Anguish in the Arizona Baptist family mounted Jan. 13 when Grand Canyon University (GCU) trustees removed the institution from a formal relationship with the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention.
The convention’s executive board, which is scheduled to hold its regular quarterly meeting Jan. 31–Feb. 1, “will explore all options open to us,” said the convention Executive Director-Treasurer Steve Bass, and “will formulate a response” to the GCU trustee action, which he described as having been taken “unilaterally.”
Bass said Jan. 18 the convention executive board sessions likely will result in a call for a special session of the state convention, during which messengers can consider and vote on a proposed response.
Bass, an ex officio member of the GCU trustee board, was unable to attend the Jan. 13 trustee meeting, but was not advised of the possibility of a vote to end the university’s ties to the state convention.
According to a statement issued by GCU’s 28-member trustee board and president, Gil Stafford, the trustees “voted to reorganize the university’s corporate ownership and control so as to redefine its relationship with the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention.”
The action counters the state convention’s constitution, which lists Grand Canyon University as among the institutions which the convention “shall own and operate.” Amendments to the charter can be “made only by action of the convention in session,” the convention constitution stipulates.
The Arizona convention founded the university and elects its trustees. It is the state’s only private Christian liberal arts university. (BP)
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