s and ’50s, but it hasn’t been for a long time now,” a Baylor vice president said in an article printed in the January/February 2003 issue of Baylor Magazine. Echoing that comment, Lofgren was quoted later in the same article as saying, “Most knowledgeable leaders in the institutional advancement profession say it’s not a matter of if free-standing alumni associations of private universities will cease to be, it’s when.”

The association and the university did eventually sign, on May 10, 2003, a “Memorandum of Intention and Understanding” that guaranteed the continuation of the association’s access to the alumni database, the use of the Baylor Alumni Association name, and office space in the alumni center, which the association had previously agreed to share with the Office of Alumni Services.

Crisis in leadership In the following months, the Baylor Alumni Association’s troubled relationship with the Sloan administration became BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

part of the more general and increasingly public debate about the effectiveness of Sloan’s leadership as president. Eventually, the association’s board members and staff elected to put the organization’s independence into action to develop a constructive, mediating solution—the staging of an event to be called “A Baylor Family Dialogue,” to which groups on both sides of the issues would be invited. On July 18, 2003, more than twelve hundred people assembled in the Ferrell Center, with another four hundred watching live through the university’s website, as two opposing panels discussed questions in four categories that had become the major areas of debate about Baylor’s direction: finances, academics, leadership, and institutional values.

The debate between the two groups was vigorous and, at times, marked by strong emotion. As writer Michael Hall described it in a feature story on Sloan in the October 2003 issue of Texas Monthly, “The eight panelists . . . talked about tuition and debt, the faculty’s lack of trust, and the job-candidate questions. Sloan was defended—for his boldness, for not being a fundamentalist—and he was attacked—for being vengeful and divisive. He promised to work hard on his leadership skills. ‘There have been many missteps along the way,’ he said.

‘There will be many more tomorrow. But I have a single ambition for Baylor: that we be a university that takes seriously the confession, Jesus Christ is Lord.”

The fault lines that served to divide large numbers of alumni, faculty, students, and other constituent groups stemmed from several management and leadership issues, which sometimes converged. Many concerned financial matters. After the university experienced lower-than-projected freshman enrollment in the fall of 2002, coupled with the debt service for $247 million in bonds that Baylor issued to finance a Baylor 2012-based construction campaign, the university was forced to enact cost-cutting measures. Such belt-tightening would be continued in the form of reductions in operating and capital budgets and a faculty and staff hiring freeze during the 2003-04 academic year after another round of lowerthan-expected enrollment numbers.

Other issues creating a for-or-against divide around Sloan’s leadership included perceived challenges to academic freedom and shared governance, a new emphasis upon faculty scholarship and research, and concerns about the administration’s approach to integrating faith and learning. A “Work Environment and Work/Life Survey” conducted by the Baylor administration in the spring of 2003 revealed that morale on campus was low. Among its other findings, the survey found that a majority of Baylor’s faculty did not feel respected by Baylor’s senior administration and that less than one-third of tenured professors had confidence in the university’s direction under Sloan’s leadership.

Baylor’s Board of Regents eventually took sides as well.

On September 8, 2003, a few days prior to a scheduled board BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) January 2008: BAA directors approve recommendation to establish its own personnel system and secure technology required to deliver its online communications independent of Baylor’s server and website before June 1.

July 2008: Regents fire Lilley and appoint Harold Cunningham, a current regent, to be acting president, a position he’ll hold for one month.

President: David Garland Term: Aug. 2008-May 2010 (Interim: twenty-two-month term) “The BAA has given Baylor a black eye.”

February 2009: BAA loses access to Baylor Development Office’s Call Center for its summer membership campaign.

BAA historically paid Baylor $20,000 each summer for these services.

May 2009: University asks BAA to “cease and desist all activity that is not within the scope of the License Agreement” and represents “Unlicensed Uses of the Baylor Mark,” including the BAA’s website address (“bayloralumni.com”), the BAA’s use of “baylor.edu” as e-mail addresses for its staff, the BAA’s presence as one of the options on the university’s toll-free number (1-800-BAYLORU), and continuing education programs that the university asked the BAA to manage three years earlier. BAA asked to comply within seventy-two hours from delivery of the letter.

June 2009: University removes link to the BAA website from the “Alumni & Friends” page on Baylor’s website with no advance notice. University removes all BAA links from its web pages and substitutes the “Baylor Alumni” branding from its alumni-outreach program.

(continued on page 17)

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meeting, five regents issued a public letter calling for the full board to vote on a motion to remove Sloan from his position as president. Then the Faculty Senate, the group elected by Baylor’s faculty to represent its collective interests, passed the first of what would be two votes of no-confidence in Robert Sloan during the 2003-04 academic year. After its 26-6 vote of no-confidence on September 9, the group stated, “Dr. Sloan’s presidency has produced a chilling work environment, a climate characterized by distrust, anxiety, intimidation, favoritism, as well as profound concerns about the sanctity of academic freedom and professional standards.” Two days later, the editorial board of the Lariat, the student newspaper, published an editorial titled “President’s Leadership Wrong for BU” in seconding the Faculty Senate’s action. As was the case with the BHCS merger in early 1997, the Baylor Line covered this topic to the consternation of both President Sloan and his supporters.

Competing organizations It was against this backdrop that two new alumni groups formed, quickly becoming the public faces of the debate and producing some of the most prominent voices in the battle over Baylor’s president. On August 30, 2003, the date of Baylor’s football season opener against the University of Alabama at Birmingham, front-page news in the Waco Tribune-Herald concerned the bitter dispute over Sloan’s leadership, not the hopes for the revival of the moribund football program under new coach Guy Morris. That day’s paper was, in effect, an announcement that an era of open hostility and strong-arm politics between rivals had dawned at Baylor, the consequences of which still impair the health of alumni relations at Baylor today. According to the story, one of the groups dubbed itself the Friends of Baylor and declared that its members were dedicated to combating the “public outcry against our university leadership,” in the words of one of its founders.

THE TIME HAS

COME

THE TIME HAS COME to preser ve Baylor’s outsta liberal arts unive nding reputation rsity and to apprec as an undergradu iate its historic lea exemplary educat ate, dership in provid ion. ing an affordable, THE TIME HAS COME to remem ber clearly that Ba relationship with ylor has always had Texas Baptists and a cherished a firm Christian to surface religio identity that does sity. not dictate confor THE TIME HAS mity COME to restor e academic integr role of leadershi ity by returning p in curriculum to dev the elopment and fac faculty its rightful THE TIME HAS ulty employment COME to emph . asize that a great collection of build university is nev ings so much as er a a for and exchange of um for the pursu ideas among fac it of knowledge ulty and students.

THE TIME HAS COME to insist on fiscal responsi mortgage Baylor’s bility that does no future with skyroc t keting tuition inc campus construct reases and ion paid for with future debt instea THE TIME HAS d of gifts.

COME for the un iversity’s regents responsibility for to assume complete oversig ht of Baylor’s pu and practices wit rposes, programs hout even the po ssible perception conflict of intere of any st.

THE TIME HAS COME to admini ster an athletic pro values character first and that ext gram that ols rather than pu speak the truth. nishes those who THE TIME HAS COME for Baylo r to rediscover the of university leader qualities ship that served as inspiration to thousands of for tens of mer students and ma de them devoted of a school that sha adv ped their lives po ocates sitively.

THE TIME HAS COME FOR BAYL OR TO BE BAYL OR AGAIN.

lor-related alumni organizations appeared in the winter 2004 Baylor Line.

BAYLOR LINE ARCHIVES

GROUP SPEAK—Ads from competing Bay-

The Committee to Restore Integr as a voice of inform ity to Baylor exists ed concern about solely the academic, ath and managerial letic, ethical fail ure s of the current Bay It is a Texas non lor administratio -profit corporatio n. n. IRS tax-exempt [501 (c) (3)] has organization sta been applied for tus retroactive to Oc tober 10, 2003.

For more inform ation on the issu of the university, es that threaten the please write the very future Committee at P.O TX 75374, e-mail . Box 740132, Da Baylor2020visio llas, n@comcast.net and visit its website

www.bu2020vision

.org

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THE BAYLOR LINE spring 2014

BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

The other group styled itself the Committee to Restore Integrity to Baylor (CRIB). The group’s name doubled as a general mission statement, but leaders clarified that installing new leadership in Pat Neff Hall was the most important part of this allegedly needed restoration. Both organizations ran large ads inside the paper that same day.

Several members of the “loyal opposition” at the Baylor Family Dialogue formed CRIB, but it was Bill Carden ’59, MA ’61, a former assistant to Baylor President Abner McCall and a past president of the alumni association, who soon became the group’s president when the group became a nonprofit corporation on October 10, 2003. “I would say that CRIB’s overall purpose was to call attention to the kind of violation that we believed was going on concerning Baylor’s historic mission of providing a reasonably priced education, primarily for the people of Texas, in the traditional, historic Baptist framework with a world mission in mind to prepare students to compete and live within the contemporary world,” Carden told the Line. “I think it’s fair to say that 100 percent of the people in CRIB saw the need for a leadership change at the top.”

Friends of Baylor (FOB), in turn, was incorporated as a nonprofit corporation with the state on September 24, 2003, with Neal T. “Buddy” Jones ’73, JD ’75, listed as the registered agent and incorporator and Clifton Robinson ’63 and Dary Stone ’77, JD ’77, listed as fellow directors. As stated in its Articles of Incorporation, the group’s purpose was “to promote, encourage, and foster the purposes of Baylor University.”

But a press release issued by Friends of Baylor on September 9 suggested a more specific mission. “Friends of Baylor, an organization founded less than two weeks ago, has recruited a heavy hitting committee of Baylor alumni and supporters from across Texas who support Baylor President Robert Sloan and stand ready to defend him and the university against fractious forces,” the press release read, followed by a series of statements. One came from Stone: “While a small number of people are garnering headlines by trying to undermine Baylor and its leadership during this challenging time, the truth is that [the regent chair] and President Sloan enjoy very strong support from the vast majority of students, faculty, and alumni. An overwhelming number of Baylor faculty members have rallied in support of President Sloan.” Another statement came from Jones. “Unfortunately, a few members of the Baylor Board of Regents and Faculty Senate have their own agendas, which they have chosen to pursue at the expense of Baylor University and its students,” he said. “No longer will we sit back and be the silent majority.”

Like the group’s other steering committee members, FOB’s triumvirate of leaders had longstanding ties to Baylor. Robinson, chair and CEO of the Waco-based National Lloyds Insurance Company at the time, served as FOB’s president at its outset and had been a generous donor to Baylor. Stone, listed as a one of FOB’s founders in the press release, had been an BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) July 2009: BAA establishes its own website and e-mail addresses, serviced by an independent provider.

August 2009: BAA loses its customary $2 discount on Sing tickets; will be required to begin paying for use of Bill Daniel Student Center to host Homecoming events; and loses right to introduce winners of the Outstanding Young Alumni Awards and First Families of Baylor Award on the Waco Hall stage during Pigskin and After Dark (although it can still present the awards).

Garland notifies BAA that he will not appear at BAA-sponsored events, including the Alumni By Choice luncheon, the BAA Annual Meeting, and the presentation of the W. R. White Meritorious Service Awards, and that he had a possible conflict for the 2010 Distinguished Alumni Award Banquet.

Garland declines Q&A interview and guest-essay invitation in the Baylor Line.

University denies second BAA request for a list of current students for the association’s reading enrichment program, despite an offer to let Baylor Student Life keep any program revenue.

University PR informs BAA that it has no plans to recognize or publicize the BAA’s Sesquicentennial (150-year anniversary).

September 2009: Regent member Bob Beauchamp asks BAA to endorse a university proposal requesting the dissolution of the BAA’s charter. BAA Board Member David Lacy returns the document that day.

