Posted by William Nunnelley on 2007-06-21

Board members of the International Association of Baptist Colleges and Universities (IABCU) voted June 3 to elect Thomas E. Corts, president emeritus of Samford University, as executive director of the association, effective immediately.

Corts, 65, succeeds Bob Agee, who announced last December he would retire at the June 2007 meeting. Agee, who was recovering from a heart attack he suffered in April, was unable to attend the meeting.

Corts served as interim chancellor of the Alabama College System for the State of Alabama for six months during 2006 and 2007. Prior to that, he served as president of Samford University in Birmingham from 1983 to 2006. Samford is one of the 52 IABCU member schools.

Corts was also president of Wingate University in North Carolina from 1974 to 1983 and served as coordinator of the Higher Education Consortium of Kentucky from 1973 to 1974. He began his career in higher Education at another IABCU member school, Georgetown College in Kentucky, where he began as assistant professor and assistant to the president and subsequently served as director of planning and development, executive dean, and executive vice president.

Corts is married to the former Marla Ruth Haas. They have three children and six grandchildren.

The IABCU corporate office is in Nashville, Tenn., but Corts will continue to reside in Birmingham, Ala.

 
Samford is a leading Christian university offering undergraduate programs grounded in the liberal arts with an array of nationally recognized graduate and professional schools. Founded in 1841, Samford is the 87th-oldest institution of higher learning in the United States. Samford enrolls 5,791 students from 49 states, Puerto Rico and 16 countries in its 10 academic schools: arts, arts and sciences, business, divinity, education, health professions, law, nursing, pharmacy and public health. Samford fields 17 athletic teams that compete in the tradition-rich Southern Conference and ranks 6th nationally for its Graduation Success Rate among all NCAA Division I schools.