Today begins the last full week of Dr. David Garland’s interim presidency at Baylor University, where he is Truett Seminary dean. His tenure of nearly two years saw significant highlights, including creation of the Central Texas Technology and Research Park, home of the Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative; record enrollments, including a minority enrollment that now counts for about a third of all Baylor students; and the pledging of a $200 million estate by an anonymous donor.

His administration has also faced hurdles, including an attempted merger sought by the Baylor College of Medicine, ultimately undermined by the college’s own faculty who voiced fears about Baylor’s perceived fundamentalism. Garland also oversaw attempts to reinforce racial sensitivity amid erroneously reported campus events reacting to the election of Barack Obama as America’s first black president in November 2008.

Excerpts from his comments in an interview with the Tribune-Herald last week:

• I wasn’t really surprised that this interim presidency lasted so long. Regents would even talk to me about it being three years. And knowing that, you realize you can’t just tread water that long. The university simply had to continue full-speed ahead. We’re not setting new directions or anything. We’ve simply continued with what we had already set in motion.

• I feel that I learned some from Scripture in order to do this job. I do think it’s extremely important to deal with people respectfully. It’s very important to empower them to do the job. And if you have people whose work evaluation says, “Works well under constant supervision,” you’ve got problems.

• I just love meeting people. That has been one of the joys in all this. I really don’t think of people as potential donors. I just like them as people. To me, fundraising is all about building relationships. I’m not a good asker. I have to work hard on that, though I’m getting better. Part of it is because I don’t want people to think I’m only interested in them for what they might do for us.

• At the seminary, we value the small giver as much as the big giver. That’s a New Testament value.

• It angers me when I pick up the newspaper, as I did with the New York Times last week, and some writer talks about the “dry, dusty plains of Waco.” We have a lot to overcome that is fully unjustified, and I think we’ve made enormous progress. It’s between the two of us, Waco and Baylor University, to do this. My mother-in-law was on a train in Washington state and someone asked her where she was from and he said to her, “Oh, isn’t that where Baylor is?” Which is a whole different response than we sometimes hear.

• The adverse reaction of the Baylor College of Medicine faculty to a partnership indicated we have a reputation issue. Some of it is of our own making and some of it is their own unfamiliarity with Baylor. There’s a stereotype that you can’t be a faith-based university and do serious research and science. That’s one of the unique things about Baylor that we’ll prove otherwise.

• I was really outraged and devastated (about news reports of racism and anti-Obama fervor on the Baylor campus Election Day 2008). Then we found out it was a matter of irresponsible reporting. I’ll never forget seeing CNN showing this giant bonfire. They said it was all this Obama campaign material burning. Well, I guarantee you, you could have collected all the Obama signs and posters in the surrounding 12 counties and it wouldn’t have made that size bonfire.

• I didn’t have any trouble convincing the School of Social Work to move off-campus and relocate in downtown Waco. Have you been in the current building? It’s in the parking garage. They like to call it the Speight Plaza Building, but it’s in the basement of a parking garage, which wasn’t really meant for it. They’ve made it very nice, but they’ve had their outbreak of Exodus plagues. They’ve had gnats or some kind of bug like that. My wife’s office there has been flooded three or four times. So they’re extraordinarily excited about this move.

• Some of my best days were over at the Ferrell Center or down in New Orleans and Houston with our basketball teams. In Houston, there were 47,000-plus fans and I’d swear that 40,000 of them were from Baylor. That was spectacular.

• What is most important from my perspective is the effectiveness of any alumni association. I feel like Baylor has been developing very effective outreach to its alumni through the Baylor Network. It is not Waco-centric. It’s all over the world.

• I talked with Judge Ken Starr after one graduation on Saturday for two hours. He’s so personable and caring. I think that’s the most important thing. My advice is to trust the leadership that’s in place because I think we’ve done extremely well. And I trust that he will.

• We have a home in Colorado so I’ll be driving there (after Starr takes over). I’ll be fighting beetles up there. There’s a beetle infestation that has ruined about 2 million acres and we have a beetle neighborhood watch.

• I don’t think of legacies. I think it’s dangerous to think about legacies because you’re really thinking about yourself and not about the university. Someone else will have say on all that later on.

Interview conducted, condensed and edited by Bill Whitaker.

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