Action postponed on study committee reports
By Tony W. Cartledge
BR Editor
WINSTON-SALEM-The Baptist State Convention (BSC) Executive Committee heard reports from two institutional study committees on April 11, but deferred action on both reports.
After several months of controversy in 2005 over the way some proposed trustees were handled by the BSC Committee on Nominations, the five BSC-related colleges and universities asked the Executive Committee to direct the Council on Christian Higher Education to study the relationship between the BSC and the schools. The request came last Sept. 27, with the report to be due no later than August 2006.
At the same meeting, the North Carolina Baptist Foundation (NCBF) asked the Executive Committee to appoint a committee to evaluate its relationship with the BSC, and within the same time frame.
After a series of meetings with trustees, entity presidents, denominational officials and other interested parties, both committees presented reports to the Executive Committee on April 11.
Both reports call for a positive and ongoing relationship between the BSC and the entities, but also ask for changes in the BSC bylaws that would allow entity presidents to have more official input into the selection of trustees.
Executive Committee chair Don Warren said he favored the recommendations and was hopeful that Baptist Retirement Homes, whose trustees announced in January that they would forgo BSC funding and choose their own successors, would reconsider their action if they could reach a similar arrangement.
Nancy Hunter, chair of the NCBF Board, and John Butler, former president of the Board of Directors, presented the NCBF report. Several Executive Committee members expressed concern that the proposal would put too much power in the hands of the entity CEO. Some objected that the Executive Committee's announced agenda did not call for action on the NCBF committee report, but only for an update.
After a lengthy discussion, with time drawing near for the called convention to elect Milton Hollifield as the BSC's new executive director-treasurer, committee members voted to receive the report as information and defer action until the next meeting, scheduled for May 23.
A report from The Institutional Relationship Study Committee report was on the agenda, but after hearing the report from chairman Jesse Croom and discussing the report briefly, the committee again voted to defer action until May 23, just prior to the next Board of Directors meeting May 23-24.
If the Executive Committee approves the reports, they will go on to the Board of Directors, which must also endorse them.
After the Executive Committee acts to approve or deny the reports, the Recorder will provide further details.
