SC Christian institution BJU names interim president amid leadership crisis

An executive vice president at Bob Jones University has been named interim president of the 96-year-old fundamentalist Christian school in Greenville.

Alan Benson, who oversaw student development and ministry advancement, was appointed to the position as the Board of Trustees searches for a permanent replacement for Steven Pettit.

Pettit resigned last month amid an uncharacteristic public spat with some members of the board.

John Lewis, the chairman of the board when Pettit resigned, also resigned a few days later. Pettit stayed on through graduation May 7.

Pettit was named president in 2014, the first non-Jones family member to hold the job since the school was founded by Bob Jones Sr. The founder was succeeded by Bob Jones Jr., Bob Jones III and then great-grandson, Stephen Jones. Bob Jones IV elected not to work at the school.

Some alumni had expected the board to name a permanent replacement at its regular board meeting Tuesday, but in a statement released at about 8:30 p.m. board chairman Sam Dawson said, “Appointing an acting CEO will give the Board of Trustees time to solicit qualified applicants, conduct interviews, and strategically evaluate candidates for the permanent position. We trust God will guide our steps as we look for the individual who will lead the university as we approach our century mark.”

Pettit told the board in April that Lewis created disunity, held a meeting without telling staff and was not taking seriously a comment made by a board member that “female students’ clothing and female student athlete uniforms accentuate their ‘boobs and butts.’”

Pettit said he had heard the board member took photos of women without their permission.

He said he did not know if the information was true, but by law it should have been turned over to the Title IX coordinator for investigation.

He also said he believed the board was not seeing and working on the school’s financial difficulties and declining enrollment.

Longtime employee who Also left the school May 7 was Randy Page, who was a spokesman at one time and most recently worked as chief of staff for Pettit.

He called it “one of the hardest decisions of his life.”

He also praised Pettit’s leadership.

“He was so much more than my boss — he was my friend, my mentor, and an encourager. Steve loves God and he loves people. He constantly challenged us to love God and people — and supported us as we carried out that mission,” Page said.

Pettit worked to loosen some of the rules that have set Bob Jones apart from other universities, especially with regard to clothing and grooming.

The university for decades did not allow women to wear pants or men to have facial hair.

Pettit also worked to have the university accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission, an action long eschewed by the Joneses but started during the tenure of Stephen Jones. The previous leadership did not want to be ruled by an outside secular organization.

He also worked to have the university’s tax exemption reinstated after the IRS pulled it in 1976 because of the school’s discriminatory racial policies, namely that people of different ethnicity and race could not date or marry.

Benson was an undergraduate at Bob Jones in the 1990s and worked as a pastor for 25 years in Florida, North Carolina and Illinois. He received graduate degrees from BJU, Louisiana Baptist Theological Seminary and BJU Seminary.

He returned to the university in the leadership role in 2018.

Bob Jones University was founded in Bay County, Florida, then moved to Cleveland, Tennessee, before arriving in Greenville in the mid-1940s. Bob Jones Sr. was an evangelist, who said he saw young people during his travels with a need for religious-based higher education.