Contact: Jeremy Burton, Oral Roberts University, 918-495-6649, jburton@oru.edu

TULSA, Okla., Jan. 28 /Christian Newswire/ -- Board Chair Mart Green and the Oral Roberts University Board of Trustees announced today the election of Dr. Mark Rutland as the next president of ORU.

This election is the result of a nine-month search process completed with the help of Bruce Dingman of Dingman Company, Inc., an executive search and selection firm, and a presidential search committee made up of representatives from the ORU Board of Trustees, faculty, staff, alumni and students.

A presidential opportunity profile was drafted in April 2008 with input from ORU faculty, staff, students and alumni. More than 130 names of presidential prospects were submitted for consideration. The presidential search committee followed the leading of the Holy Spirit throughout the process and met in early January to interview Rutland and recommend him to the ORU Board of Trustees.

Rutland comes to ORU from Southeastern University in Lakeland, Florida where he served as president of the school and of Global Servants, a missions and evangelism organization founded in 1977. Rutland is credited with engineering a turnaround at Southeastern after he became president in 1999. The campus has undergone more than $50 million in renovations and construction and enrollment has increased from less than 1,000 to more than 3,000 in September 2008.

A native of Texas, Rutland was educated at the University of Maryland and Candler School of Theology at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and holds a Ph.D. from California Graduate School of Theology. He is the author of 13 books and his 30-minute daily radio program, Herald of Joy, is heard in multiple markets. Rutland and his wife, Alison, have one son, two daughters, three grandsons, and two granddaughters.

In announcing the election of Rutland, Green said, "We are excited about the future under the leadership of Dr. Rutland. He has been selected through a careful process and we are confident that he will continue to uphold the mission and vision of Oral Roberts University."

Dr. Rutland will assume the presidency in July 2009.

The ORU Board of Trustees, installed last January, has made monumental progress in the past 12 months. Through the board-initiated Renewing the Vision campaign, ORU has raised approximately $12 million and whittled the university's debt down to just over $13 million through the gifts of almost 12,000 generous donors. This past summer, ORU underwent $10.4 million in campus-wide renovations all over campus. Both these efforts further the mission of ORU and strengthen its position as a leading institution of Christian higher education.

Oral Roberts University is an interdenominational Christian liberal arts university located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Founded in 1963 by evangelist Oral Roberts, ORU serves students from throughout the U.S. and over 60 countries, representing 40 denominations. Offering 65 undergraduate majors, 14 master's programs and two doctoral degrees, plus NCAA Division I athletics, ORU is preparing its students spiritually, mentally, and physically to go into every person's world. For more information about ORU, visit www.oru.edu.