Garland and Board of Regents sends Lacy a document titled “A Proposal to Combine Resources and Enhance Alumni Relations,” asking BAA to dissolve its charter and for its total scope of operations and staff to become part of a “new Baylor Alumni Association,” which would be a division in University Development. (continued on page 19)

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From the fall of 2003 through the fall of 2004, FOB and CRIB waged a vigorous campaign to sway public opinion through advertising and public relations efforts, but the faculty ultimately prevailed on Sloan’s future at Baylor.

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POWER PLAYER—Neal T. “Buddy” Jones served a one-year term as president of the Baylor Alumni Association in 1998 before serving as chair of Baylor’s Regent board in 2012.

and I will be pleased to do so. I am not sure it would help you politically but I will do it if it is necessary. Or I can just keep responding to brain dead folks like the guy who wrote me and clearing it up one at a time.”

The alumni association forwarded Jones’s response to to the concerned alum later that day, noting that “the Baylor Alumni Association is an independent, member-supported organization that isn’t connected with the Friends of Baylor or its opponent group, the Committee to Restore Integrity to Baylor. We hope to remain a place where alumni of differing opinions are welcomed and respected.”

On September 18, Fred Norton Jr. ’80, JD ’83, the Baylor Alumni Association’s president at the time, sent an e-mail to Jones with the subject line, “Notice of Violation of Copyright Protection.” The text of the message read, “Do you realize that you have violated the copyright held by the Baylor Alumni Association by reproducing the Baylor Alumni Directory for your personal purposes? Please consider this your formal noBaylorAlumniAssociation.com

BAYLOR LINE ARCHIVES

attorney and a political adviser to former Texas governor Bill Clements as well as a member of the BAA’s Board of Directors. Jones, identified as a co-chair of FOB, had an extensive background in Texas politics and later founded a successful lobbying firm in Austin. He had been president of the BAA in 1998 and served as a co-chair of The Alumni Campaign, which raised funds for the $2.5-million renovation and expansion of the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center in 1998.

On September 10, FOB moved into a new stage of organizing alumni by recruiting members through the first of several mass-distribution e-mails. “‘Friends of Baylor’ Rallies Alumni Around President Sloan,” the e-mail began. Among the other statements repeated from the group’s September 9 press release was one by Robinson: “In less than one week, we have raised more than $300,000 to help educate the public about Baylor’s rich 150-year history, the great promise this university holds, and what our university can accomplish under the leadership of President Sloan.”

One Dallas-area Baylor grad received this e-mail from Friends of Baylor and, two days later, forwarded it to Buddy Jones asking him how Friends of Baylor obtained his e-mail address. In reply, Jones said, “from the Baylor Alumni Association.”

After the e-mail exchange was forwarded to the Baylor Alumni Association, the organization contacted Jones on September 15 and requested clarification. “By the ‘Baylor Alumni Association,’ do you mean to say that FOB was supplied a recent, electronic database of alumni’s e-mail addresses?” read the BAA’s e-mail. “Or do you mean to say that FOB used the alumni association’s 2002 directory (available as a CD and book) and, on your own, compiled a database of alumni e-mail addresses from that resource? In either event, to tell people that the e-mail addresses you are using came from the Baylor Alumni Association makes it sound like we are sponsoring or assisting FOB, which is not the case.”

Jones’s response arrived a few hours later: “I know you are not helping us. I’d be pleased to put it on a T shirt and wear it if it would clear it up for you or for the idiot who is complaining. The Alumni Association has a book which has the names and addresses and e-mails of all of its members in it. At my expense I had each put into a data base and mailed to all of the folks listed in the book. It was hard because there was an additional character in most of them but it’s amazing what one can accomplish by throwing enough money at a problem.

Let me know if I need to send an e-mail to all 47,000 in our data base clarifying you are not helping Friends of Baylor

tice to stop, cease and desist contacting anyone by the e-mail addresses you have . . . copied. Those addresses continue to be the protected property of the Baylor Alumni Association.”

In response, FOB defended the legality of its actions, leading BAA officials to believe that FOB continued to use the database of e-mail addresses for the regular communications it sent out. The episode, Norton told the Line, was illuminating.

“From my perspective, Friends of Baylor began its campaign by copying protected information from the Baylor Alumni Association’s alumni directory to create its own e-mail database.

It then presented itself to alumni as a positive, grassroots movement when, in fact, its operations were bankrolled by a relatively small group of affluent individuals and its attitude toward regular alumni who questioned their actions included the arrogance of calling them ‘brain dead folks.’”

From the fall of 2003 through the fall of 2004, FOB and CRIB waged a vigorous campaign to sway public opinion through advertising and public relations efforts, but the faculty ultimately prevailed on Sloan’s future at Baylor. On May 3, 2004, Baylor’s Faculty Senate passed its second vote of no-confidence in Sloan. In a faculty-wide referendum conducted over three days at the end of the fall 2004 semester, 59 percent of Baylor’s faculty members answered a single question: “Do you want Robert B. Sloan to remain as president of Baylor University?” By a margin of 85 percent to 14 percent, the answer was no. Dr. Jim Patton, a psychology professor and then-chair of the Faculty Senate, said the group sponsored the referendum in response to accusations that dissent among faculty members was limited to a vocal minority. “Whatever this segment is, it is clearly not a minority,” he told the Line at the time.

Many in the Baylor community assumed that when Sloan left the president’s office on May 31, 2005, the two prominent external alumni organizations—the Committee to Restore Integrity to Baylor and the Friends of Baylor—would likewise disappear from the stage. Alumni who had not chosen sides in the conflict told the Line that they had concluded these two rival organizations—by contending against each other through op-ed columns in newspapers, letters to the editor, and quotes in newspaper coverage of the leadership difficulties at Baylor—had become part of the problem, not the solution. The battle was over. Baylor needed a fresh start. What had been a house divided needed to choose reconciliation over divisive labels, fellowship over fisticuffs.

CRIB, in fact, quickly faded from view. The group discontinued its meetings and official activities after Sloan announced in January 2005 that he would step down as president. In contrast, FOB continued operating until the late 2000s. A former FOB steering committee member told the Line in 2009 that he believed FOB eventually discontinued its operations because Baylor’s Board of Regents became positioned to guide the university’s communications, through BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) There is no timetable for a response from the BAA in the proposal.

Beauchamp attends the BAA board meeting and asks the board to accept the university’s proposal for the BAA to terminate its standing as an independent 501(c)(3) organization and merge with the university. BAA board establishes a committee to study the proposal. University subsequently sends e-mails to Baylor faculty, staff, students, and alumni about the “exciting proposal.”

Vigorous, public debate ensues.

October 2009: Garland and Baylor regents chair Dary Stone withdraw the university’s merger proposal, based on negative editorials and a lack of a formal response by BAA. Garland tells Student Senate that BAA has given the university a “black eye” and reportedly makes similar comments to faculty members.

November 2009: University denies BAA use of the Truett Seminary’s Powell Chapel and Great Hall for the Heritage Club reunion scheduled for March 2010.

University approves BAA request to use Waco Hall for Class Ring Ceremony in May 2010, but will now charge $1,500 for such use going forward.

University declines BAA request for mailing addresses of non-member alumni for a membership campaign.

University tells BAA it won’t be allowed to welcome new graduates into the alumni body at the December graduation ceremony and will not be allowed to host a reception tent outside the Ferrell Center after the ceremony.

University tells BAA is won’t be allowed to present the Abner V. McCall Religious Liberty Award and the Price Daniel Distinguished Public Service Award to the award recipients as part of the program for the December graduation ceremony. (continued on page 21)

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such publications as the online newsletter Baylor Proud, in a way that matched FOB’s former priorities.

Power shift On the Baylor campus, many alumni hoped the change in Baylor’s leadership would lead to a rapprochement between the Baylor Alumni Association and the Baylor administration. But during the interim presidency of Bill Underwood in 2005, the vacuum of power left by Sloan filled quietly and quickly. Some of the major players in the combat within the Baylor family had become members of Baylor’s Board

the completion of the (regent) Committee’s charge….”

Underwood left after serving seven months, and Dr. John Lilley’s tenure as Baylor’s thirteenth president began on January 2, 2006. Under Lilley, the Baylor administration sought to modify the function of the university-operated Baylor Network (which began as an extension of Robert Sloan’s Office of Alumni Services) and Baylor Magazine so that they would complement, rather than compete against, the programs of the BAA and its magazine, the Baylor Line. The goal, university and alumni association leaders said, was to create a more efficiently functioning alumni relations program and to reduce confusion and division among alumni.

Some of the major players in the combat within the Baylor family had become members of Baylor’s Board of Regents. Buddy Jones and Dary Stone, two of Friends of Baylor’s three original directors, were among the last two groups of regents elected before Sloan vacated the president’s office. of Regents. Buddy Jones and Dary Stone, two of Friends of Baylor’s three original directors, were among the last two groups of regents elected before Sloan vacated the president’s office. Jones began serving as a regent on June 1, 2004, following in the footsteps of his father, Neal T. Jones Sr., who rotated off the board a day earlier after many years of service. In addition to being FOB’s incorporator in 2003, Jones continued to serve as a director of FOB in 2004, as listed on the organization’s tax return for that year. Stone was elected as a regent on April 29, 2005, and he was joined in that year’s group of three new regents by Anne Graham Lotz, the daughter of Billy Graham and a prominent evangelist from North Carolina who was also, at the time, a member of FOB’s Steering Committee. While Jones was no longer being listed as a co-chair of FOB on the group’s website in 2005, Stone maintained his status as a co-chair and director of FOB while simultaneously serving as a Baylor regent.

Bill Underwood understood his role as interim president, which was to remove the remaining sources of faculty and alumni controversy over Sloan’s policies toward increased religiosity and to enhance uniformity among the Baylor faculty.

Provost David Lyle Jeffery had fervently advanced Sloan’s agenda, and on Underwood’s first day in office, Jeffery was terminated as provost. In Buddy Jones’ new role as regent, he solidified his presence in a letter to Underwood on June 28, 2005, just a few weeks after Underwood took office. Jones acknowledged Underwood’s “bold actions,” and made clear the direction Underwood should take regarding the BAA. Jones wrote, “you are hereby respectfully instructed to take no action relating or pertaining to the Baylor Alumni Association, its structure, role or function in your interim capacity pending 20

THE BAYLOR LINE spring 2014

“Our intent is to utilize Baylor Magazine and the Baylor Network more directly and deliberately to support Baylor 2012’s philanthropic goals,” Lilley told the Line in 2007. “We have moved the Baylor Network from the Division of Marketing and Communications into the Division of University Development to enable it to become more explicitly a part of our fundraising efforts.”

Lilley described the Baylor Line as being “exemplary as an alumni friend-raising publication” and expected its continued success in that role. “We are adjusting the editorial character of Baylor Magazine to make it a more development-oriented magazine,” he said. “Baylor Magazine needs to inspire those who are in a position to help us financially through their private giving.”

Although Lilley’s administration intially envisoned a complementary relationship between Baylor’s internally managed alumni efforts and the BAA, Baylor regents took a decisively different approach. As mentioned in Buddy Jones’ letter to Underwood, another legacy of the Sloan administration was a regent committee created by then-regent chair Will Davis ’54 in October 2004. Davis told the Line that he charged the group, named the Special Committee on Alumni Relations, to consult with and advise Sloan on any issues concerning the BAA in order to improve the communication between the administration and the alumni association. He added that the three regents he appointed to the committee—Buddy Jones, chair; Randy Ferguson ’71; and John Reimers ’72, DDS ’75—were selected because they had extensive experience with the BAA. The committee maintained a quiet existence for more than two years, never meeting with association officials during BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

the time of Baylor’s leadership transition following Sloan’s departure. Then during the BAA’s annual meeting at Homecoming in 2006, President Lilley told the group that during a regents meeting held earlier that day the Special Committee on Alumni Relations had given Lilley a list of its concerns regarding the relationship between Baylor and the alumni association, which Lilley would investigate on his own and present his findings to the regents at their next meeting in February 2007.

