Many evangelical colleges started out as Bible colleges, with pastors at the helm, their leadership later changed over to academic administrators. Evangelical colleges that continue to choose pastors as leaders…don’t face the demographic pressures that forced Catholic colleges to move away from priests and nuns as presidents as the ranks of vowed religious dwindled.

When he was studying accounting and business as an undergraduate, and later earning a master’s in business administration, Bill Greer didn’t expect to eventually become a college president. He expected even less that he’d one day end up speaking in front of a church during services.

Then, last July, Greer became president of Milligan College, his undergraduate alma mater. He’s the first president in decades who is not a minister of the Christian Churches/Churches of Christ, the college’s affiliated denomination. Still, he’s often called to talk about Milligan’s Christian identity — sometimes in front of congregations.

“It’s important, obviously, to be able to articulate our mission and our values and our purposes, and I still speak in some churches,” says Greer, who was a church elder before becoming president. “Something I never really thought I would do is speak from a church pulpit on a Sunday morning.”

The transition Milligan faced is familiar to many Roman Catholic colleges, where lay leaders have gradually replaced priests and nuns over the past few decades, often accompanied by some anxiety about preserving a college’s Catholic identity. But it’s less common at evangelical colleges, which, while deeply faith-oriented, are less likely overall to be led by pastors.

While many evangelical colleges started out as Bible colleges, with pastors at the helm, their leadership later changed over to academic administrators. Evangelical colleges that continue to choose pastors as leaders — Wheaton College in Illinois is perhaps the best-known — don’t face the demographic pressures that forced Catholic colleges to move away from priests and nuns as presidents as the ranks of vowed religious dwindled.

Since the lines between church leaders and lay leaders are more blurred in the Protestant world — an administrator could lead a church, then leave for a career in the business world, then return to work for a college — it’s hard to track changes in leadership. The Council for Christian Colleges and Universities does not keep records on how many of its 113 members are led by pastors or ministers, but the association says about 20 percent of presidents earned a terminal degree in religion or theology.

But when leadership turns over, as it has recently at Milligan and at Dordt College, an Iowa college affiliated with the Christian Reformed Church, it’s often for a reason that is a factor at Catholic colleges as well. Financial stress and growing administrative complications make colleges more likely to choose a new leader who knows his way (it’s usually a he) around academe and accounting as well as the Bible.

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