Eastern University, home to Ron Sider and Tony Campolo, has announced that Robert Duffett will serve as its ninth president.
Duffett will start July 1, weeks after Sider, a social justice pioneer who wrote the No. 7 book on CT’s list of the Top 50 Books That Have Shaped Evangelicals, retires from Eastern’s Evangelicals for Social Action.
Duffett currently serves as president of Dakota Wesleyan University (DWU). He will replace Eastern’s retiring president, David Black, who has served as president of the Christian liberal arts school in St. David’s, Pennsylvania, for 15 years.
The Associated Press reports that Duffett oversaw the fundraising, construction, and dedication of the McGovern Library and also led major campus-renovation projects at DWU. He referred to his time at DWU as the “highlight of his [27-year] higher education career.”
Eastern and its faculty have regularly appeared in CT, including biology professor Dave Unander’s recent examination of whether scientists have really discovered “the gene that makes us human.”, New Testament professor Craig Keener’s insight into Nigeria’s religious violence, and sociologist Tony Campolo’s Top 5 books on social justice.
CT also noted the appointment of Christopher Hall as Eastern’s chancellor in 2008, a move that allowed Black to focus on fundraising. Hall has written for CT on how to remove our Bible-reading blinders.