As the February regents meeting approached, a more detailed account of the initiatives allegedly undertaken by the Jones-chaired committee came to light through extensive coverage in the Waco Tribune-Herald. In a front-page story on February 1, 2007, the paper reported that some of the questions the committee sent to Lilley questioned the alumni association’s commitment to Baylor 2012, challenged “the association’s right to maintain editorial control of the Baylor Line,” and asked what relationship the alumni association had with members of CRIB. “I know it’s not the entire Board of Regents, because I haven’t been asked to participate,” regent Will Davis told the paper, referring to the questionnaire’s origin.

A week later, the Waco Tribune-Herald painted a more detailed picture of the questionnaire’s origins. Citing “sources close to the situation,” the paper reported on February 9 that Buddy Jones had attempted, during a regents meeting the previous July, to gain access to $500,000 in university funds for the Alumni Relations Committee to use in hiring outside legal counsel—circumventing the university’s Office of General Counsel—to investigate the Baylor Alumni Association.

Jones’s efforts, the paper reported, had been unsuccessful. In two follow-up stories, published on February 10 and February 18, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported that Baylor regents had been presented with Lilley’s report but had not taken action on it. “We got a great report on the alumni association, but there were some questions on that so we sent it back for additional information,” board chair Jim Turner ’69 told the paper. “(But) it was well-received and well-discussed.” In the February 18 story, Turner said that the regents were interested in solidifying the relationship between Baylor and the alumni association. For his part, Buddy Jones said that the alumni association “shouldn’t feel threatened.”

Committee meetings At the conclusion of its spring meeting, on May 11, 2007, the Baylor Board of Regents made several announcements in a press release that would have far-reaching repercussions.

First, the board announced that Harold Cunningham ’57 had been elected chair of the board. Second, the board reported that it had “discussed a variety of issues associated with clarifying the university’s relationship with the Baylor Alumni Association (BAA) and approved the following statement: BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) University informs the BAA that interim president David Garland will not participate in the “Conversation with the President” column in the Baylor Line magazine, saying, “We are not interested in this interview. The President prefers to utilize the University’s various communications mechanisms to communicate directly with Baylor University alumni.”

Garland and Stone reject the possibility of Baylor and the BAA pursuing the possible initiatives to enhance coordination, communication, and collaboration in alumni relations that the BAA outlined in its letter, saying, “It is important to note that your decision to be independent, separate and apart from Baylor, precludes a variety of the suggestions you describe in your letter.”

December 2009: University informs BAA it will limit access to alumni information to current life members and anyone who has paid a membership within the past twelve months, effective January 4, 2010.

University tells BAA it will remove all BAA employees from the online Baylor staff, faculty, and student directory, and BAA employees’ access to information on this directory will be restricted to the public portion.

University informs BAA that it will no longer distribute the BAA’s online newsletter Between the Lines to all alumni, which it had done since its creation in 2001.

University PR Office informs BAA that it will no longer distribute BAA news releases to external media outlets nor post BAA news releases to its news database.

January 2010: In its winter 2009-10 issue, the Baylor Magazine includes a Class Notes section for the first time since the magazine’s creation in 2002, duplicating (continued on page 23)

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the Real Story

The Regents recognize the common interest of Baylor and the Baylor Alumni Association in promoting the best interests of Baylor University. Baylor and the BAA should publicly and jointly express their commitment to: achieving the goals of 2012; the independence of the BAA; the maintenance of a harmonious relationship between Baylor and the BAA; the furtherance of the mission and historic Baptist heritage of Baylor University; and championing Baylor’s Christian environment with educational excellence.”

The next day, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported on Cunningham’s election as chair. After retiring from a fortyyear career with Arthur Andersen, Cunningham had served

said, has proven to be a roadblock to those regents who would like to take negative actions against the BAA. The 1993 license agreement between Baylor and the BAA, signed by thenBaylor president Herbert H. Reynolds, was the foundation of the BAA’s legal relationship with the university. According to Baylor administrators who served under Reynolds at the time, the agreement formalized what had been the understanding between the BAA and Baylor for decades. Leaders from both parties worked closely together to ensure that the agreement accurately reflected the nature of the long relationship between the parties with the intention that it would continue

Lilley told those at the meeting that endorsing Baylor 2012 would give the BAA more influence with the Baylor administration and the Board of Regents and that not endorsing it would give the BAA less influence. under Baylor president Robert Sloan as vice president for finance and administration, acting director of operations, and vice president for special projects before retiring from the university in 2002. Noting that the move to not re-elect Turner “raised eyebrows among alumni association officials,” the newspaper story quoted BAA president-elect Bill Nesbitt ’67, JD ’70, as saying, “The ouster of one of Baylor’s favorite sons, Jim Turner, as regent chair by a slim majority of regents brings sadness to the alumni association.”

“I feel like I’ve got about a 5,000 pound weight off my shoulders,” Turner told the paper. “This last year has taken a toll on me.”

After initially being somewhat puzzled by the public statement released by the Board of Regents, it was only when BAA officials learned of the full extent of the regents’ discussion in their May 2007 meeting, which had not been made public, that the BAA’s leaders became more concerned. According to regents who have shared information with the BAA, the board’s statement in the official press release was in fact only one of five joint recommendations brought to the full Board of Regents by the Alumni Relations Committee and the Baylor administration at the May meeting.

One key recommendation that was not approved by the full board, sources among the regents said, stated that the Baylor administration should consider “a resolution that a) Baylor officers may not execute any contract for a term in excess of 3 years without board approval and b) any contract with a term that exceeds 1 year, executed without board approval, must include a provision that permits termination without cause upon written notice.”

This last recommendation apparently was made in response to the agreements between Baylor and the BAA that date back to the 1990s and whose legal strength, BAA officials 22

THE BAYLOR LINE spring 2014

indefinitely. Those close to Reynolds say he knew the potential pitfalls of the self-perpetuating regent board he created when Baylor’s charter was changed in the early 1990s to mitigate an attack by Baptist fundamentalists. Reynolds felt strongly that an official, independent alumni voice was a key counterbalance to this new board structure, and he accordingly solidified the BAA’s long-term existence.

Inner turmoil In the months following the May 2007 Board of Regents meeting, the Baylor administration began working through the directives that had originated from the regent alumni committee. On July 17, 2007, Lilley officially notified the BAA that its contracted services partnership with Baylor would be terminated. In a “Special Report” in the fall 2007 issue of the Baylor Line, the BAA reported on the contract termination and in the report, George Cowden III ’76, JD ’78, BAA president for 2007, was quoted as saying, “All concerned alumni should know that the manner in which the Board of Regents has chosen to manage Baylor’s relationship with its own alumni association reflects an intention to coerce the BAA into a marginalized position.” Cowden went on to note that although BAA executive personnel had offered on several occasions to discuss any concerns and answer any questions regarding the relationship with the BAA, Baylor’s administration and regents never reciprocated.

In a meeting on October 6, 2007, with the BAA’s Board of Directors and Alumni Council, Lilley followed up on another of the recommendations made by regents, urging the BAA board to endorse “achieving the goals of Baylor 2012,” referring to the university’s ten-year vision that had been established by Robert Sloan in 2002 and become controversial in BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

subsequent years. Accompanied by members of his executive staff, Lilley told those at the meeting that endorsing Baylor 2012 would give the BAA more influence with the Baylor administration and the Board of Regents and that not endorsing it would give the BAA less influence.

When short-lived negotiations between Baylor and the BAA over a new comprehensive relationship agreement broke down in the late fall of 2007, the Baylor administration began pursuing the implementation of the rest of the regents’ recommendation items. On December 3, 2007, Baylor general counsel Charles Beckenhauer advised the BAA by letter that there were “some issues regarding the relationship between Baylor and the Alumni Association that Baylor must address as a matter of compliance.” These issues turned out to be major separations of operating efficiencies shared between the BAA and Baylor. By the end of the spring 2008 semester, BAA leaders made a proactive decision to separate the organization from Baylor’s benefit plans and PAPER CHASE—In payroll systems, and they secured an indepenFebruary 2007, a series dent online content system. The BAA was now of articles in the Waco both operationally and financially independent, Tribune-Herald shed light the contracted-services agreement between on the Baylor Board of Baylor and the BAA having expired in April. In Regents.

Waco Tribune-Herald ��������

February 1, 2007

Molly Ivins dies of cancer

Molly Ivins, the sharp-witted Texas liberal who poked fun of politicians for decades in her column, has died. She was 62.

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Woman guilty of beating prostitute

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) the “Down the Years” class notes section of the Baylor Line magazine.

University informs BAA that it can no longer present certificates or diplomas bearing the university name or president’s signature in BAA award ceremonies or events—such as Heritage Club and Alumni by Choice.

February 2010: University tells BAA that it can no longer use the Burleson Quadrangle for events.

University denies the BAA’s requests to use the Ferrell Center’s Stone Room for the twenty-fifth class reunion dinner during Homecoming 2010, the Miller Chapel for the Worship Service during Homecoming 2010, and the fifth floor of the Cashion Academic Center for the BAA’s Distinguished Alumni Award banquet on January 28, 2011.

University informs BAA that it is phasing out the Ring Savings program, with students no longer being able to enroll in the program, effective immediately. Students currently enrolled in the plan will be able to continue.

March 2010: Baylor begins using a “Baylor Alumni” logo as the branding of its alumni relations program.

University staff member tells BAA that it cannot purchase a table at Diadeloso or to otherwise participate in the event.

University tells BAA that the student-run Baylor Chamber of Commerce would not be assisting or working with the BAA to coordinate Homecoming activities in the fall and that the BAA should take a hands-off approach regarding anything Chamber does for Homecoming.

University denies the BAA’s request for mailing information to be used in publicizing an event for the Central Texas Baylor Club.

Garland’s office objects to a story in

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(continued on page 25)

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spring 2014

THE BAYLOR LINE

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MEET THE PRESS—Various news outlets, including the Baptist Standard, covered the ongoing turmoil at Baylor, including John Lilley’s ouster as president in 2008.

addition, the university implemented another of the regents’ recommendations and cut off the BAA’s long-standing access to donor information in Baylor’s database.

On July 24, 2008, at the conclusion of the Baylor Board of Regents summer retreat, the board issued a press release stating that the regents had “voted today to begin the search for a new university president,” replacing John Lilley, who had served two and a half years of a five-year contract as president.

In a telephone conference with reporters following Lilley’s dismissal, board chair Howard Batson, PhD ’95, pastor of First Baptist Church of Amarillo, said, “The reality is the board lost confidence in John’s ability to unite the various Baylor constituencies.”

The board appointed Harold Cunningham, a current regent and former board chair, as acting president. After he served for nearly a month in that post, on August 20 the board tapped Dr. David Garland, dean of the George W. Truett Theological Seminary, to be interim president.

Another proposal

24

THE BAYLOR LINE spring 2014

BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

BAYLOR LINE ARCHIVES

Despite the leadership change, the BAA found itself confronted with more dispiriting actions by the Baylor administration.

Baylor terminated the association’s access to the student call center on campus, which had previously contracted with the BAA to solicit alumni memberships. Later in the spring, Baylor’s lawyer asked to meet with BAA officials to “clean up” some lingering issues related to the BAA’s operational independence. That seemingly mundane gesture turned out to be another round of isolation imposed on the BAA’s operations.

