WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. (ABP) — Nathan Hatch, provost of the University of Notre Dame, has been selected as the 13th president of Wake Forest University.
Hatch, a historian who has spent his entire academic career at Notre Dame, was unanimously approved by the Wake Forest board of trustees during a called meeting Jan 21. He will become president on July 1, succeeding Thomas K. Hearn Jr., who announced his retirement in April.
School officials said Hatch is one of the most influential scholars in the study of religion in America. Wake Forest was founded as a Baptist university but later severed ties with the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina.
“I intend to be faithful to the powerful traditions that inspire this place and to do everything in my power to advance Wake Forest as a leading university, committed to nurturing mind and heart,” said Hatch, a Presbyterian who has served as Notre Dame's second highest-ranking official since 1996.
Coming to Wake Forest is a “homecoming of sorts,” said Hatch, 58, who grew up in Columbia, S.C., and whose family has deep roots in North Carolina.
Hatch won national acclaim for his 1989 book, The Democratization of American Christianity. It garnered three major awards and was chosen in a survey of 2,000 historians and sociologists as one of the two most important books in the study of American religion.
Hatch received his undergraduate degree from Wheaton College in 1968 and his master's and doctoral degrees from Washington University in St. Louis.