Baylor Is Unique

By Jeff Kilgore, Executive Vice President and CEO of the Baylor Alumni Association

In an ongoing public-relations blitz aimed at students, faculty, staff, Waco residents, and alumni, Baylor's interim administration and Board of Regents have continued to champion and promote their proposal for the Baylor Alumni Association (BAA) to terminate its status as an independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization and become part of the Baylor administration. Their primary argument is that the BAA's independence is unique among all other alumni organizations serving private universities and should therefore be terminated in order to conform.

For the record, the BAA's independent status is not unique. As is the case at Baylor, Georgetown University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the University of Southern California (USC), and Duke University are also served by alumni associations that are legally incorporated as independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations. I have verified this by speaking with my counterparts at these associations.

Even though many alumni associations at public and private universities have the same independent 501(c)(3) nonprofit status, alumni executives acknowledge that each alumni association's relationship with its school is structured and lived out in a unique manner based on the history and purpose of the institution. The BAA is like some other alumni associations connected to private universities in these two fundamental ways--legally independent and structured to serve the school's unique history and culture. The bottom line is there is no "one size fits all" model for alumni relations. And the BAA is unique for a reason.

In fact, the BAA's uniqueness is something the Baylor family has celebrated for 150 years--and especially in the last twenty years--until it was recently challenged by a few on Baylor's Board of Regents. This challenge has been the focal point in the discussion that has fractured the Baylor family in recent years and is now, unfortunately, creating more discord and division.

Rather than participating in an unnecessary and divisive debate, it would be more redemptive to the Baylor family to simply celebrate one true fact that we all can agree on: Baylor University is unique. It is one of only a few institutions of higher education that have maintained a strong Christian identity while becoming one of the top 100 national, doctoral-granting universities in the United States.

It is only to the credit of the entire Baylor family--which includes students, faculty, alumni, donors, Texas Baptists, administrators, and regents--that Baylor's unique qualities have been both protected and preserved. As recently as the late 1980s, that uniqueness came under its greatest threat. In order to thwart an impending effort to take over Baylor's governing board, and thereby the university's future, Baylor's administration and Board of Trustees changed the university's charter in 1990.

The BAA was instrumental in helping the Baylor family and Texas Baptists understand the need for the charter change. In order to prevent such a threat in the future, the university and the BAA worked together to create a unique relationship between the two entities. A few years after the charter change created a 75 percent self-perpetuating Board of Regents, Baylor and the BAA signed a license agreement that officially recognized the BAA as the general alumni organization of Baylor in perpetuity.

The BAA's independent status and independent voice were specifically protected by the following language in the license agreement: "Licensor [Baylor] has no control over licensee [BAA]. For example, it is understood that licensee is an independent 'voice' of alumni of Baylor University, and the positions taken by licensee (editorial and otherwise) which may be contrary to the administration of the University or its Board of Regents shall not be alleged by licensor to constitute insufficient quality and shall not be grounds for licensor's termination of this License Agreement."

All parties agreed that the strong pairing of these two legally separate and unique entities would serve Baylor best in preserving her unique place in higher education.

However, the new leadership on Baylor's Board of Regents and Baylor's interim administration have strongly stated that this model--this special pairing--no longer serves Baylor well. Their representatives have said that Baylor should be looking at other institutions to determine what now serves Baylor best, rather than recognizing and honoring the deliberately unique relationship that Baylor established with the BAA.

These regents and administrators now have asked the BAA's Board of Directors to terminate the alumni association's independent 501(c)(3) status and submit all of its assets, direct oversight of staff, programming, and--perhaps most importantly--the editorially independent voice of the Baylor Line magazine to be placed under the control of Baylor's administration and Board of Regents.

It is now evident that these regents, who are accountable only to themselves and have the sole authority to hire Baylor's president, believe that control of all communications with alumni is more important to Baylor's future than such principles as editorial freedom and independent support. On the other hand, many believe that--like "independence" and "freedom"--"unique" is not a negative word.

The question that the Board of Regents chairman recently posed to our BAA president cuts to the heart of this entire matter, and it is a question that everyone must now answer for himself or herself: What do you perceive to be the price of the BAA's editorial independence?

It is a question that many alumni, and even students and faculty, are now beginning to ask themselves. Is Baylor's own uniqueness part of that price? What do you think?

Please respond by e-mailing the alumni association at BaylorLine@BaylorAlumniAssociation.com. All responses will be considered for publication unless you indicate otherwise.

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We continue to receive a great deal of response from alumni regarding the proposal made by Baylor's interim administration and Board of Regents asking the Baylor Alumni Association (BAA) to terminate its independent status and become part of the university. You can read previously published comments at "Propsal Responses."

Today, we are sharing comments made by three notable members of the Baylor family: Jack Loftis '57, editor emeritus of the Houston Chronicle; Paul Powell '56, former Baylor regent and former dean of Baylor's Truett Seminary; and Dr. Bill Hillis '53, Cornelia M. Smith Distinguished Professor of Biology at Baylor and former Baylor vice president for student life. Click on "Three Comments" to read their responses.

In addition, we have created a page with links to news coverage of Baylor's proposal: "In the News."

We encourage alumni who have not yet responded to share their opinions on this important matter with us. We value your involvement and input.

You can e-mail the alumni association at BaylorLine@BaylorAlumniAssociation.com. All responses will be considered for publication unless you indicate otherwise. You can also comment on this matter on the Baylor Line Forum.