WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP) — The founding dean of the Wake Forest University Divinity School is stepping down next year, school officials announced March 5.
Bill Leonard
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Bill Leonard will retire from that post June 30, 2010. But he will continue to teach full-time as professor of church history and Baptist studies in the divinity school and professor of religion in the university's religion department.
Leonard, who turns 63 March 20, said the historic Baptist university has established a new tenure of 10 years for deans. It has been 14 years since he came to Wake Forest, and next year will be the 10th year since the divinity school held its first classes in the fall of 1999.
"It was time to move along as dean and back to full-time teaching and research," he said.
As founding dean, Leonard recruited the divinity school's first faculty. The school now claims 12 professors.
Wake Forest is one of 15 seminaries, theology schools or Baptist-studies programs that partner with the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, a moderate Baptist group that split from the Southern Baptist Convention in 1991. Though Baptist in heritage, the school's outlook is ecumenical and it has no formal denominational affiliation.
A total of 163 students have graduated from Wake Forest Divinity School. Current enrollment is 104.
"The opportunity to work with Wake Forest undergraduate and divinity students has been one of the highlights of my time as dean and I look forward to continuing those classroom relationships," Leonard said. "When I hear the seniors preach in weekly Divinity Chapel I know that this endeavor was worth the effort."
Leonard is a graduate of Texas Wesleyan College. An ordained Baptist minister, he holds a master of divinity degree from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. His Ph.D., from Boston University, is in American religion, with an emphasis on American revivalism.
He taught church history at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary from 1975 until 1991. He left to join Samford University in 1992 as religion professor and department chair before coming to Wake Forest in 1996.
Leonard has been interim pastor of churches in several states. He has written or edited 16 books, including God's Last and Only Hope: The Fragmentation of the SBC in 1990; Baptist Ways: A History in 2003; Baptists in America in 2005 and Baptist Questions, Baptist Answers in 2009.
He is popular as a speaker and lecturer and is often quoted by media outlets as an expert on Baptist history and politics.
School officials said there will be a national search to find Leonard's successor.
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Bob Allen is senior writer for Associated Baptist Press.