(August 3, 2006)--Baylor University Chancellor Robert Sloan is the lone finalist for the presidency of Houston Baptist University.

A search committee set up by HBU's Board of Trustees recommended Sloan's candidacy in a special meeting on Tuesday.

The recommendation was disclosed in an HBU statement released Wednesday.

"God's hand has been in the prayerful and deliberate efforts of the Search Committee. They ultimately reached out to Robert Sloan and simultaneously God's hand was guiding him to HBU," said Ray Cox, Jr, the president of the Houston Baptist Board of Regents.

"The Board of Trustees affirmed the work of the Search Committee and recommended that Robert Sloan be hired as the next President of HBU."

Trustees will meet next Tuesday to vote on the recommendation.

Click Here To Read Houston Baptist Statement

Sloan has served as Baylor chancellor since last year after serving ten years as the university's president.

The Coleman-born, Abilene-reared Baylor alumnus holds a master of divinity degree from Princeton Theological Seminary and a doctorate in divinity from the University of Basel in Switzerland.

A statement issued Baylor President John Lilley expressed thanks to Sloan and his family and offered the university's "best wishes and prayers for their future."

Click Here To Read Baylor University Statement

Saying he had become a lightning rod for controversy, Sloan and university regents agreed in January 2005 that Sloan would step down to become chancellor effective June 1, 2005.

Law professor William Underwood succeeded Sloan on an interim basis.

Underwood later accepted the presidency of Mercer University in Macon, Ga.

Sloan’s departure from the president’s office was the last chapter in a festering controversy that pitted faculty against faculty and graduate against graduate in a debate over everything from hiring practices to indebtedness and tuition rates.

The controversy bubbled to the surface in 2003 after the disappearance of Baylor basketball player Patrick Dennehy and the subsequent scandal that led to the resignations of the school’s head basketball coach, Dave Bliss, and its athletic director, Tom Stanton.

But it had its roots in Sloan’s ambitious Vision 2012 plan to make Baylor a top tier university within a decade.

He planned to do that by placing renewed emphasis on faculty research and by embarking on a $250 million expansion project that included new campus housing and a $103 million science building among other facilities including The Stacy Riddle Forum, The Harry and Anna Jeanes Discovery Center and a parking garage and office facility.

The plan also established a two-tier faculty system—later abolished—that differentiated between teaching and research faculty.

That distinction, and concerns about what some faculty members described as a narrow theological litmus test for prospective faculty members, led to deepening divisions on and off campus.

The Baylor Faculty Senate approved a no-confidence motion in Sloan’s administration in September 2003 and reaffirmed the vote in May 2004.

Sixty percent of the school’s faculty participated in a referendum on Sloan’s leadership in the fall of 2004 and more than 80 percent of them voted against Sloan.

Sloan’s faculty supporters called on colleagues to boycott the election, but there was no way to know whether those who didn’t participate in the referendum did so because of the boycott, or because of concerns about possible retribution.

Divisions notwithstanding, Sloan unquestionably left his mark on the university.

Under Sloan’s administration, enrollment grew from 12,202 in the fall of 1995 to 13,799 in the fall of 2004 and the average SAT score of entering freshmen improved during the same period from 1160 to 1190.

Minority enrollment increased by almost 5 percent during Sloan’s tenure and graduate student enrollment on the Waco campus reached an all-time high in the fall of 2004.

Almost $400 million in new facilities were constructed during Sloan’s presidency including the new sciences building, residential village and parking garages.

Lilley praised Sloan’s 10-year plan Wednesday.

“Its breadth and depth are such that it will serve as a guide for Baylor’s future,” he said.

Click Here For Baylor University Web Site

Click Here For Houston Baptist University Web Site

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