Taking a much more strict approach to the 1993 license agreement than before, Baylor forced the association to use only the names “Baylor Alumni Association” and “Baylor Line.” The association’s website that had been hosted at bayloralumni.com was moved to BaylorAlumniAssociation.com. Staff e-mail ad-

dresses that were “@baylor.edu” were deactivated by Baylor, and the BAA set up new e-mail accounts to match the new website. Baylor removed the extension to the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center from the university’s 1-800-BAYLOR-U telephone answering service. Around that same time, the BAA learned in June 2009—immediately after Friends of Baylor co-founder Dary Stone became chair of Baylor’s Board of Regents—that the link to the association’s website had been removed from every page on Baylor’s website. The university’s spokesperson, Lori Scott Fogleman, told the Waco TribuneHerald that she did not know who at Baylor had decided to remove the links to the BAA. “It’s not a matter of who decided this or that,” she said. “What the university has been doing is systematically looking at every way that the university and the alumni association have been intertwined, and each time we find a way that doesn’t reflect independent status for the alumni association, we make adjustments that honor the alumni association’s request for independence.”

With a firm grip on the university’s governance, former Sloan supporters and Friends of Baylor founders set out on an even bolder plan to permanently disable the BAA through a merger proposal requesting the dissolution of the BAA’s charter. Signed by Dary Stone and David Garland, the proposal was presented by regent Bob Beauchamp and administrator John Barry at a BAA board of directors meeting in September 2009. In the days leading up to the meeting, then-BAA president David Lacy ’79 requested that BAA directors be given some time to review the proposal internally before hearing from Baylor representatives. But Beauchamp disregarded the request and attended the meeting anyway where, not surprisingly, tense exchanges between Beauchamp and BAA directors ruled the day. In contrast to the proposals from Baylor leaders in previous years, this one came to light alongside a flurry of marketing from university officials. In the days after the BAA board meeting, David Garland sent an e-mail to Baylor faculty and staff advocating the proposal. Baylor vice

president for student life Kevin Jackson followed suit with an e-mail to students noting support for “an exciting proposal.”

The same day, Baylor’s Baylor Proud e-mail newsletter, sent to all Baylor alumni, carried a lead story in support of the merger proposal. BAA officials responded with an e-mail to members asking for their feedback and informing members that directors had approved the establishment of a study committee to study the proposal. Surprised by the public relations onslaught from Baylor, in a guest column in the Waco paper Lacy asked, “Why is Baylor trying so hard to sell this proposal to the public before allowing our board time to consider its merits?”

In the month that followed, tensions grew high and stakeholders closely watched as an unsightly debate played out publically. David Garland responded to student senators who asked questions about the proposal, telling them that the BAA had “given Baylor a black eye.” At the same time, many BAA supporters voiced their strong opposition to the proposal. By late October, almost one thousand alumni had sent e-mails and letters to the BAA regarding the merger proposal, with 88 percent expressing support for the BAA’s ongoing independence.

On October 27, 2009, Garland and Stone sent a letter to Lacy formally withdrawing the proposal, and two days later Garland sent an e-mail to all alumni announcing the withdrawal of the proposal and linking to the lead editorial in that day’s edition of the Waco-Tribune Herald (the newspaper that had been purchased by Friends of Baylor founder and future regent Clifton Robinson that same year). Titled “Scuttling Peace,” the paper’s editorial claimed Baylor’s proposal “granted provisions allowing association members to retain much of their independence but also offered them a clear voice inside Baylor, rather than continually barking from the outside” and declared that “the hope for this change has been dashed on the jagged rocks of defiance.”

A different approach After the highly public campaign in support of the ineffective merger proposal, Baylor leaders took a quieter approach in late 2009, and over the next few years systematically began frustrating BAA efforts to serve alumni, while at the same time strengthening the university-controlled Baylor Alumni Network, whose duplicative services were consistent with the “Microsoft” strategy envisioned so many years earlier

by Robert Sloan. Several instances of Baylor coaches and administrators denying interviews to the Baylor Line resulted in stories that lacked the perspective of Baylor leaders. BAA events were stymied by not having access to popular Baylor speakers, and were further marginalized by Baylor denying access to campus, most notably the removal of the BAA tailgate from the Floyd Casey Stadium grounds and the expulsion BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) the upcoming Baylor Line spring issue prior to publication about BAA’s plans to re-start the Legacy Club and tells BAA that it must submit all related products (including sippy cups) for review so the university could exercise its quality control rights over services and products of the BAA. April 2010: University informs BAA that “Baylor will be managing all Pigskin ticket sales in the future” instead of allowing the BAA to directly oversee the pre-sale of a large block of Pigskin Revue tickets (approximately half of all tickets sold for the three performances in Waco Hall) as a benefit of membership in the BAA. May 2010: BAA loses access to services of Baylor’s Outgoing Mail Services (bulk mail) and Printing Procurement Office.

President: Kenneth Starr Term: June 2010-Present “Let’s all get in the same boat, let’s pick up our oars, and let’s start rowing, and stop hitting one another over the head.”

June 2010: University tells BAA it can no longer serve as the sponsor and organizer of Cabaret, a musical performance created by the BAA in 1960 and held each year on Friday night during Homecoming.

August 2010: University tells BAA that the BAA is not allowed to purchase advertising for marketing to Baylor alumni and friends in connection to athletic events.

October 2010: BAA learns that Baylor plans to bestow several new annual awards to alumni and Baylor supporters during Homecoming 2010, duplicating a ceremony and awards that the BAA has presented for decades.

Baylor sends letters with the Baylor (continued on page 27)

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the Real Story

BRANDING EFFORTS—The long-standing logo of the BAA

Baylor administrators even went so far as to refuse financial sponsorship offers from the BAA for alumni events, athletic event advertising, and the television broadcast of the Homecoming parade. At a meeting in August 2010, a Baylor administrator told BAA officials that such advertising at Baylor venues by the BAA would conflict with the mission and interests of the university, adding that the BAA was in direct competition with Baylor’s own internally managed alumni relations initiatives. Although previous agreements with Baylor emphasize that the BAA must actively recruit new members, the BAA became unable to effectively promote itself either in university-sponsored events and programs or through outside marketing agencies that have an affiliation with Baylor.

(top) is strikingly similar to the logo adopted by Baylor’s in-house alumni network (bottom) in 2010.

of the BAA tent from the Ferrell Center parking lot during Commencement.

Baylor Magazine began publishing Class Notes in 2010, and “Baylor Alumni” and “Baylor Alumni Network” logos began appearing on university marketing materials that were confusingly similar to the long-standing BAA logo. In October of that year, Baylor began bestowing annual alumni awards resembling those long awarded by the BAA. Many alumni became confused, and either didn’t know the difference, or didn’t want to expend the energy to differentiate between the duplicative alumni efforts.

In December 2009, Baylor officials no longer allowed the

Destruction hits home When Baylor’s sixteenth president, Judge Ken Starr, took office in June 2010, the perpetually optimistic Baylor Family once again hoped a new face could heal old wounds, but Starr proved to be a shrewd diplomat. Refined by years in Washington politics, the former special prosecutor mostly stayed out of the alumni fight. He hosted an initial meeting with BAA officials at the urging of prominent alumni, but after more meetings were scheduled to go over the issues in further detail, Starr cancelled. Coincidentally, he stepped into his new role as president and immediately had his own share of challenges. The Big 12 conference seemed to be unraveling, and much work was done in an effort to keep Baylor’s place on the national radar. Baylor narrowly missed being hit by the

At a meeting in August 2010, a Baylor administrator told BAA officials that such advertising at Baylor venues by the BAA would conflict with the mission and interests of the university, adding that the BAA was in direct competition with Baylor’s own internally managed alumni relations initiatives.

BAA to address graduating seniors at Commencement to invite them into membership in the alumni association, and prohibited BAA staff members from offering discounted life memberships to graduating seniors at Bear Faire. Baylor officials said the university was focusing on the dues-free Baylor Alumni Network and soliciting paid memberships “runs counter to Baylor University’s goals.” In 2010, the BAA was no longer allowed to distribute Pigskin tickets to alumni as a benefit of membership, and eventually was cut off from receiving any alumni lists whatsoever from the university.

These unilateral actions prohibited the BAA from providing a full range of services to its members, and alumni of all ages became unaware of the BAA’s existence because of a lack of exposure.

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THE BAYLOR LINE spring 2014

tornado of conference realignment, and miraculously the Big 12 survived. And what happened next seemed almost more miraculous to all the long-suffering, die-hard Baylor fans: the football team started winning.

Art Briles methodically and masterfully turned the Baylor football program around in record time, culminating in a Heisman trophy for Robert Griffin III in 2011 and a Big 12 conference championship in 2013. As the program gained momentum, so did the dream of bringing football back to campus. Propelled by significant gifts from Baylor alums Drayton McLane ’58, Walter Umphrey ’59, JD ’65, and John Eddie Williams ’76, JD ’78, Baylor officially moved forward with construction of a new on-campus football stadium after an August 7, 2012, vote by the Waco City Council approving BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) Alumni logo to members of Baylor classes celebrating particular anniversaries at Homecoming. This letter is similar to correspondence the BAA traditionally sends before Homecoming, except the university’s letters invite class members to make a “reunion gift” toward a class scholarship fund. The timing of Baylor’s gift appeals coincides with the BAA’s annual membership renewal push leading up to and following Homecoming.

March 2011: University tells BAA that it will no longer service the copy machine in the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center.

PROS AND CONS—Supporters and detractors of the Transition Agreement turned out to speak at a discussion forum held immediately before the vote at Waco Hall on

BAYLOR LINE ARCHIVES

September 7, 2013.

infrastructure funding for the project.

As renderings of the new stadium began to surface in late 2011, one building was notably absent from the drawings: the home of the Baylor Alumni Association, the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center. In two separate articles, the Baylor Lariat reported on the missing alumni center, but Baylor officials wouldn’t commit to a firm answer. Baylor spokesperson Lori Scott Fogleman noted that the architects had drafted several different designs for the stadium and the university was “a long way from making any kind of decisions.” In July 2012, the Baylor administration presented a proposal to the board of Waco’s Tax Increment Financing Zone to receive $35 million in public funds for the project. According to a story in the Waco Tribune-Herald, a breakdown of costs submitted to the TIF included $12.9 million for “demo (of) alumni center” and constructing a bridge across the Brazos River. When asked by a TIF board member whether or not Baylor officials had informed the BAA about the proposal to demolish its alumni center, Baylor vice president of finance and administration Regan Ramsower stressed that no decision had been made on whether the alumni center would have to be torn down. “We have to have our solutions by the fall of 2014, and how you connect the stadium to campus is a late-2013 conversation, even an early-2014 conversation,” Ramsower said. As it turns out, the conversation was had and the decision was made well before then. After a brief stay by United States District Judge Walter Smith Jr. ’64, JD ’66, the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center was razed in July 2013.

The demolition of the alumni center was part of a bigBaylorAlumniAssociation.com

April 2011: Various Baylor coaches are reportedly instructed not to grant interviews to or participate in BAA events.

June 2011: University tells BAA it can no longer solicit BAA memberships at Bear Faire, an event at which graduating seniors can order announcements, buy regalia, etc.

July 2011: University denies BAA use of its prior tailgate location in the Touchdown Alley area behind Floyd Casey Stadium’s south end zone.

Aug.-Sept. 2011: BAA partners with a local credit union to co-sponsor free Tshirts given to incoming freshmen, with the BAA logo printed on the back of the shirts. University subsequently tells BAA it failed to obtain the university’s approval prior to distribution, as required by the 1993 License Agreement. University says it will consider terminating the 1993 License Agreement and other agreements unless BAA agrees in writing not to violate these agreements as the university interprets them.

