BRENTWOOD, Tenn. — Tennessee Baptist leaders have released $2.4 million they had been withholding from Carson-Newman College in a dispute over selection of the college’s trustees.
The Tennessee Baptist Convention Executive Board voted unanimously Jan. 7 to release funds earmarked for the Jefferson City school in 1998-99, plus interest. Those monies were placed in escrow after the college’s trustees voted to change the school’s charter to allow them to elect their own successors.
The state convention in November passed a compromise measure, saying the escrowed funds should be released if Carson-Newman agreed to allow the convention to elect the school’s trustees next year. Carson-Newman trustees agreed and said they would submit three names for each trustee vacancy to a Tennessee Baptist nominating committee.
Michael Smith, chairman of the state convention’s executive committee, said the Executive Board action would “fulfill our responsibility to the convention.”
Critics of the vote, however, said the Executive Board should have demanded Carson-Newman trustees change their charter back to the way it was, returning the power to elect trustees to Tennessee Baptists.
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