Skip to content
ADVERTISEMENT
Sign In
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
  • More
  • Sections
    • News
    • Advice
    • The Review
  • Topics
    • Data
    • Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion
    • Finance & Operations
    • International
    • Leadership & Governance
    • Teaching & Learning
    • Scholarship & Research
    • Student Success
    • Technology
    • Transitions
    • The Workplace
  • Magazine
    • Current Issue
    • Special Issues
    • Podcast: College Matters from The Chronicle
  • Newsletters
  • Events
    • Virtual Events
    • Chronicle On-The-Road
    • Professional Development
  • Ask Chron
  • Store
    • Featured Products
    • Reports
    • Data
    • Collections
    • Back Issues
  • Jobs
    • Find a Job
    • Post a Job
    • Professional Development
    • Career Resources
    • Virtual Career Fair
    Upcoming Events:
    College Advising
    Serving Higher Ed
    Chronicle Festival 2025
Sign In
Leadership

Baylor’s New Provost Seeks to Foster a ‘Morally Significant’ Culture

By Eric Kelderman June 8, 2016
L. Gregory Jones, executive vice president and provost at Baylor U.: “The more we can talk about friendship as a morally significant relationship, I think that will help address not only sexual assault, but help us think differently about bullying and about the ways we relate to each other.”
L. Gregory Jones, executive vice president and provost at Baylor U.: “The more we can talk about friendship as a morally significant relationship, I think that will help address not only sexual assault, but help us think differently about bullying and about the ways we relate to each other.”Courtesy of Baylor U.

Baylor University’s provost, L. Gregory Jones, took office on May 16. That was just 10 days before Baylor’s Board of Regents released damning findings that acknowledged the Baptist university’s failures to respond to numerous sexual assaults over three academic years.

To continue reading for FREE, please sign in.

Sign In

Or subscribe now to read with unlimited access for as low as $10/month.

Don’t have an account? Sign up now.

A free account provides you access to a limited number of free articles each month, plus newsletters, job postings, salary data, and exclusive store discounts.

Sign Up

L. Gregory Jones, executive vice president and provost at Baylor U.: “The more we can talk about friendship as a morally significant relationship, I think that will help address not only sexual assault, but help us think differently about bullying and about the ways we relate to each other.”
L. Gregory Jones, executive vice president and provost at Baylor U.: “The more we can talk about friendship as a morally significant relationship, I think that will help address not only sexual assault, but help us think differently about bullying and about the ways we relate to each other.”Courtesy of Baylor U.

Baylor University’s provost, L. Gregory Jones, took office on May 16. That was just 10 days before Baylor’s Board of Regents released damning findings that acknowledged the Baptist university’s failures to respond to numerous sexual assaults over three academic years.

Since then, the university’s president and chancellor, Kenneth W. Starr, has left both posts. The athletics director also stepped down, and the football coach was fired. David E. Garland, a former dean of Baylor’s theological seminary, was named interim president.

Now Mr. Jones, who has been a senior fellow for leadership education and a theology professor at the Duke Divinity School, is helping to lead the Texas university’s effort to put in place more than 100 recommendations that investigators from the law firm of Pepper Hamilton have made to ensure that Baylor complies with federal laws on gender equity.

In addition, he is leading a task force on improving spiritual life on Baylor’s campus and cultivating character — one of the keys, he says, to preventing future sexual assaults on the campus.

Baylor package art
The Fallout at Baylor
A sexual-assault controversy led the university to demote its president and take action against members of its athletics staff. Read more about how the scandal unfolded and its lingering effects.
  • How Baylor’s First Female President Plans to Move Past the Sex-Assault Scandals
  • At Baylor, a Scandal’s Constant Drip Means a Relentless Spotlight
  • Feuding Over Sex-Assault Scandal Intensifies Spotlight on Baylor
  • Title IX Officers Pay a Price for Navigating a Volatile Issue

Mr. Jones, who is also executive vice president, talked about the importance of improving Baylor’s culture and ethics during a conversation on Tuesday with The Chronicle. The transcript has been edited for clarity and condensed for publication.

Q. What has been the mood and reaction of faculty and staff members since the release of the investigators’ findings?

A. There’s been a lot of concern for the well-being of those who were victims and now survivors, and a lot of prayer that there’s healing for them. I’d add there is a sense of sadness and humility and even shame that this kind of thing could have happened to people who had been entrusted to Baylor’s care. It’s caused a lot of soul-searching and a lot of passion to be sure that the findings are taken seriously. As Interim President Garland has said, “Those are not recommendations anymore. Those are mandates.”

Q. Much of the focus has been on the football program, but certainly problems went beyond athletics. How does Baylor change its culture to better respond to and prevent sexual harassment and assault?

A. It’s a problem that is shared across higher education and, unfortunately, across America and around the world.

ADVERTISEMENT

On a university campus it’s particularly important because of the formative time that students are on a campus, and the importance of not just developing better policies but also better systems for reporting and making sure that we have people aligned well to respond effectively. I think the key is doing all that work to address episodes when they happen, as much as we regret any episode ever happening, any sexual assault occurring.

But the deeper key is looking at the proactive ways of cultivating a culture that takes seriously what it means to have morally significant friendships. The more we can talk about friendship as a morally significant relationship, I think that will help address not only sexual assault, but help us think differently about bullying and about the ways we relate to each other.

Because when you have a friend, you learn to listen to their story and to share their story, and the whole relationship changes. In the history of moral philosophy as well as Christian theology, friendship was a central moral category, and in modernity we’ve really lost that significant reflection in our courses and in the broader culture.

