This is what Sloan has to say about "behind their backs".
It has been suggested by some that the focus of this controversy should be on the procedures by which the Center was established and that the administration's failure to consult with the faculty in the creation of the Polanyi Center is the heart of the matter. Certainly those issues are important, but I do not believe they are the heart of the matter for two reasons: One, there was indeed some consultation with faculty. I do not recall or know all the details and all the individuals involved in the conversations, but I do know that some faculty both in the humanities and in the sciences conversed with Drs. William Dembski and Bruce Gordon, director and associate director of the Center, before it was established and later were aware of the creation of the Polanyi Center and its program charge. Unfortunately, it is now being commonly said, and repeated in the newspapers as if unqualified fact, that the Center was established without faculty consultation. The fact is, and I have readily admitted as much at the recent open forum sponsored by the Faculty Senate and elsewhere, that, in retrospect, there are some things the administration could have done to manage this process more effectively. There were some conversations with faculty and there could no doubt have been more. One can always do a better job of processing issues, but hindsight is 20/20.
You want intimidation? Okay, how about this from the Baylor newspaper back in 1999:
That debate intensified Tuesday, when an outgoing Baylor professor said President Robert Sloan is intimidating faculty into not commenting on the controversy.
Your date is wrong, the article was from April 12, 2000. The Center was established in Oct 1999. Intimidation? Two sentences below Barker's complaint is this.
The Michael Polanyi Center consists of two people: director William Dembski and associate director Bruce Gordon.
A committee has been established to evaluate the center's influence on Baylor's reputation.
They were so intimidated that a committee had been established to evaluate the Center which consisted of two people. Wow! what influence. BTW Apr 12 was when "The Nature of Nature" conference began. I think it was the first activity performed by the dangerous center. And the committee just mentioned above, evidently had not yet met before the faculty senate had passed a resolution on or before Apr 20, to dissolve the Polanyi center. "We don't need no stinkin report".
Sloan nixes decision to dissolve Polanyi
President says a committee will review center first
by John Drake
The Baylor Lariat
April 20, 2000
http://www.baylor.edu/~Lariat/Archives/2000/20000420/art-front03.html
President Robert B. Sloan Jr. rejected a faculty senate resolution to dissolve the Polanyi Center in Wednesday's State of the University address.
"We will not dissolve the Polanyi Center without going through the process that has been set forth." Sloan told the audience of primarily faculty members gathered in Barfield Drawing Room for the annual address. "We have utterly no intention of doing so."
I also liked later in the article, over the likes of the Discovery Institute linking to their center's web site
It is a fact, you can't control who links to your site in the sense that you can't prevent your url from being made available.
When did Dembski receive his last check from DI?
In any case, follow the link I gave and read the committee report which came out 6 months after the senate had first voted to have the center dissolved.
Others say there wasn't.
Intimidation? Two sentences below Barker's complaint is this.
Your supposedly blacklisted and persecuted IDers seem to get through the alleged intimidation and keep working. The faculty can too. Yes, an IDer tried to intimidate scientists. I guess your alleged persecution is not a one-way street.
I do have to hand it to Sloan for not giving into their demands. The compromise reached was a good one.
It is a fact, you can't control who links to your site in the sense that you can't prevent your url from being made available. When did Dembski receive his last check from DI?
Not long before he started at Baylor. He was one of the first recipients of the Discovery Institute's funding of ID research. The director of the Center was a DI employee and maintained his links with the DI, so much that today he's a "Senior Fellow." Oh no, we don't want any association with the DI! I call BS.
This is very Michael Moorish -- state a fact (can't control links) but do it in a way so it is deceptive. Yes, they can't control links, but that doesn't mean they don't want to associate with those who link to them.