AppointedMichael J. Easley, as eighth president of Moody Bible Institute, effective March 1. Easley most recently was senior pastor/teacher at Immanuel Bible Church in Springfield, Virginia.

ResigningDavid J. Gyertson, as president of Taylor University in Upland, Indiana. Gyertson, who came to Taylor in 2000, will become distinguished professor of leadership formation and renewal at the School of Leadership Studies of Regent University in Virginia Beach, Virginia.

DiedWilliam H. Hinson, on December 26 from complications after a massive stroke on November 28. He was 68. Hinson, longtime pastor of Houston's First United Methodist Church until his retirement in 2001, was one of the founders of the denomination's Confessing Movement, which represents 675,000 conservatives in the church. Hinson was serving as its president.

DiedEdmund Robb Jr., 78, a United Methodist evangelist and founder of the Institute on Religion and Democracy, on December 15 in Marshall, Texas. Diane Knippers, IRD president, said Robb stood for the renewal of mainline churches and against the spread of Soviet totalitarianism around the world.

AppointedNathan Hatch, provost of the University of Notre Dame, as president of Wake Forest University, a Baptist school in North Carolina. Hatch, 58, is a respected historian of the evangelical movement and an advocate for integrating faith and scholarship. He will take office on July 1.

...

AppointedKim S. Phipps, as president of Messiah College in Grantham, Pennsylvania. Phipps, 46, who has been the school's interim president since July, is the first woman to be Messiah's president. She succeeds Rodney J. Sawatsky, who died from a cancerous brain tumor in November. Previously, Phipps served as the school's provost and ...