Book Review: Baylor at the Crossroads

Baylor at the Crossroads: Memoirs of a Provost by Donald D. Schmeltekopf (Cascade Books)

Don Schmeltekopf provides an insider’s look behind the scenes during perhaps the most transformative and tumultuous time in Baylor University’s history. Schmeltekopf was Baylor’s chief academic officer—provost and vice president for academic affairs—from 1991 to 2003. So, he writes as a participant, not as an impartial observer, of that era.

Still, considering the controversy generated during those years, Schmeltekopf presents strong opinions in the most gracious manner imaginable. He shoulders responsibility, and he shows respect for both presidents with whom he served—Herbert Reynolds and Robert Sloan—even when he acknowledges points of disagreement.

Schmeltekopf arrived on his alma mater’s campus in 1990, serving one year as vice provost before moving up to the senior position, and one of the early board of trustees meetings he attended proved momentous. Reynolds led the trustees to change the university’s charter, establishing a self-perpetuating board of regents as the school’s governing body and insulating Baylor from the possible threat of a fundamentalist takeover.

Another key event followed exactly 11 years later, about a year and a half before the end of his tenure as provost, when regents launched Baylor 2012—a long-range plan, closely identified with Sloan, that emphasized the integration of faith and learning and sought to transform Baylor into an internationally recognized research institution. 

As the university’s top academic officer, Schmeltekopf laid the foundation for implementing that vision—the genesis of which predated the regents’ vote by several years, he notes. Schmeltekopf reports he introduced the emphasis on integrating faith and learning during a 1991 conversation with Reynolds. He also acknowledges his early interest in examining more carefully the Christian commitment of faculty during the hiring process—a matter that became a bone of contention in some circles a decade later.

He documents substantive steps Baylor took toward integrating faith and learning—instituted long before the Sloan presidency or the Baylor 2012 initiative—but he acknowledges the initiative did not become part of the “institutional vocabulary” until the latter years of his time as provost.

Recounting the years between the 1990 charter revision and the Baylor 2012 implementation, Schmeltekopf offers insights into crucial events along the way—the end of the Southwest Conference and Baylor’s entrance into the Big XII Conference; the retirement of one president and selection of his successor; and the firestorm that surrounded creating the ill-fated Polanyi Center, directed by Intelligent Design proponent William Dembski. 

Without revealing all the inside information Schmeltekopf offers, one tidbit deserves to be shared. When Reynolds retired, the regents named a search committee and eventually narrowed their choices to three candidates—Thomas Corts, president of Samford University; Paul Powell, president of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Annuity Board; and Schmeltekopf.

As some Texas Baptists will remember, the committee eventually selected Corts, but the board of regents could not agree on his nomination. The board subsequently decided to act as a committee of the whole in selecting a new president, and they chose four finalists, after an unidentified fifth individual withdrew—William Hillis, vice president for student life at Baylor; Max Lennon, former president of Clemson University; Schmeltekopf; and Sloan, inaugural dean of Baylor’s Truett Theological Seminary, whom the board ultimately selected. 

Schmeltekopf provides analysis of the Sloan years as Baylor president, albeit from the viewpoint of one who strongly supported the general direction in which the president led. He applauds Sloan’s deep commitment to the integration of faith and learning, and he salutes Sloan’s successful initiatives. At the same time, he forthrightly acknowledges the strained relationship between Sloan and segments of the Baylor faculty.  

Some readers will disagree with at least some of Schmeltekopf’s assessments how Baylor improved during his years as chief academic officer, but few will fail to find his analysis fascinating. Some will applaud and others take offense at how he characterizes the two camps that developed in the “Baylor family” after the school began to implement Baylor 2012: “traditionalists,” who resisted change and wanted to return Baylor to what it used to be—a regional Baptist undergraduate teaching university—and “progressives,” who embraced the vision of transforming Baylor into an evangelical Notre Dame with a strong graduate research program. 

Texas Baptists interested in the history of Baylor University in the 1990s will appreciate the insights he offers from his unique perspective, although some secretly may wish he had dished out more gossip. Others who are interested more generally in the state of Christian higher education—particularly the question of what makes a university distinctively Christian—will be intrigued by his clearly articulated observations.