Baylor Board Of Regents Reaffirms Sloan Administration
Friday's Board of Regents news conference is available via streaming video at BaylorTV.com.
After debating in executive session for more than three hours, Baylor University's Board of Regents today reaffirmed the leadership of Baylor President Robert B. Sloan Jr. by a vote of 31-4. The vote came during the board's regular September meeting on the Baylor campus.
Following its decision, the board held a news conference in a classroom at the Hankamer School of Business. Regent Chairman Drayton McLane Jr. said the board discussed Sloan's leadership, both with the president and in private sessions without his attendance. All 36 Regents participated in "spirited, challenging" discussions, McLane said, with one board member having to leave before the vote was cast.
"In the last few months there has been a lot of discussion about [Baylor's] leadership. In any organization, particularly an institution like Baylor, the leadership, the vision and how they move forward are the most critical issues," McLane said. "Robert Sloan has been president and CEO for more than eight years. He's led the university in a very bold way forward with vision, with integrity and fulfilling the Baylor mission. We've discussed it and we had a vote a short time ago totally reaffirming the leadership of Robert Sloan."
With Regents surrounding him, Sloan also spoke at today's news conference.
"I want to thank the Board of Regents for this very strong reaffirmation today, not only for me, but particularly this reaffirmation of Baylor 2012, the 10-year vision of Baylor, and the direction of the university to be one of the world's greatest Christian universities with an outstanding academic reputation and a university that, because of its Christian worldview, also is deeply committed to its Baptist heritage," Sloan said.
"I also want to say that I will do everything within my power to reach out to all of the Baylor family - faculty, staff, students, alumni. It's important for all of us to draw together, to link arms together for the good of Baylor University."
During the news conference, McLane announced that the board has appointed three committees to evaluate specific concerns raised by university constituents in recent weeks. A Special Regent Review Committee will evaluate faculty relations, the faculty hiring process, provisional students and Baylor traditions. It also will evaluate the university's agreement with the Baylor Alumni Association to ensure that the institution is fully meeting its commitments as represented in the cooperation agreement, which was signed last May. The Audit Review Committee will examine Baylor's financial model, its bonded indebtedness, the board's conflict of interest policy and tuition structure. The Legal Issues Committee will examine pending litigation.
The three committees are charged with reaching out to all Baylor constituency groups, utilizing available information and resources to make recommendations to the full board or the appropriate standing committee for action or further study.
In other action today, regents set tuition and fees for the 2004-2005 academic year and approved a Religion, Politics and Society degree option in the department of church-state studies for students entering the Ph.D. program.
Tuition for undergraduate students entering Baylor in the fall of 2004 will be $17,900, a 6.87 percent increase over this year's rate of $16,750. Continuing students who enrolled prior to fall 2002 will see a tuition increase of 6.71 percent to $461 per semester hour. Baylor moved to a flat-rate tuition structure in Fall 2002. Current students were grandfathered under the former per-semester hour structure. The general student fee will increase 7.97 percent to $1,490 per year, room rates will increase 7.04 percent to $2,920 per year, and board will increase 3.2 percent to $2,792 per year.
Other tuition increases will be 6.88 percent for new graduate students and 6.67 percent for George W. Truett Theological Seminary students. New law students entering in fall 2003 will see a 12.5 percent increase while continuing law students will experience a nine-percent increase in tuition.