Student of leadership tapped to take reins at Gordon College
For the past decade, sociologist D. Michael Lindsay has been living
the very phenomenon he's studied: evangelicals climbing the ranks of
secular institutions and becoming American elites. Yet in a surprise
move, the 39-year-old has traded a tenure-track position at Rice
University to become president of Gordon College, a respected outpost
of evangelicalism in Wenham, Massachusetts, 25 miles north of Boston.
Some
of Lindsay's former students have wondered why he would leave a highly
ranked university with a growing, well-funded sociology department. For
Lindsay, it's a matter of calling. "I know that I'm the right person for
Gordon," Lindsay said, "because what I bring to the table today is what
Gordon happens to need right now."
A Southern Baptist with Mississippi roots, Lindsay gained a national reputation with his 2007 book Faith in the Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite.
His broader research interest deals with leadership, and on September
16 he was inaugurated as the youngest leader in Gordon's 122-year
history.
