McLennan County Elections Office officials, who conducted the voting in the Baylor Faculty Senate referendum on the leadership of university President Robert Sloan, said 491 of the almost 850 faculty members who were eligible to vote cast ballots during the three-day voting period, which ended at 7 p.m. Thursday.

The votes won’t be counted until next week, however, because faculty members who are currently overseas mailed in their ballots.

Supporters of the embattled university president had called on colleagues to boycott the referendum, which they said was flawed and “designed to maximize negative votes.”

But it’s not clear whether the boycott, indifference or fear of retribution kept hundreds of eligible faculty members from voting.

Some faculty members said privately they would not vote because they feared for their jobs.

Dr. Steven Eisenbarth, associate dean and professor of engineering, is one of the faculty members who signed the widely circulated letter urging the boycott.

He enrolled in the university as an undergraduate in 1974 and has been on the Baylor faculty since 1980, calling himself “the history of the school in some ways.”

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He did not vote in the referendum, which he said, “doesn’t warrant my vote because it’s fatally flawed.”

Esienbarth says the Faculty Senate is not representative of the faculty as a whole and is in need of reform.

“There's a serious problem with the faculty senate. It needs reform from top to bottom and I'd like to see that happen as soon as possible,” he said.

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