JACKSON, Tenn. — David S. Dockery will transition from president of Union University to the role of university chancellor no later than July 2014, and Union trustees will immediately begin the process of searching for his successor as president.
The announcement comes in the middle of what ultimately will be a three-year transition process at the Jackson, Tenn., campus. Dockery, 60, began talking with the executive committee of Union’s board of trustees in the fall of 2011 about the need to start succession planning for the university’s future, at which time the board approved a five-member succession planning team. Dockery said discussions with that team and with other members of the board have taken place regularly since then.
Union trustees will appoint a search committee in the near future and will retain the services of an executive search firm to provide counsel in the transition process. As chancellor, Dockery will continue to serve Union as an adviser for the board and the new president for the next several years.
The search process is expected to take about a year.
At the time of his transition in 2014, Dockery will have served as Union’s president for 18 and a half years, approximating the tenure of president Robert E. Craig as the longest among Union’s 15 presidents since its founding in the 1800s.
He served as chairman of the board for the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, as well as serving on the board for Christianity Today International and Prison Fellowship. Dockery was a member of four recent committees and task force teams in the Southern Baptist Convention and has spoken at major conferences and lectureships at dozens of churches, state conventions, colleges and seminaries.
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