Danny Akin will retire as president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary next summer, concluding his tenure as one of the longest-serving presidents of any of the six Southern Baptist Convention seminaries.
Akin will be 69 when he leaves the post July 31, 2026. He was elected president in 2004, becoming the sixth president of what then was among the smallest of the SBC seminaries.
Today, Southeastern is the third largest of the six schools by full-time equivalent enrollment. The North Carolina school was founded in 1950 and in its early days was considered the most liberal of the six SBC seminaries. Thus, capturing its presidency was a key objective of the “conservative resurgence” that began in the SBC in 1979.
Southeastern President Randall Lolley was forced to resign in 1987 as conservative trustees gained a majority on his trustee board. His was the first SBC institution to be flipped by what moderate Baptists called “the takeover.”
Lolley was replaced by a short-tenured transitional president, Lewis Drummond, who served only four years. Then came Paige Patterson, co-architect of the “conservative resurgence” and a firebrand leader who changed the ethos of the seminary almost overnight. He led the school for 11 years before moving to the presidency of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas — then a much bigger school.
When Akin took the helm a year later, he not only inherited several scandals Patterson left behind but had to convince prospective faculty and students the seminary was stable and not beholden to a political agenda.
Campus of Southeastern Seminary
Akin came to the North Carolina post from Louisville, Ky., where he had been dean of the School of Theology at Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, working with Al Mohler, who now holds the record as the longest-serving president of any SBC seminary (32 years).
When Akin succeeded Patterson at Southeastern, it was not the first time their paths had crossed. Akin earned a bachelor of arts degree in 1980 from Criswell College in Dallas, where he later served as a professor and dean of students from 1988 to 1992. During that entire period, the president of Criswell College was Paige Patterson.
In the last four decades of conservatives’ control of the SBC, Akin and Mohler stand out as being among the most stable leaders of any SBC entity. No other seminary or entity leader has matched their longevity and influence.
After July, Akin will become president emeritus and continue as senior professor of preaching and theology, teaching in a part-time capacity.