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Why Independent?
Distinctive among alumni organizations
at private universities, the Baylor Alumni Association has a tradition
of independence as a self-governing organization that has allowed it to
serve Baylor University with integrity and loyalty over the years.
 For
150 years, the Baylor Alumni Association (BAA) has provided alumni with
an organization through which they can 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 success?”
In recent years, and especially in recent months, Baylor administrators
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 Baylor-BAA 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.
A Distinctive Service
As a self-governing, nonprofit corporation, the BAA is a rarity within
the world of private higher education in America. Leaders of the BAA
consider this status as a point of pride, viewing the organization’s
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. Recently, the university forced 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. Defending the action, a
Baylor vice president 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 take issue with this characterization of the BAA’s
independence, which they say is misleading. 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
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 Conference’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, the Baylor vice president 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.” The
Baylor administrator was quoted as saying, “They can’t have it both
ways.”
Jeff Kilgore, executive vice president and CEO of the BAA, noted that
this attitude is a radical departure from the university’s approach to
the BAA-Baylor partnership over the last three decades. He said 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,” 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
customer-service 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 told
the Line.
“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 existence?”
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 said. 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.
Financially, the BAA and its nineteen thousand members make a big
impact, noted 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 said. Indeed, the university’s records attest to
the fact that the Baylor Alumni Association’s relevance to Baylor lies
as much in the realm of fund-raising as it does 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 face 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 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 to
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.”
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 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:
- 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.
- Receiving the Baylor Line at least nine times a year, with news of exes from all over the country and news of Baylor.
- 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. The building had
stood 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, 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
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 Ex-Students’ 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 V. McCall and Dr. Herbert H. Reynolds.
 Before
becoming Baylor’s president in 1961, McCall (pictured at right) 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.
In 1969, Reynolds accepted an offer from McCall to become executive
vice president of Baylor. Over the next twenty-six 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 improve 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 association’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 Dr. Jim 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 association would be stronger if a member had
to pay to belong.”
 In an interview with the Line
in 2005, Reynolds (pictured at left) recalled the rationale for the
administration’s support of the alumni association’s decision to become
a more independent, dues-based 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-square-foot, U-shaped building was $590,502, nearly 80 percent of
which was paid for by alumni gifts.
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 university-launched 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
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.”
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 reason for functionally and
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. If the governance of the BGCT were to be
taken over by the conservative leadership of the SBC, through an
infiltration of the messengers attending the BGCT’s annual meetings,
then Baylor’s own governing board would have been imperiled.
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
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
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 was 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.
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 a 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 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 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
inhibition 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 re-establishment 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.
Different Types
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 departments of the university administration. 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
organizations—departmental and self-governing—is based solely on the
issue of governance, not on more general operational matters. Even
alumni associations that are completely self-governed 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 received 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 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
(CASE), 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 means of fostering an informed and engaged alumni body.
However, being a self-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, BAA officials say, 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 2008, 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 acted as
pillars of Baylor’s identity and practices over the decades.
During his presidency, McCall emphasized this 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 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,” 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.
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 role as being to “maintain and enhance a
sound and ongoing equilibrium in the life of Baylor University.”
Kilgore, the BAA’s executive vice president, 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
told the Line.
“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 that Baylor’s delicate balance of learning and faith is
preserved.”
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