In case you have not yet heard, Rice University sociologist Michael Lindsay has been named the new president of Gordon College, a flagship evangelical college in Wenham, MA.
Lindsay is not yet forty years old, but he has a very impressive Rolodex. For his book Faith in the Halls of Power he interviewed 360 evangelicals who are in or have been in positions of power in American culture. I am sure he will bring these connections to Gordon. This probably made him a very attractive candidate.
I don’t know Lindsay, but from what I have heard from people who do know him he is definitely college president material. I am told that Lindsay is an excellent communicator, is a natural leader (and a student of leadership trends), and has a dynamic personality. Having said that, I do not think he has any significant college administration experience. This is certainly and interesting and surprising choice.
Tim Dalrymple of Patheos has landed the first interview with president-to-be Lindsay. Here is the introduction to that interview.
Today Gordon College, one of the premier educational institutions in the firmament of American evangelicalism, catches a rising star as it completes a seven-month international search and names D. Michael Lindsay its new President. It’s a bold, brilliant, sensational choice.
Dr. Lindsay co-authored two books with George Gallup, Jr., while still a graduate student. With degrees from Baylor, Princeton Theological Seminary, Oxford and Princeton University, Lindsay has published in leading journals in three fields, and his first solo book, Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite, was published by Oxford University Press and nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. Now a professor of sociology at Rice who specializes in matters of leadership, culture and faith, Dr. Lindsay has interviewed former Presidents and world leaders and titans of industry, he has lectured on four continents, and his work—profiled in scores of media outlets from The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fox News—reached an estimated audience of 145 million readers in the last year alone.
In 2006, the World Congress of Sociology named him the most promising sociologist in the world under the age of thirty-five. Now Gordon College has named him its President, and the chairman of the Board of Trustees, Kurt Keilhacker, calls him “a game-changer.” The selection of D. Michael Lindsay represents a passing of the generational torch, a commitment to new ideas and new approaches, and an opportunity to raise the school’s profile on the national and international stage. Gordon College announced the selection this morning;
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