(RNS) — Daniel Akin, the president of Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, announced to students gathered for a chapel service on Tuesday (Oct. 14) that he plans to retire this summer.
Reading from a short letter — the same one he sent to the school’s trustees a day earlier — Akin said he planned to step down effective July 31, 2026. Speaking on behalf of his wife, Charlotte, too, he said: “We love this school. … We are filled with incredible gratitude and thanksgiving for God’s grace in bringing us here almost 22 years ago. It is time to hand off the baton of leadership to those whom God will raise up to lead this Great Commission school into the future.”
The occasion he chose was Southeastern’s 75th anniversary, which was celebrated on Tuesday on the campus in Wake Forest, a suburban town north of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Akin will turn 69 in January and has led the seminary — one of six in the Southern Baptist Convention — for the better part of his career. Last academic year, Southeastern had 2,263 students, half of them full-time equivalents, according to data from the Association of Theological Schools. That’s a 40% increase over 2004, the year Akin started when Southeastern had 1,619 students, an impressive number at a time when many seminaries are f …