BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (ABP) — Samford University President Thomas Corts, who has led Alabama's largest private university for 22 years, will retire in May 2006, or earlier if a presidential search committee identifies his successor before then.
Corts announced his retirement plans to a joint meeting of the board of trustees and Samford board of overseers, and immediately afterward to a gathering of students, faculty and staff. He noted that by May of 2006 he will have served 23 years, creating a “time for fresh vision and new energy” in the president's office.
“When I was a teenager, I thought a lot about which life was the more important: the life of action, or the life of contemplation,” he said. “Obviously, for the three-plus decades I have been the head of an institution of higher learning, I have had no choice but to follow the life of action. I look forward to pursuing the vita contemplativa once I am out of office.”
He noted that the job of president “stirs up within you a lot of intensity and anxiety, and it keeps you running to try to achieve your personal best, and to try to do the best for the university. I'd like to think I have earned a big, long sigh!”
But before then, he added, “the board has cooked up some terrific new plans.” He added, “I intend to get a lot accomplished” during the next year.
Corts became Samford's 17th president after nine years as president of Wingate College in North Carolina. He is the longest-tenured senior college president in Alabama and among member institutions of the Association of Southern Baptist Colleges and Schools.
Highlights of his Samford years include the growth in the endowment from $8 million in 1983 to $258 million today, construction of more than 30 new buildings, and increases in enrollment.
Former Alabama Gov. Albert Brewer and Samford trustee Hobart Grooms will serve as co-chairs of a presidential search committee. If a new president is chosen before May of 2006, Corts told the board he is willing to step aside earlier to allow his successor to begin service.