Baylor standoff continues after vote

WACO, Texas (BP) - "The recently conducted Faculty Senate referendum on the leadership of President Sloan sheds no new light on the fact that a segment of faculty do not agree with the current administration of the university," Baylor University board of regents chairman Will Davis of Austin stated in response to a third no confidence vote in a 14-month period involving Baylor's Faculty Senate.

The Faculty Senate arranged for the referendum to be conducted by the McLennan County elections office, in reaction to charges that opposition to Baylor President Robert Sloan was limited to a small, vocal group of faculty on the Waco, Texas, campus.

Unlike previous ballots of the 33 senate members, the vote was open from Nov. 30-Dec. 2 to 838 Baylor faculty, including tenured and tenure-track professors, fulltime and senior lecturers, instructors and those in fulltime academic professions such as librarians. Retired, part-time, contract and administrators without faculty rank were excluded.

By a vote of 418 to 69, 85 percent of those voting opposed retaining President Sloan.

Last year Sloan was affirmed by a 31-4 vote of the regents while a vote in May resulted in a close 18-17 decision against the call for him to resign. More recently, regents postponed indefinitely a repeated call for his resignation in the September meeting. The group convenes again Feb. 4.