Transylvania University names new president. He currently leads a North Carolina college.

Brien Lewis has been hired to serve as the 27th president of Transylvania University in Lexington, officials said Tuesday.

In 2019, Seamus Carey resigned from the school to return to his native New York to become president of Iona College in New Rochelle after five years as Transylvania’s president.

Board of Trustees Chairman William T. Young Jr. announced that Lewis, the current president of Catawba College in North Carolina, will start on July 1.

“I am delighted that Brien Lewis will serve as Transylvania’s next president. His selection comes with the unanimous approval of both the Presidential Search Committee and Board of Trustees after an extensive national search that included a large pool of highly qualified and distinguished applicants,” Young said in a news release.

Lewis, 52, has served as president of Catawba College, a private, liberal arts college in Salisbury, North Carolina, since April 2012.

“Transylvania’s rich history and the vitality of the opportunities it offers to students today are both impressive and inspiring,” Lewis said in a news release. “We look forward to engaging with the campus and the greater Lexington community to build on the university’s commitments to excellence and innovation.”

Lewis told the Herald-Leader in an interview Tuesday that he first learned about Transylvania about 10 years ago and was interested in the role of president then. He said when he saw more recently that a presidential search had been launched, “I was immediately excited because its a place that I had really been intrigued with then and when I’ve had a chance to visit Lexington I thought that it was simply a marvelous institution with a great mission and focus on personal development of students.”

He said in 2020, there are “only more reasons to be excited about the University and the community.”

Lewis said what he has heard consistently is that there is a need to keep the culture and values that have been steadfast throughout the school’s history, but also to keep exploring and innovating for the kinds of challenges and opportunities that students are facing in the 21st Century.

A news release said that during his eight-year tenure at Catawba, Lewis oversaw an increase in undergraduate enrollment and improved first-year student retention; led two ambitious and successful fundraising campaigns, while increasing the college’s endowment by 87 percent and created new academic and athletic programs and improved the campus infrastructure to support them.

A native of Toronto, Canada, Lewis has a bachelor’s degree in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where he was a Morehead Scholar and student body president. He earned a Juris Doctor from the University of Toronto.

Lewis worked as an attorney and mediator in North Carolina before moving into higher education at Winthrop University in South Carolina, where he was an associate professor of business administration, the founding dean of University College, and vice president for university development and alumni relations, a news release said.

Young said Lewis’ 20 years in higher education was a key factor in the selection process. “His experience as a college president, his commitment to students’ personal and intellectual development, and his passion for shaping, delivering and providing access to the finest collegiate experience are all characteristics that influenced our decision.”

The Transylvania Board of Trustees announced its presidential search in June of 2019. The search was managed by Isaacson Miller of Boston, who school officials said identified “a deep and diverse pool of qualified candidates.”

“I would like to thank the members of the Transylvania community who served on the Presidential Search Committee and who participated in the interview process,” Young said. “These trustees, faculty, staff, students and alumni had Transylvania’s long and successful history in mind as they considered who was the best candidate to lead us into the future. They can be proud of the work they have done to bring us to today’s announcement.”

This story was originally published January 21, 2020 at 1:20 PM.