November 2011: University declines BAA’s requests to use the McMullenConnally Faculty Center, the Indoor (continued on page 29)

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DEMO WORK—After a short court battle, Baylor began the demolition of the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center on a Sunday.

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voting seat on the Board of Regents. With the construction of the new football stadium, Baylor leaders finally acknowledged for the first time the intended destruction of the alumni center, and couched it as part of the bigger agreement. BAA staff members relocated to offices in the Clifton Robinson Tower on Baylor’s campus, consistent with provisions in the Agreement to Vacate the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center. That agreement also provided that BAA staff would remain in the temporary offices “for an indefinite term free of charge…..until the Association is housed elsewhere, unless agreed otherwise.”

Similar to the approach used with the 2009 proposal from Dary Stone and David Garland, Baylor launched a full-scale advertising and marketing campaign to “Vote Yes” just days after the agreement was signed. This puzzled some BAA members, who again asked questions like, “Why is Baylor trying so hard to sell this proposal before we can evaluate it ourselves?”

Over the summer of 2013, the debate once again played out publically, with a flurry of news stories and op-ed columns appearing in the media leading up to the September 7 member vote. Baylor leaders garnered endorsements from many campus groups, including Student Government and the Faculty Senate, but what happened among the BAA membership, and especially its board of directors, was more important: an internal fracture formed. Long-standing members of the BAA—lifelong friends and casual acquaintances alike—began choosing sides. Supporters argued that it was a fair agreement BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

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ger agreement that had been reached after several months of negotiations between small groups of Baylor regents and BAA directors, culminating in the September 7, 2013, vote at Waco Hall. The open dialogue between the two groups that began in late 2012 was a welcome change, but as regents insisted that the conversations remain confidential, suspicions ran high among many BAA board members who had seen first-hand Baylor leaders’ tactics in the past. The BAA executive committee met several times during the last week of May 2013 as details of the deal were hurriedly being hammered out. Baylor officials insisted that if the deal was not complete by the end of the month, there would be no further discussions. As a part of the Transition Agreement’s structure, the deal included a onesided termination of the 1993 license agreement, the formal dissolution of the charter, and the permanent termination of the use of the Baylor Alumni Association name. The Transition Agreement and the Agreement to Vacate the HughesDillard Alumni Center were signed by leaders of BAA’s board and the Board of Regents on May 31, 2013. Coincidentally or not, that same day was Buddy Jones’ last official day serving a nine-year term on Baylor’s Board of Regents.

Unlike past arrangements between the two groups, the Transition Agreement called for a vote of all the members; specifics included approving dissolution of the BAA’s charter and termination of the 1993 license agreement in exchange for a new license agreement to publish the Baylor Line, along with the formation of a Baylor Alumni Advisory Board and a non-

reached after months of good-faith negotiations, and that it was time for a change. Those who opposed the agreement staunchly disagreed with the ten-year term of the agreement (compared to the indefinite term of the 1993 license agreement) and generally viewed the deal as just another veiled takeover, like so many others in the past. The fracture became so great that one BAA life member, Kurt Dorr ’84, filed a lawsuit against the BAA leadership and the university to void the agreement and delay the destruction of the alumni center. The lawsuit bought the alumni center a few more weeks, but the case was eventually dismissed, and the September 7 vote did not attain the two-thirds majority needed to pass. The BAA bylaws required a 66 percent “super-majority” for approval, but the Transition Agreement only garnered support from 55 percent of the voting members present at Waco Hall that day.

What lies ahead After the failed September 7 vote, the BAA saw almost half of its board members resign and most of its staff leave to take more secure jobs offered by the university. Although the board of directors has since been rebuilt and the BAA continues to oversee its $5.5 million endowment, Baylor leaders continue to prod the organization to come up with a new plan to reorganize and stop using the licensed Baylor marks. And the last action taken against the BAA by Baylor administrators could arguably be considered the most brazen as well: After business hours on December 8, 2013, Baylor personnel changed the locks on the door to the two remaining BAA offices in the Clifton Robinson Tower. Only when BAA staff reported to work the next morning and their keys didn’t work did they realize that they were intentionally locked out.

So the question remains: What is the real story? It’s a question that so many in the Baylor family have asked as contention and hostility somehow became commonplace between the university and its official alumni organization for more than a decade.

As with many family arguments, the origins of the conflict seem to have gotten lost in the past, while resentment and distrust have only grown over the years. Rather than simply opening old wounds, BAA officials hope that this narrative will shed light on the issues and circumstances that triggered and prolonged the struggle, so that a new dialogue may begin—not about Baylor’s sometimes-dark past—but about its bright future instead.

Equipped with its official, independent voice, the Baylor Alumni Association remains committed to supporting Baylor, publicizing its successes, and, yes, posing the critical questions that need to be asked at times. It’s a role the BAA has proudly performed for more than 150 years, and hopes to continue “as long as stars shall shine.” BL BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

Timeline: BU and the BAA (cont.—) Football Practice Facility, and Brooks Village for Lifelong Learning classes but approves requests to use the Armstrong Browning Library, the Texas Collection, and Truett Chapel.

March 2012: University declines BAA’s offer to be the $10,000 title sponsor of the Baylor “B” Association’s annual Fightin’ Bear Golf Classic.

October 2012: Local television station tells BAA that the university wants to remove BAA as a participant in the November Homecoming parade television broadcast production.

May 2013: Talks between BAA executive committee members and Baylor regents continue throughout the month, culminating in two agreements to vacate the alumni center and to create a “Transition Agreement” that would terminate the 1993 license agreement, dissolve the BAA charter, and permanently terminate the Baylor Alumni Association name.

June 2013: BAA staff members move out of the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center in preparation for the proposed demolition of the building. University gives BAA staff temporary on-campus office space in three different suites in the Clifton Robinson Tower.

July 2013: Baylor alum Kurt Dorr files a lawsuit calling for a halt of the HughesDillard demolition. After a brief stay and an unsuccessful mediation, the demolition proceeds as planned.

September 2013: The Transition Agreement vote–limited to in-person votes only–fails to gain two-thirds approval.

December 2013: Overnight, university changes on-campus office locks without notice to the two remaining BAA staff members.

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WHY INDE PEND ENT? Distinctive among alumni organizations serving private universities, the Baylor Alumni Association has a tradition of independence as a self-governing organization that uniquely strengthens its partnership with Baylor University.

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1967

Administrators may change, faculty members may move, trustees rotate, student bodies graduate—the one perpetual group whose primary purpose is the support of Baylor University is the Baylor Ex-Students Association.

—WILL DAVIS, president of the Baylor Ex-Students Association, 1967 to 1968

Editor’s Note: The article “Why Independent?” originally ran in the Fall 2009 issue of the Baylor Line.

FOR 150 YEARS, THE BAYLOR ALUMNI ASSOCIATION (BAA) has provided alumni with an organization through which they could demonstrate—in both word and deed—their full support of Baylor University’s unique mission as an institution of higher education. Over the years, as Baylor’s mission has become a time-honored treasure serving the church and society (“Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana”), that passion for our alma mater’s well-being and promise has been steadfast and unbending, regardless of the political winds that might shift as administrations come and go.

Such was the wisdom of the BAA’s founders, who anticipated that self-governance and an independent voice would empower the organization to provide the strongest support possible, as an alumni community, for Baylor’s commitment to academic excellence and the Christian faith. However, in recent months, a good deal of conversation in the Baylor family has concerned the BAA’s independence. Some have asked, “Why is the alumni association independent? What’s the point? Couldn’t an in-house organization serve Baylor just as well?” Others have wondered, “What exactly does independence mean in terms of how the alumni association has operated and how it contributes to Baylor’s well-being?”

In recent years, and especially in recent months, Baylor’s administration and regents have interpreted the BAA’s independence as requiring an increasingly stricter separation of the alumni association from the university’s operations and programs. This interpretation, however, isn’t something that reflects the effectiveness and characteristics of the BaylorBAA partnership over the years, BAA leaders say, nor does it correspond to common practices in higher education or to the distinctiveness of Baylor’s mission.

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A distinctive service THE BAYLOR ALUMNI Association is among only a handful of self-governing alumni organizations at private universities in America. Leaders of the BAA consider this status as a point of pride, viewing the organization’s

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self-sufficiency and scope of service as achievements that its counterparts have been unable to match.

However, officials at Baylor have used the BAA’s uniqueness in this regard as a point of criticism. In defending the university’s recent decision to force the BAA off Baylor’s communications systems—including the removal of the BAA from the university’s e-mail addresses and toll-free phone line, as well as links to the BAA from Baylor’s website—John Barry, Baylor’s vice president for marketing and communication, told the Baptist Standard, “What cannot be debated is that the Baylor Alumni Association’s relationship to Baylor University is a one-of-a-kind situation. It is the nature of the independence that has been sought by the Baylor Alumni Association that is distinct in higher education—not the fact that they maintain separate legal status, even though the number of institutions that are legally separate from their host universities is diminishing.”

Officials at the BAA have taken issue with this misleading characterization of the BAA’s independence. First, they emphasize that far from being something recently “sought,” there is nothing new about the BAA’s independence. The organization’s standing as an independently governed, independently managed, and legally independent nonprofit corporation has been the same since 1978, they note. And it has been sixteen years since Baylor, in its License Agreement with the alumni association, officially recognized the BAA as “the general alumni organization of Baylor University” and approved the BAA’s function as “an independent ‘voice’ of alumni” that is allowed to take positions that “may be contrary to the administration of the University or its Board of Regents.”

Even as recently as May 2007, the Baylor administration, in a report to the Board of Regents, reinforced the view that an alumni relations organization like the BAA can be viewed as being faithful to its bylaws and constitution and to its role in supporting the mission and vision of an institution even if it exercises its editorial independence to speak out on a specific issue. As the administration’s report stated, “It is important to distinguish support for broad principles from support for particular administrative actions.”

BAA officials contend that the “nature” of the BAA’s

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independence—rather than being distinct in higher education, as Baylor’s representative has asserted—is one closely shared by other self-governing alumni associations. Such organizations, constituting a majority among the Big 12’s schools, are similarly empowered with independent governance, independent management by an executive director who reports solely to the alumni association’s board, and independent legal status.

These peers of the BAA also possess the ability, through their publications, to serve as an independent voice of alumni.

“We do believe in having a separate voice to speak for all alumni,” Joe Irwin, president and CEO of the Georgia Tech Alumni Association and president of the Council of Alumni Association Executives (CAAE) for 2009-10, told the Line.

“That being said, our role is to promote both our alumni and our university to continue to build the reputations of both.

While administrations come and go, alumni have a vested interest in making sure that their investment in the institution

continues to provide a handsome return.”

In the recent Baptist Standard article, Baylor’s John Barry contended that the BAA—in the reporter’s words—“has savored its independence but also has claimed entitlement to the benefits of connection to the university.” Barry was quoted as saying, “They can’t have it both ways.”

After noting that this attitude is a radical departure from the university’s approach to the BAA-Baylor partnership over the last three decades, Jeff Kilgore, executive vice president and CEO of the BAA, said that the organization’s functional and service-oriented connections with the university have not been viewed by the BAA or previous Baylor administrations as an “entitlement” that solely benefits the BAA, but rather as a means of more efficiently and dynamically serving the alumni community and strengthening the bond between alumni and their alma mater.

“Web links and other types of service arrangements are commonplace between universities and their alumni associations, regardless of such associations’ independent status,”

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becoming president of the university, Abner McCall served as president of the Ex-Students Association.

