BTSR President Ron Crawford
Ron Crawford, president of Baptist Theological Seminary at Richmond since 2007, will retire next year, the school announced today.
Crawford, who is the second president of the 25-year-old BTSR, will step down on July 1, 2017. He will be 65 at the time.
During his tenure, Crawford guided the school through a financial crisis, brought on largely by changing trends in theological education and significant debt, which was reduced by 64 percent. He also led the school to sell its campus on Richmond’s Northside and move to its current Villa Park location further north.
“It has been a delightful privilege to share in the unfolding BTSR story and to work with trustees over these last nine years to prepare the school for the challenges of the 21st century,” Crawford said in his letter of retirement to the board of trustees. “For me the best part of the journey has been in working with extraordinary people: trustees, staff, faculty, students, graduates, donors and friends of BTSR.”
Board chair Bert Browning said Crawford “has led the seminary through a number of significant transitions and has helped plot its course for the future. We are indebted to him for providing steady leadership in a rapidly changing theological education landscape.”
Browning will appoint a search committee next month at a regularly scheduled trustee meeting, in hopes of electing a new president in March 2017, a press release said.