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Related: About this forumBaylor to take legal action to bar BAA from using university’s name, trademarks
WACO, TX -- Baylor University will initiate legal action against the Baylor Alumni Association in an attempt to stop the group from continuing to use the universitys name and trademarks.
In a May 19 letter to the associations board of directors, Baylor President and Chancellor Ken Starr wrote that the university is preparing the appropriate course to bar the BAA from continuing to act as an official alumni organization for Baylor.
The action stems from a lengthy battle between Baylor and the BAA over the alumni groups independent status. The relationship was further severed after the association did not approve a transition agreement last fall that would have dissolved the organizations independent charter and allowed Baylor to assume all alumni outreach and communications.
Over many months, we have clearly and repeatedly communicated the possibility of the exercise of the universitys legal rights in the absence of an appropriate plan of action from the association, Starr wrote in the letter. Because we cannot shrink from doing our duty to serve all Baylor alumni; to guard against demonstrable confusion about the universitys alumni program; and to protect the integrity of Baylors good name, we have determined, with great sadness, that the time has come for us to move forward.
More at http://www.wacotrib.com/news/higher_education/baylor-to-take-legal-action-to-bar-baa-from-using/article_9323b918-2bae-5559-b5d7-5466aec173c0.html .
hobbit709
(41,694 posts)TexasTowelie
(112,422 posts)I looked into the BAA article mentioned in this thread and apparently when Sloan became president of Baylor in the 90s he took some of the articles that the BAA was publishing as criticism of his record. The alumni association questioned the sale of the Baylor Health Care System, money spent on construction and the fact that the endowment was receiving inferior returns than other schools in Texas. Rice, Austin College and Southwestern University (Go Bucs!) were all named in the top 100 universities in the country for their investment strategies and using that money to meet their master plans for building construction, scholarships and faculty development. Since that time, the administration at Baylor has been at odds with the BAA because they want to run their own little dictatorship without any independent oversight or critique. The representative from the BAA on the Board of Trustees is a non-voting member.
The history is long and I only read a portion of the article, but it is available at http://www.baylorline.com/spring2014/ . The part concerning Ken Starr begins on page 26.
Private universities rely substantially upon their alumni for support. I'm reasonably certain that a lot of Baylor alums stopped writing checks to the university for years because of how they alienated their alums.