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Kilgore told the Baptist Standard. “That’s simply because such arrangements make good sense, since they serve the best interests of both organizations. My alumni affairs colleagues have verified this and recognize the potential customerservice issues and negative effect on donor relations that these recent developments could have on both the university and [the alumni association].”

Kilgore noted that the kind of functional separation that Baylor has recently forced upon the BAA—creating daylight between the two organizations where alumni had only seen a seamless unity of service before—is uncommon in higher education. Self-governing alumni associations and the universities they serve have a mutually beneficial interconnectedness that takes many forms, he said, ranging from direct funding to the sharing of communications systems and alumni data. It’s not uncommon, he added, to find regular interaction between both organizations’ chief staff persons, with an alumni organization’s executive director even being invited to participate in the university president’s executive council meetings.

“To cite the rarity of self-governing alumni associations at private universities as a fundamental stumbling block to the Baylor Alumni Association’s success and effective partnership with Baylor is inconsistent with the enthusiasm about Baylor’s goal of becoming a rarity in American higher education— that is, a major research university with a strong Christian mission and identity,” Kilgore said. “It could reasonably be argued that the alumni association’s independence—just like Baylor’s Christian commitment—forms a unique strength and point of pride for the school.”

Kilgore continued, “The issue isn’t whether or not Baylor’s general alumni organization should be an independent organization. That’s a settled matter, as the BAA has been independent for more than thirty years. The real issue—the one truly dividing and damaging the Baylor alumni family—is why Baylor’s presidents and some of its regents have decided during the last two years to sever the various functional and service-related connections through which the university and its officially recognized alumni group have engaged in partnership over several decades. Why is the university pushing the BAA away—cutting ties and disparaging the BAA in print—when we represent the majority of the university’s alumni donors and have proven our loyalty and relevance to the school during 150 years of experience?”

The BAA’s independence has allowed it to play a valuable and irreplaceable role in defending and supporting Baylor’s mission, the association’s officials say. Through the Baylor Line magazine, alumni are provided with a publication whose content reflects the full range of their interests and concerns, including balanced coverage of controversial issues. This approach is the foundation of the magazine’s relevance and credibility, which in turn build a strong, trust-based relationship between readers and the university.

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“

When I first came into the presidency, I had been the ExStudents president just a short time before. It was kind of a test.

And I want to thank the alumni and the alumni association for their support and loyalty to the university during these years. The alumni have been more active and more supportive than ever.

”

—JUDGE ABNER MCCALL, president

of Baylor University from 1961 to 1981

Financially, the BAA and its nineteen thousand members make a big impact, notes Waco banker David Lacy ’79, the BAA’s president for 2009, pointing out that last year the BAA independently contributed more than $1.8 million of alumni services and programs for the sole benefit of Baylor University—essentially, service for free.

“There are many reasons why an active alumni association is relevant and important to any university, not the least of which is encouraging alumni giving,” Lacy says. Indeed, the university’s records attest to the fact that the Baylor Alumni Association’s relevance to Baylor is as much in the realm of fund-raising as it is in friend-raising. During fiscal year 2005-06, the most recent year for which figures are available, the BAA’s life and annual members also made gifts to Baylor amounting to $14.2 million for the year. Of all alumni who gave to the university that year, 53 percent of them were BAA members—making the BAA the representative group of a majority of Baylor’s alumni donors.

Independence born “IT HAS BEEN MY OWN OBSERVATION over the years— and one with which I am sure my Big Ten predecessors and contemporaries would agree—that those alumni programs that best serve both alumni and the university are the ones in which the alumni are given an opportunity to develop their own policies and program objectives,” Robert Forman, former executive director of the Alumni Association of the University of Michigan, has written.

Such opportunities have been afforded to Baylor alumni ever since the Baylor Alumni Association was founded in spring 2014

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1859 in Independence, Texas, where Baylor was first located.

That spring, Baylor president Rufus Burleson announced the creation of an alumni association, and by the June graduation ceremony the initial membership numbered forty-two former students—twenty-three men and nineteen women. The initial objective of the nascent organization was to raise money for and help recruit students to the small college.

Twenty years later, at its annual meeting, the alumni association passed a resolution that continues to serve as a foundational document today: “Resolved 1st. That the Alumni of Baylor University will pledge themselves at all times, and under all circumstances, and everywhere, to maintain, defend, and support, by all means in their power, the original design of the founders of the Institution, to make it a true educational establishment of the highest grade.”

At that annual meeting in 1879, which Baylor president William Carey Crane attended, officers for the coming year were elected and another resolution was passed, which read, “That a committee will now be appointed to cooperate with the committee of Trustees to raise funds to complete the main building.” Before the meeting was adjourned on June 12, more than $700 had been raised.

The proceedings from the meeting concluded with the address of a committee “appointed to address absent brethren, as to the present condition and future prosperity of our alma mater.” After summarizing a number of positive news items regarding enrollment, the quality of faculty members, and facility construction, the committee’s members ended with an appeal to alumni to champion the cause of Texas-based higher education: “It seems to us that state pride, and decent respect for the future of our institutions, civil and political, and the future welfare of the two million people already in Texas, to say nothing of the constant augmentations from births and immigration, demand of us ample educational facilities; and likewise admonish us to keep our sons and daughters at home, and to educate them among people with whom they are to live, and to instill in them sentiments of independence and individuality. In this way only can the future grandeur, glory, and stability of our grand state, be built up and assured.

We invite the hearty cooperation of every student of ‘Old Baylor’ in attaining this noble end. Our motto is ‘Facilities for Home Education, and Home Education,’ and, while promoting the means of education, and securing its ends in our alma mater, we do not lose sight of the social features of our organization; but, we trust that with each recurring commencement we may gather within the hallowed walls of our alma mater, and grasp fellow alumni by the hand, and renew sweet memories and live the olden times over again.”

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In the following decades, the partnership between the independently governed BAA and Baylor worked well as the BAA played a significant role in the life of Baylor, sponsoring the first official Baylor Homecoming in 1909 and leading a variety of fundraising efforts.

After a fire gutted the Carroll Chapel and Library building on February 11, 1922, the alumni association—led by Mayes Behrman, Baylor’s first full-time alumni secretary—conducted a six-week “Baylor Alumni Rebuilding Campaign” to raise funds for the building’s restoration. The effort brought in more than $200,000 in pledges by the end of April, and on December 12, 1923, the building was formally re-opened—newly restored and now housing the law school and the university’s library facilities.

When Baylor was in need of securing a permanent endowment of $2 million in 1927, the association collaborated with Baylor president Samuel Palmer Brooks and the university’s Board of Trustees in inaugurating an alumni endowment campaign through a resolution on October 21, 1927, that asserted, “the Alumni and Ex-students of Baylor University are bound and obligated by every consideration of gratitude, appreciation, and loyalty to preserve and advance the welfare of this Institution.”

The fundraising effort, eventually named the “Greater Baylor” campaign, made its initial push the following year, from November 23 to December 4, 1928. The General Education Board of New York had pledged $300,000 if, by the end of 1930, Baylor could raise at least $600,000 for the endowment fund, which would eliminate the school’s indebtedness. In December 1930, with the campaign still short of its mark, the alumni association’s incoming president, Earl B. Smyth, wrote in the Baylor Monthly, “Alumni of Baylor, we must not fail the Mother School in this day of her greatest opportunity. She is calling to us now to do our best for her.” On January 1, 1931, President Brooks announced that Baylor had met the goal and was eagerly awaiting the General Education Board’s contribution.

The independently organized Baylor Alumni Association had once again proven its effectiveness in generating alumni support of Baylor. But its leaders were always looking for ways to improve its operations and deepen its partnership with the university. They took their pledge of service as a serious commitment.

At the alumni group’s 1941 commencement meeting, the BAA’s officers presented a reorganization plan after a two-year-long self-study. Following the plan’s approval, the renamed Ex-Students Association of Baylor University was granted a charter by the State of Texas for the purpose of promoting all the educational and other activities of Baylor University. The group’s two stated priorities were raising funds for the Union Building, whose construction had begun on October 15, 1940, and preparing for the school’s centennial BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

celebration in 1945.

“The history of education in the United States shows clearly that the true greatness of a university may well be measured by the extent of the continued interest of its former students in the Alma Mater,” association president Dr. Milford O. Rouse said at the time.

The next step

IN OCTOBER 1946, BAYLOR ALUMNI received the first issue of the Baylor Line. The new magazine—whose name derived from the title of the school’s alma mater, referring to the long line of Baylor graduates marching “forever down the years, as long as stars shall shine”—was published by the Ex-Students’ Association of Baylor University as the successor to the Baylor Century, a fundraising-oriented publication produced by the university in connection with the observance of Baylor’s centennial in 1945.

Alongside the Baylor Line’s masthead, on the second page, ran a column that celebrated the association’s new responsibility for the publication of Baylor’s official magazine and the broader dawning of a new day in alumni relations at the state’s oldest institution of higher learning. “Long considered an outstanding need for Baylor has been a closely knit, active and wide-awake Ex-Students’ organization,” it stated. “Leaders of the Association moved in that direction last spring with the appointment of the first full-time executive secretary in the Association’s history. And for the first time in history, the Association is operating separately from the University itself.”

After noting that annual membership dues would be set at $3 per individual or $5 per family, the column continued, “In connection with membership fees, the natural question is, ‘What will one get out of membership in the Baylor Ex-Students’ Association?’ It is agreed that the three most important advantages are: 1. The satisfaction of working in a voluntary organization, greatly strengthened and enlarged, with other loyal and interested exes for the welfare and progress of Baylor University.

2. Receiving the Baylor Line at least nine times a year, with news of exes from all over the country and news of Baylor.

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3. First chance at football tickets.”

The new alumni leader alluded to in the column was Jack Dillard, a 1938 Baylor graduate who seven months earlier had accepted an invitation to lead the alumni organization. In a letter to alumni sent out on June 20, 1946, Dillard had written, “Your association, for the first time, is operating separately and independently from Baylor University itself. The history of all outstanding ex-students groups shows that they operate best when separate from the university.”

Dillard was the first full-time director whose salary was wholly provided by the alumni organization. From 1928 to 1932, Baylor employee Louise Willis had followed Behrman in managing the alumni office as alumni secretary and editing the Baylor Monthly. And from 1932 to 1946, Lily Russell, who successively served as Baylor dean of women and director of public relations, had maintained the alumni association’s files and aided its operations.

The Ex-Students Association was provided an office in Pat Neff Hall, and Dillard set to work raising the funds necessary to complete the Union Building, whose construction had ceased in 1942, leaving it to stand as an empty shell of concrete and steel during the years of the United States’ involvement in World War II. Work resumed on the Union Building when Dillard was hired in the spring of 1946, and two and a half years later the construction was complete, with the alumni group moving into offices in the new building. Soon after the Union Building’s formal opening on September 16, 1948, Baylor president W. R. White praised alumni for their part in financing the much-needed facility (which was renamed the Bill Daniel Student Center in 1981), telling those gathered for an October 22, 1948, board meeting of the Baylor Ex-Students Association, “We have all joined hands in building a greater Baylor.”

A new era

NOW FIRMLY ESTABLISHED AS AN organization independently governed by elected directors and led by a chief staff person whose salary was paid by the group, the ExStudents’ Association continued to develop and flourish in its partnership with Baylor.

The next stage in the alumni association’s growth came through its collaboration with the successive administrations of Baylor presidents Judge Abner McCall and Dr. Herbert Reynolds.

Before becoming Baylor’s president in 1961, McCall had served as president of the Baylor Ex-Students Association’s governing board from 1956 to 1958. As a result, he was intimately familiar with the organization’s strengths and the role that it played in the life of Baylor.