Q. What is the role of faculty members in making these changes on a daily basis and in the classes they teach?

ADVERTISEMENT

A. It’s an invitation for faculty across all the disciplines to think about how our classes are morally formative, even if we’re teaching chemistry or music or disciplines that we may not think of as being focused on ethics, as that term is often used. We need to be cultivating ways to think about how does any course, and all of our courses together, help to shape students in the ways they treat each other, the ways they think about their life and the world, friendship, all those kinds of dimensions.

The other piece that is a real clarion call for us is how do we also help faculty and staff who are working in our living and learning centers, and thinking about hospitality and eating together — how do we help those deepen relationships that benefit our students and also help build a stronger community across the university?

Q. You entered this position in the wake of some disagreements about a proposal to hire a chief diversity officer, and some feelings that creating such a position was caving in to secular demands that are not necessarily in step with the university’s mission as a Baptist institution. Is there a tension on the campus between what some see as the traditional place of women in Christian society and the evolving secular standards for gender equity?

A. I’d want to distinguish between what seems to me to be the clear indications that we need to take seriously the federal law [Title IX] that just points out the horrifying character of sexual assault and sexual violence, and the need everyone has to take that seriously and to cultivate a healthier culture. That’s one where all people would recognize what’s at stake in protecting women and men, and making sure we create safer environments.

ADVERTISEMENT

The broader question points to a tension about how universities engage both the government and federal law, and also serve their own distinctive missions. In my own view, whether it’s diversity or issues around gender equity, we need to do that in ways that are attentive to the broader trends in American culture and double down by pointing in a constructive way what Christians have at stake in our faith commitments and practices, in ways that actually can be enabling the community to flourish.

We ought to be not just reacting to what other people are asking. We ought to be thinking intentionally about what are we for, and how do we articulate that in ways that point to a vision of what flourishing life looks like for our students, for our faculty, for our staff, for the broader community. We’ve not done as good a job as we need to in articulating what we are for.

We’ve actually been more in a defensive posture, reacting to mandates or questions or things that have come to us. I think there’s a rich conversation that we can have if we probe more deeply into our own insights and commitments that can chart a really helpful way forward.

Eric Kelderman writes about money and accountability in higher education, including such areas as state policy, accreditation, and legal affairs. You can find him on Twitter @etkeld, or email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com.

Read other items in The Fallout at Baylor.
We welcome your thoughts and questions about this article. Please email the editors or submit a letter for publication.
Tags
Leadership & Governance
Share
  • Twitter
  • LinkedIn
  • Facebook
  • Email
Eric Kelderman
About the Author
Eric Kelderman
Eric Kelderman covers issues of power, politics, and purse strings in higher education. You can email him at eric.kelderman@chronicle.com, or find him on Twitter @etkeld.
ADVERTISEMENT
ADVERTISEMENT

More News

Pro-Palestinian student protesters demonstrate outside Barnard College in New York on February 27, 2025, the morning after pro-Palestinian student protesters stormed a Barnard College building to protest the expulsion last month of two students who interrupted a university class on Israel. (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY / AFP) (Photo by TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP via Getty Images)
Campus Activism
A College Vows to Stop Engaging With Some Student Activists to Settle a Lawsuit Brought by Jewish Students
LeeNIHGhosting-0709
Stuck in limbo
The Scientists Who Got Ghosted by the NIH
Protesters attend a demonstration in support of Palestinian activist Mahmoud Khalil, March 10, 2025, in New York.
First-Amendment Rights
Noncitizen Professors Testify About Chilling Effect of Others’ Detentions
Photo-based illustration of a rock preciously suspended by a rope over three beakers.
Broken Promise
U.S. Policy Made America’s Research Engine the Envy of the World. One President Could End That.

From The Review

Vector illustration of a suited man with a pair of scissors for a tie and an American flag button on his lapel.
The Review | Opinion
A Damaging Endowment Tax Crosses the Finish Line
By Phillip Levine
University of Virginia President Jim Ryan keeps his emotions in check during a news conference, Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 in Charlottesville. Va. Authorities say three people have been killed and two others were wounded in a shooting at the University of Virginia and a student is in custody. (AP Photo/Steve Helber)
The Review | Opinion
Jim Ryan’s Resignation Is a Warning
By Robert Zaretsky
Photo-based illustration depicting a close-up image of a mouth of a young woman with the letter A over the lips and grades in the background
The Review | Opinion
When Students Want You to Change Their Grades
By James K. Beggan

Upcoming Events

07-31-Turbulent-Workday_assets v2_Plain.png
Keeping Your Institution Moving Forward in Turbulent Times
Ascendium_Housing_Plain.png
What It Really Takes to Serve Students’ Basic Needs: Housing
Lead With Insight
  • Explore Content
    • Latest News
    • Newsletters
    • Letters
    • Free Reports and Guides
    • Professional Development
    • Events
    • Chronicle Store
    • Chronicle Intelligence
    • Jobs in Higher Education
    • Post a Job
  • Know The Chronicle
    • About Us
    • Vision, Mission, Values
    • DEI at The Chronicle
    • Write for Us
    • Work at The Chronicle
    • Our Reporting Process
    • Advertise With Us
    • Brand Studio
    • Accessibility Statement
  • Account and Access
    • Manage Your Account
    • Manage Newsletters
    • Individual Subscriptions
    • Group and Institutional Access
    • Subscription & Account FAQ
  • Get Support
    • Contact Us
    • Reprints & Permissions
    • User Agreement
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • California Privacy Policy
    • Do Not Sell My Personal Information
1255 23rd Street, N.W. Washington, D.C. 20037
© 2025 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education is academe’s most trusted resource for independent journalism, career development, and forward-looking intelligence. Our readers lead, teach, learn, and innovate with insights from The Chronicle.
Follow Us
  • twitter
  • instagram
  • youtube
  • facebook
  • linkedin