By Mike Anderson

Tribune-Herald assistant city editor

John Lilley assumed the presidency of Baylor University in January 2006 amid hopes he could still waters that grew troubled during the final years of the presidency of Robert B. Sloan Jr.

The day Lilley was announced as president, he spoke of unity, saying that when it comes to issues, he is a “straight talker, a straight shooter.” All universities have their share of disagreements, he said, and at Baylor, “when we have them, we’ll take them on and we’ll talk through them.”

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COVERAGE

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Interactive: Timeline of Lilley's presidency

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As Lilley, a Baylor alumnus, leaves office less than three years later, fired by the board of regents, some at the Baptist university say he steered with too rigid a hand, alienating groups among Baylor’s complicated and sometimes prickly constituency. Others say he was done in by lingering divisions at the university, limiting his ability to meet some of his goals, and regents’ expectations toward furthering the university’s strategic vision, Baylor 2012.

Brad Toben, dean of the Baylor Law School, said some at the university who had been squabbling found common ground under Lilley but not necessarily in the manner the former president might have hoped.

“It’s well known that during Dr. Lilley’s administration, various groups within the university that previously did not see eye-to-eye on matters found a new sense of cooperation and unity as they have worked together to address concerns regarding Dr. Lilley’s actions and decisions on certain matters,” Toben said.

Toben said he, too, was at odds with Lilley, over the law school’s vision, though he said he couldn’t be more specific.

When Baylor regents chose Lilley in November 2005, they found him appealing in part because of his experience in higher education, said Will Davis, regent chairman at the time of Lilley’s selection.

Lilley had served about five years as president of the University of Nevada, Reno, and before that, 21 years as head of Penn State-Erie. Regents believed he had demonstrated knowledge and proven capabilities in higher education leadership, said Davis, who ended his term on the board a few months after Lilley became president in January 2006.

“During the time I was chairman, I felt Lilley performed admirably and met issues appropriately” Davis said.

However, some at Baylor voiced concern early on about criticism leveled against Lilley during his time in Reno. In a survey conducted at the University of Nevada, Reno, in 2005, some faculty members spoke of low morale stemming from his leadership style.

The report said Lilley’s administration needed to take steps to “alleviate a climate of fear and distrust that pervades the UNR campus.”

About three years later, Baylor’s faculty senate passed a “failure of shared governance” resolution sharply critical of Lilley’s administrative style, described at the time by senate chairman Matt Cordon as a “top down” administration with unilateral decision-making.

Cordon said faculty members’ key concern was their perceived lack of input in the tenure decision-making process.

This spring, Lilley and outgoing Provost Randall O’Brien denied tenure to 12 of 30 faculty candidates. The faculty senate cried foul, saying Lilley and O’Brien overruled faculty tenure recommendations.

Lilley later sent an e-mail to faculty, calling faculty concerns that their input was disregarded “false.” He pointed out that he and O’Brien regularly attended faculty senate meetings and other faculty gatherings.

The administration later granted tenure on appeal to seven of those denied, and in June Lilley and other administrators held a summit with faculty to try to mend fences.

Cordon said Thursday that Lilley had an assertive manner in pushing for things he wanted at the university and wasn’t afraid to fight for his position. But coming after sharp disagreements during Sloan’s last years, that rubbed some faculty the wrong way.

“At that point we were tired of fighting,” Cordon said. He added: “John did some good things, but he wasn’t a healer.”

However Randy Lofgren, Lilley’s classmate when he was a Baylor music student, offered a different take on his friend’s leadership style.

“He is a person of the highest integrity and is very self-disciplined because of those traits,” said Lofgren, Baylor associate vice president for development. “When he feels (an action is the best one to take), he has no hesitation to act on it. There is no question in his mind what direction he should take, because he trusts his experience and judgement.”

Lilley’s actions and administrative style also angered some with the Baylor Alumni Association. Bill Nesbitt, association president, said some members found Lilley heavy-handed with the group, which is independent of the university. Nesbitt said the only time Lilley met with the full association was when he came to a meeting and pressed members to embrace Baylor 2012.

During that meeting, Lilley said, “The consequence of saying yes (to Baylor 2012) is you’ll have more influence over the board (of regents) and the administration. The consequence of saying no is you’ll have less.”

Baylor’s $213,000 contract with the alumni group was allowed to lapse earlier this year, and the Baylor Alumni Association is now entirely self-funded.

By all accounts, the group had a difficult time while Lilley was president at Baylor, Nesbitt said. While relations between the association and Baylor regents have been strained for some time, he always got the sense “John was talking for John,” when pushing an issue, he said.

“We never really truly understood each other,” Nesbitt said. “I never understood his objections to our independence. He did make efforts to close this gap, but in the end wasn’t able to pull it together.”

After Lilley’s termination was announced Thursday morning, regent chairman Howard Batson pointed to the successes of Lilley’s tenure, including furthering the goals of Baylor 2012, an ambitious plan to catapult Baylor into the top tier of research-oriented universities nationwide. Those goals included efforts in moving toward Baylor’s endowment fund target of $2 billion.

“There are many, many successes,” Batson said. “John has worked hard and we appreciate his work.”

However, Baylor economics professor Kent Gilbreath said the divisions and negative news about Baylor in recent years hampered some of Lilley’s efforts, particularly in fundraising. Because of Baylor’s problems, raising money would have been difficult for any president the last few years, Gilbreath said.

Yet he credited Lilley with traveling extensively and making outreach to potential donors, laying the groundwork for future fundraising.

Gilbreath said Lilley was also scrutinized closely by people on both sides of the schism that remained after the Sloan administration and its stormy 10-year tenure.

“I would say there was no granting of grace on any decision he made,” he said.

But to the end, he said, Lilley remained his own man.

“The great success he had — he has kept Baylor from imploding.” Gilbreath said. “He has given Baylor time to come together, at least incrementally. He did not become a pawn in the hands of either faction on either side.”

Staff writer Tim Woods contributed to this story.

manderson@wacotrib.com

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