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“

I think that there are certain occasions when it is most helpful for alumni to have an independent voice that is not bridled by forces internal or external to the university. To the extent that the Baylor Alumni Association has that kind of autonomy, it has proved to be very beneficial; the association can speak out on matters of interest and concern, particularly when the university regents or administrators feel some inhibition to do so, for whatever reason.

—DR. HERBERT H. REYNOLDS, president of Baylor University from 1981 to 1995

years—first serving twelve years principally as executive vice president and chief operating officer, and then serving as Baylor’s president from 1981 to 1995—Reynolds would prove instrumental in the alumni association’s development as a robust, independent organization.

In 1975, responding to a challenge from McCall to seek improvements in its operations, the association established a Special Study Committee to evaluate the goals and direction of the organization. At the time, about $120,000 of the organization’s annual budget of $131,434 came from the university’s general operating funds. After almost a year’s work, including lengthy meetings with McCall, Reynolds, and other administrators, the committee presented two recommendations to the Board of Directors on April 30, 1976: “1. That the name of the Association be changed to the Baylor Alumni Association.

2. That the Association become a dues paying organization to enable alumni to participate in the support of the Association.” The board unanimously approved both recommendations. Individual annual memberships were set at $15 a year, and life memberships were set at $200.

In the June 1976 issue of the Baylor Line, association president James F. Cole explained the reason for the adoption of a dues system, which had fallen out of use since its advent in the 1940s. “Taking a hard look at the association, the committee decided that, in view of escalating costs, their main concern was finding a way to expand services to an ever-growing alumni body while relieving the university of much of the financial burden for doing so. A study of many effective alumni associations convinced the committee that a dues structure was the best option available for our organization,” Cole said.

In its November 5, 1976, edition, the Baylor Lariat reported, “Raymond Vickrey, executive director of the association, said the new system of membership would provide Baylor alumni with a greater sense of belonging. He said most of the alumni questioned about the change said they felt the as-

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sociation would be stronger if a member had to pay to belong.”

In an interview with the Line in 2005, Reynolds recalled the rationale for the administration’s support of the alumni association’s decision to become a more independent, duesbased organization. “Judge McCall came over to visit me one day and said, ‘I want to talk to you about the Ex-Students Association. I believe we ought to think about the independence or autonomy of the alumni association,’” Reynolds said. “And let me just say right up front that it was more philosophical than financial, no doubt about it, because there had been times in the life of the alumni association when that independence was very important. So he said, ‘I think this is something we ought to strive for, because there may be times in the future when the alumni association will need to speak with a more independent voice about the university. I won’t mind that, and I would hope that you feel the same way.’ I told him, ‘I agree with you. I think there is real merit to moving in this fashion.’

And then later we began to talk about the financial aspects of it. But that was not the primary issue; the primary issue was creating an independent alumni association that would be able to operate, by and large, in an autonomous fashion.”

The new identity and renewed sense of mission energized the alumni association and proved successful in increasing alumni activity and the organization’s general operations. In 1977, the association established the annual spring reunion of the Heritage Club, composed of alumni who had been graduates for fifty years or more. And in the spring of 1978, the BAA presented McCall with a check for $122,000, which was the first payment from member dues made to the university as a reimbursement for operational expenses.

In June 1978, the BAA moved from its offices in the Student Union Building to the new Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center, the funding for which began in 1976 with a gift from Raymond and Genevieve Dillard and their children, Nancy Dillard Franklin and Hughes Dillard, in memory of Mrs. Dillard’s mother, Annie Hughes. The total cost for the 6,200-squarefoot, U-shaped building was $590,502, nearly 80 percent of which was paid for by alumni gifts.

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LEADERSHIP—Herbert Reynolds was an ardent supporter

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of an independent alumni association.

Marking a key moment in its history, on August 11, 1978, the Baylor Alumni Association became legally incorporated as a separate, tax-exempt nonprofit organization. In combination with the group’s new home on campus, this new legal status further bolstered the association’s profile and capacity to serve Baylor and strengthened alumni’s sense of ownership in the enterprise of alumni coming together, in an independently organized manner, in support of their alma mater.

One of the fruits of the increasing collaboration between the BAA and Baylor was that on June 1, 1979, the alumni association assumed responsibility for overseeing a universitylaunched program called Baylor Nationwide, which aimed to mobilize alumni by staging meetings across the country and establishing program leaders in all fifty states. “One of the most positive changes at Baylor in recent years has been the growth in effectiveness of the Baylor Alumni Association,” Reynolds wrote at the time in describing the new arrangement. “Alumni have always been vitally interested in Baylor’s future and have contributed immeasurably to Baylor’s progress. However, the advancements of the association in the last four or five years are particularly notable. Response to the new organization with a dues-paying membership structure has been tremendous. The new alumni center is among the BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

finest such facilities in our nation. The staff continues to grow and can undertake more programs to benefit Baylor.”

By June 1981, the Baylor Alumni Association’s membership stood at 12,305, of which 7,097 were life members, and the group’s endowment had passed $1 million. The association had also created, in April 1981, the Abner V. McCall Fund, offering individual alumni the opportunity to pledge $10,000 in gifts over ten years with a goal of accumulating $5 million in endowment by 1985. In explaining why the fund had been named after McCall, Cole, who had become the association’s executive vice president in 1978, said that “none of his predecessors manifested the measure of interest and support of the alumni association that Judge McCall has.” With McCall nearing his retirement as Baylor’s president, the naming of the fund in his honor was a fitting tribute to the man who had been a galvanizing force for the organization.

In an interview with the Baylor Line a few months before his retirement, McCall said, “When I first came into the presidency, I had been the Ex-Students president just a short time before. It was kind of a test. And I want to thank the alumni and the alumni association for their support and loyalty to the university during these years. The alumni have been more active and more supportive than ever before.” spring 2014

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WHY INDE PEND ENT?

Later, during a meeting of the BAA’s Executive Committee on July 19, 1986, McCall spoke about the purpose of the alumni association, noting that a number of Baylor’s various alumni relations and university relations goals “are best furthered by an independent, financially self-supporting alumni association with its own publication.” McCall went on to serve as president of the BAA again in 1991.

Examples of partnership

AS THE BAA ENTERED THE 1980s, its standing as an independently governed, independently managed, and legally independent nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation was fully established. And, in fact, those three primary characteristics remain the defining traits of the BAA today. They are traits that have served the Baylor-BAA partnership well for decades, BAA officials say, and—until recently—they were not considered obstacles to collaboration or a premise for functionally or programmatically separating the BAA from the university.

Thus established as an increasingly stronger volunteer organization of thousands, the BAA was in a strong position to serve Baylor’s best interests when, during the late 1980s, the university began to squarely face the increasing politicization of the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC) and its implications for Baylor and the Baptist General Convention of Texas (BGCT), which at the time appointed the entirety of Baylor’s governing board. Reynolds viewed the association’s magazine as an asset of increasing value to Baylor. Through its candid reporting on the situation, the Baylor Line educated alumni about the threat facing the university and Texas Baptist life. “[Reynolds] was checking out of a hotel in San Antonio after a BGCT meeting when one of the architects of the takeover of the Southern Baptist Convention came up to him and said, ‘Why don’t you stop the Baylor Line from carrying all those untruths about what we’re trying to do?’” recounted Dr. Jim Cole, the alumni association’s executive vice president from 1978 to 1991. “And Reynolds said, ‘I can’t, and I wouldn’t if I could.’ Then he turned and walked off. He walked away confident and happy that the alumni association was the last line of defense, that it was the number-one support system of the university and that it was stalwart as a sentinel at the gate.”

On September 21, 1990, Baylor’s trustees amended the university’s charter to replace the previous governing structure with a new Board of Regents that was only one-fourth appointed by the BGCT, thus mathematically removing the possibility of a takeover. The next day, the alumni association’s governing board approved a resolution affirming the charter change that read, in part, “This action by the Trustees will secure a stable climate in which academic freedom and excellence in a Christian context will continue to flourish, thereby 48

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maintaining the integrity of degrees held by and to be earned by all Baylor graduates.”

Due to its independence, the alumni association was favorably positioned to be a credible defender and advocate of the charter change and to mobilize alumni to attend the BGCT’s annual conventions in November 1990 in Houston and in November 1991 in Waco, at which Baylor’s action would be the subject of scrutiny and votes related to the BGCT’s financial and institutional relationship with the university.

The alumni association, through the Baylor Line and other mailings to alumni, worked in tandem with the university’s leadership.

“We used every method we could to reach alumni,” former BAA executive vice president Ray Burchette told the Line.

“We could do this, and it didn’t appear like it was the university. If anyone got on Reynolds, he could say, ‘You know, that’s the alumni association.’”

By most accounts, the collaboration between the university and the alumni association in addressing and seeking protective measures against the threat of a takeover by the conservative faction of the SBC stands as the most significant legacy of the partnership between the association and Baylor during the Reynolds administration. At the banquet held to honor Cole upon his retirement from the alumni association, Reynolds acknowledged the importance of the association’s efforts. “There is no way that I could have withstood the kind of onslaught that has occurred through these years . . . without the help of Jim Cole and the Baylor Alumni Association and the independent voice of the Baylor Line,” he said.

Toward the end of Reynolds’s tenure as Baylor president, the university and the association signed a series of official agreements that provided a formal articulation of the central role and long-term importance of the alumni association in the life of Baylor. The first of these agreements, signed on September 8, 1993, granted the association a “perpetual and fully paid-up license” to use the names and marks of Baylor University Alumni Association and Baylor Alumni Association for its services and collateral products, as well as granting exclusive use of the name “Baylor Line” for audio, video, printed, and electronic products. The agreement called for the BAA to continue to “serve as the general alumni organization of Baylor, including coordination of alumni activities; maintain an administrative office in Waco; carry out . . . the Constitution and Bylaws of the BAA; publish an alumni magazine; and organize and sponsor activities for the Baylor Homecoming on at least an annual basis.”

The 1993 agreement also recognized the independent status of the BAA as well as the BAA’s expected right to voice dissent as to the university administration’s decisions, if the organization felt compelled to do so. “For example, it is understood that licensee [BAA] is an independent ‘voice’ of alumni of Baylor University, and the positions taken by BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

licensee (editorial or otherwise) which may be contrary to the administration of the University or its Board of Regents shall not be alleged by licensor [Baylor] to constitute insufficient quality and shall not be grounds for licensor’s termination of this License Agreement,” the document read.

A second agreement, signed on May 27, 1994, following its approval by Baylor’s Board of Regents, recognized the Baylor Alumni Association as “the official alumni organization of Baylor University and all its academic units” and provided for the “exclusive right to occupy and use the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center . . . for an indefinite term.”

In the spring of 1995, as he was leaving office, Reynolds made a comment in an interview with the Baylor Line that shed light on why he had decided to craft such legal documents, as well as on his more general support of the association: “I think that there are certain occasions when it is most helpful for alumni to have an independent voice that is not bridled by forces internal or external to the university. To the extent that the Baylor Alumni Association has that kind of autonomy, it has proved to be very beneficial; the association can speak out on matters of interest and concern, particularly when the university regents or administrators feel some inhi-

bition to do so, for whatever reason.”

With its physical presence on campus thus assured in perpetuity, the BAA broke ground on an ambitious renovation and expansion of the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center in 1997.

The facility was completed in June 1998 at a total cost of $2.5 million, funded by gifts from alumni and friends that included $1 million given by an anonymous donor. Dedicated on November 6, 1998, during Homecoming, the alumni center’s new incarnation offered three thousand additional square feet—for offices, the Kronzer Great Hall, the Cole Drawing Room, the Abner V. McCall Retired Faculty Reading Room, and the Herbert H. Reynolds Conference Room—with cherry-wood paneling and a stately ambience throughout that reflects the Baylor traditions of integrity and pride.

