BOILING SPRINGS, N.C. — Christopher White resigned Oct. 11 as president of Gardner-Webb University, effective Oct. 25.
White had been under fire since Sept. 10 when news broke that he had told the school’s registrar two years earlier to recalculate a star basketball player’s grade point average. The change made Carlos Webb eligible to play on the basketball team, which won the National Christian Collegiate Athletic Association championship that year.
Some faculty members, trustees, alumni and students had called for White’s resignation. The school’s faculty gave White a 63–39 vote of no confidence the day his action was revealed in a local newspaper.
The school’s board of trustees, meanwhile, publicly affirmed his leadership while reportedly reprimanding him in private.
In his resignation letter, White called the move “the most wrenching decision” he has ever made.
Trustee chairman Tommy Hardin announced the resignation Oct. 11. The trustees’ executive committee accepted White’s resignation while meeting for about three hours at First Baptist Church in Shelby, N.C.
Two university administrators have also been demoted in the wake of the controversy. Hardin issued a statement Sept. 27 announcing reassignments of Gil Blackburn, vice president and dean of academic affairs, and Phil Williams, assistant vice president for academic affairs. Both will continue to teach at the school.
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