Baylor's faculty senate reaffirms fall's no-confidence vote in Sloan
Susan will be happy about this- it appears that the faculty at her alma mater has grown some cojones. Will it make a difference? Time will tell.
Faculty leaders at Baylor University, claiming little has changed since last fall, have reaffirmed their September no-confidence vote in school President Robert Sloan.
Baylor's faculty senate on Tuesday voted 28-5 to pass the motion, a sequel to its previous declaration that Sloan's presidency has produced "a chilling work environment characterized by distrust, anxiety, intimidation and favoritism."
"President Sloan has made only limited and inadequate attempts to address the problems that face Baylor," said the new motion. "The senate believes the president has failed to lead the university forward and has failed to restore a climate of trust."
No-confidence votes, quite uncommon, are considered academia's severest form of criticism and tantamount to asking the person to resign. Reaffirmations of no-confidence votes are even rarer.
The senate also voted 32-1 to request that regents conduct a referendum of the full faculty in the fall if Sloan is still in office. It called for the referendum to ask: "Do you want Robert B. Sloan to remain as president of Baylor University?"....
Sloan has come under fire from a faction of the faculty -- as well as alumni and past and present regents -- since last summer because of changes he has been making that some claim are turning the Baptist university into a fundamentalist institution.
The question, I suppose, is whether Baylor wants to be known as an institution of higher learning, a place that promotes exploring and questioning values and ideas- or does it want to be known for strict ideological and theological constructionism?
Speaking only for myself, I find it difficult how an institution known for Fundamentalist values can also be an institution with a strong academic reputation. The two simply do not go together. I understand that Baylor's mission is different from most colleges and universities, but intellectual exploration and Christianity need not be mutually exclusive- unless, of course, you're Robert Sloan and you're attempting to turn Baylor into something straight out of the Old Testament.