Baylor’s twelfth president, Dr. Robert Sloan, provided an endorsement of the renovation project in the BAA’s fundraising materials, and the alumni association and Sloan’s administration worked together in the early years of his presidency in a manner that carried over from his predecessor. The BAA continued to partner with the university as a provider of contracted services, receiving reimbursement of costs from the university. Those annual reimbursements reached an all-time high of $350,000 in fiscal year 2002-03.

After what became a controversial announcement by Sloan that the university would terminate this arrangement at the start of fiscal year 2003-04, the Baylor Board of Regents conducted a review of the university’s relationship with the BAA and issued a set of recommendations on November 7, 2003. Among those recommendations was “that Baylor University retain, as an independent contractor, the BAA to assist the University in organizing and staffing the following events or programs,” with such contracted services including Homecoming reunions, the Heritage Club, and the Class Ring program. Acting on the regents recommendations, Sloan and the BAA signed a “Services Agreement” on February 12, 2004, which called for Baylor to provide an annual reimbursement of expenses and a management fee not to exceed $213,000.

The reestablishment of the “contracted services” agreement offered another example of Baylor’s longstanding tradition of entering into a mutually defined partnership with its independently governed and managed alumni association.

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Different types

COLLABORATION—Baylor’s twelfth president, Dr. Robert Sloan, provided an endorsement of the renovation project in the BAA’s fundraising materials, and the alumni association and Sloan’s administration worked together in the early years of his presidency in a manner that carried over from his predecessor.

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TO BE SURE, THERE ISN’T A one-size-fits-all model for alumni relations. Some alumni organizations, especially at private universities and colleges, are administrative departments. A number of these departmental organizations enlist the services of an advisory board of alumni to help the cause.

And then there are self-governed alumni associations, like the Baylor Alumni Association.

The differentiation of these two basic types of alumni orgaspring 2014

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1987

“The Baylor Alumni Association is altruistically and totally committed to Baylor’s future in all of her endeavors of seeking academic excellence in a Christian environment. To the university’s dedicated trustees and outstanding administration, we pledge our continued support. We will endeavor to maintain our independence in order to be in a position to better support the university.”

—GORDON HOLLON, president of the Baylor Alumni Association, 1986

nizations—departmental and self-governing—is based solely on the issue of governance, not on more general operational matters. Even alumni associations that are completely selfgoverned by an independent board are not totally separated from their respective universities or colleges; by nature, there is always some degree of connection, whether it’s through revenue from the university, collaborative programs, technology and communications assistance, or simply the sharing of the institution’s name.

Departmental alumni organizations are typically found at smaller institutions that lack a history of broad-based, volunteer involvement and organization by alumni and its related independent financial resources. Such an organization is run like any other department on campus—wholly staffed by the university and exclusively governed by the administration, although it may enlist alumni volunteers as part of its operations. At Baylor, this type of organization is represented by what was initially named the Office of Alumni Services when it was created in 2002 and is now known as The Baylor Network.

In the case of departmental organizations that use advisory boards, the energy and social connections of alumni volunteers are combined with the wherewithal and organizational resources of the university. These organizations have a separately functioning alumni board—perhaps even with legal standing as a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation—that is sometimes itself identified as the “alumni association.” However, the alumni organization’s chief staff person reports to the university administration, often directly to the president, and the rest of the organization’s personnel are typically university employees. Many medium-sized or large private universities employ variations of this model, including Princeton University, Duke University, Tulane University, Stanford University, and the University of Southern California.

Self-governing alumni organizations like the Baylor Alumni Association are wholly independent legal entities that are staffed by their own employees. They are typically, if not

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always, legally constituted as a nonprofit corporation, with a governing board whose members serve as fiduciaries and sole policy-makers of the organization. The chief staff person reports only to the volunteer governing board and has full control over the organization’s daily operations, although he or she typically works in close coordination and fruitful collaboration with university administrators. Such groups typically draw most of their revenues from endowment, membership dues, and programs, although a large percentage also receive university funding. Like the BAA, most of these organizations provide direct financial support to their respective institutions, through student scholarships and other channels, and also publish the primary publication for alumni, serving as a means of alumni expression and functioning as an independent voice on campus. Such organizations are typically found at large, public institutions and enjoy sizeable endowments, with nearby examples including the Texas Exes at the University of Texas at Austin and the Association of Former Students at Texas A&M University.

According to James L. Fisher, who served as president of Towson State University and of the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, a close relationship with alumni, even those who choose to run their own organizations, should be welcomed and fostered by college presidents. As Fisher has noted, “With independent associations, the risk is run of less efficiency and of an association’s developing so much autonomy that it becomes an unrestrained adversary. . . . However, although this can produce anxious moments, in reality it may prove to the president’s advantage. If a president is willing to gamble on his or her charismatic skills, an independent alumni association can become the most effective milieu for cultivating alumni support. . . . If the president is perceived as a more confident and open president, the alumni association, the institution, and the president will prosper.”

The self-governing alumni association is the predominant model in the Big 12 Conference, with nine of the twelve universities being supported by independently run organizations as their general alumni groups. Like the BAA, most of these alumni associations have had a long history on campus and have been viewed by their respective universities as the best BaylorAlumniAssociation.com

means of fostering an informed and engaged alumni body.

However, being an independently governed alumni association doesn’t necessarily mean that the organization receives no funding from the university for the services it provides or that it shouldn’t benefit from other types of institutional assistance and partnership. For example, five of the Big 12’s nine self-governing alumni associations receive direct funding from their institutions, ranging from 5 to 17 percent of those organizations’ annual budgets. Viewed within this context, the Baylor administration’s actions against the BAA in recent years—terminating the Services Agreement in 2008, restricting the BAA’s access to data in the alumni database in 2009, deleting all links to the BAA on the university’s “Alumni & Friends” website in June 2009, and removing the BAA from the university’s toll-free number in August 2009—run counter to common practices in higher education and reflect a much stricter interpretation of what the Baylor Alumni Association’s independence means than previous administrations have held.

Tireless advocates IN 1851, BAYLOR’S TRUSTEES ADOPTED “Pro Ecclesia, Pro Texana” (“For Church, for Texas”) as the institution’s motto. These dual emphases—upon Baylor’s role as a Christian institution and its role as an institution of higher education serving society—have served as pillars of Baylor’s identity and practices over the decades.

During his presidency, Judge Abner McCall emphasized that dual role of Baylor University. As he often said at commencement exercises, “It has not been Baylor’s purpose to graduate merely teachers, scientists, businessmen, lawyers, musicians, nurses, dentists, and physicians, but better men and better women with a deeper love of God and a more profound respect and more sensitive compassion for their fellow man.”

Baylor University has historically operated under the premise that the life of the spirit and the life of the mind are not antithetical, but complementary. “Baylor was chartered to confront her students with both of these central aspects of life, and we believe that life will be made more meaningful as a result,” Dr. Herbert Reynolds told graduating students in August 1988.

Over the years, the Baylor Alumni Association’s leaders have consistently expressed the organization’s support of Baylor University’s mission to educate men and women for worldwide leadership and service by integrating academic excellence and Christian commitment within a caring community. The BAA has stated, in print, that it believes the best way for Baylor to fulfill its Christian mission is by striving to become the greatest university it can be while remaining steadfastly Baptist in its principles, policies, and practices.

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And, BAA officials say, the alumni association’s independence is the key to advocating for the continuation of Baylor’s traditional dual emphases. Just as it enabled the BAA to rally support for Baylor’s ongoing commitment to academic freedom and religious liberty when Baylor faced the threat of fundamentalism in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the organization’s independence and representative voice also position the BAA to serve as a guardian against any potential effort to move Baylor in the opposite direction—toward secularism.

A few months before his death, Reynolds summarized his view of the Baylor Alumni Association’s continuing role as being to “maintain and enhance a sound and ongoing equilibrium in the life of Baylor University.”

The BAA’s Kilgore still has the card on which Reynolds wrote that statement. “I think part of what he meant was that as alumni we need to help ensure Baylor’s distinctive role in higher education as a Baptist university committed both to Christ and academic excellence,” Kilgore says. “Most private schools founded in the eighteenth or nineteenth century had denominational roots, but they lost their Christian identity in pursuit of academic excellence. Now that Baylor is ambitiously pursuing a higher standing as a center of research and scholarly enterprise, this is a potential hazard that we, as alumni, need to be vigilant against.”

To most Baylor alumni, the thought that Baylor might become secular likely seems farfetched. But such an evolution has been a common—perhaps even predominant—theme in American higher education.

Writing about this issue in his book The Soul of the American University, George Marsden notes that by the 1920s many universities that had been founded by Christian organizations and had pursued an institutional life grounded in a religious commitment—such as Harvard, Yale, and Vanderbilt—were no longer explicitly tied to those ideals. “The fatal weakness in conceiving of the university as a broadly Christian institution was its higher commitments to scientific and professional ideals and to the demands for a unified public life,” Marsden writes. “In the light of such commitments academic expressions of Christianity seemed at best superfluous and at worst unscientific and unprofessional. Most of those associated with higher education were still Christian, but in academic life, as in so many other parts of modern life, religion would increasingly be confined to private spheres. . . . Nothing stood in the way of the elimination of almost all religious perspectives from dominant academia. The result was academic conformity with respect to religion, often supported in the name of diversity.”

Kilgore noted, “The independent voice of alumni has certainly served Baylor well in the past, and is intended to be there in the future to ensure Baylor’s delicate balance of learning and faith. As has been said about the BAA before, we are the sentinels at the gate.” BL spring 2014

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BACK A LOOK BACK A LOOK BACK A LOOK BACK A LOOK BACK A LOOK BACK A LOO

HOME SWEET HOME—

Alumni Center was the first dedicated home for the Baylor Alumni Association.

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The Hughes-Dillard

Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center “It’s kind of the meeting space, the gathering place for people to meet.”

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signed on May 31 formally sealed its fate. In a court hearing in July 2013 contesting the need to demolish the building, senior architect at Populous and principal architect for Baylor Stadium Earl Santee spoke of why the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center needed to be removed. “We needed a place for [people] to gather again for the connection purposes. Some people may be parking downtown. They may walk across University Parks, and there’s a place for them to gather,” he said. When asked why the building couldn’t remain, with new sidewalks around it, Santee said, “Well, we just need the land area.”

The current configuration shows that the land once occupied by the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center is principally empty, save for a small sidewalk running diagonally through the building’s footprint. The land that once featured a building that was, as Earl Santee described, “a gathering place for people to meet” will now be a grassy space that leads to a bridge more than 950 feet away.

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ROD AYDELOTTE (OPPOSITE)

FOR MORE THAN THIRTY-FIVE YEARS—from 1976 until 2013—the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center was just that: a place where Baylor alumni, current students, retirees, and friends gathered. When it was first constructed in 1976, the alumni center was one of only a handful of structures located across from the main campus on University Parks Drive, and it was the first dedicated home for the Baylor Alumni Association, which had previously been shoe-horned into other buildings on campus, including Pat Neff Hall. Throughout the life of the building, thousands of people gathered in the alumni center for BAA events, wedding receptions, sorority inductions, Baylor departmental luncheons, and weekly coffee get-togethers of retired professors.

In 2011, architectural renderings of the proposed Baylor Stadium showed a green space where the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center resided. While Baylor initially would neither confirm nor deny plans for 1200 S. University Parks Drive, the Transition Agreement

O

BIRD’S EYE VIEW—The former footprint of the Hughes-Dillard Alumni Center, above, is shaded in gold. New sidewalks are visible leading the way to the foot of the new pedestrian bridge, below, that crosses the Brazos River and connects the Baylor campus to McLane Stadium.

the

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