By Bob Allen
Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College has chosen an official from another Baptist school in South Carolina as president.
Trustees of the Louisiana Baptist Convention-related college unanimously elected Rick Brewer, vice president of student affairs and athletics at Charleston Southern University in Charleston, S.C., as LC’s 11th president March 5.
Brewer, an ordained Baptist minister in his 28th year of service to South Carolina Baptist Convention-affiliated Charleston Southern, takes office in Pineville, La., April 7. He succeeds Joe Aguillard, who resigned last year amid controversy and was named the school’s chancellor. Argile Smith, associate dean of the LC’s Caskey School of Divinity, filled in as interim president.
Part of Brewer’s resume includes service as an evaluator for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools. Last June the SACS Commission on Colleges put Louisiana College on probation over leadership issues including external influence by the Louisiana Baptist Convention, which chooses the college’s board of trustees and provides $3.2 million in annual funding.
Brewer, credited with helping Charleston Southern to double its enrollment, increase giving and improve freshman retention, said he believes Louisiana College’s greatest days are ahead.
“We look back with conviction and but we look forward with courage,” he said at a press conference. “We are turning a chapter. It’s a new day. Clearly this is a thing of God.”