Dr. Heath Thomas, OBU President-Elect, to Speak at Winter Commencement Dec. 13

November 22, 2019

Dr. Heath Thomas, OBU’s president-elect, will deliver the address during the University’s Winter Commencement ceremony Friday, Dec. 13. The commencement will take place in Raley Chapel’s Potter Auditorium at 2 p.m.

Thomas was recently elected by the OBU Board of Trustees as the University’s 16th president after a nine-month national search process. He will assume the role of president Jan. 1, 2020.

He currently serves as the dean of OBU’s Hobbs College of Theology and Ministry and the associate vice president for church relations. He also serves as the Floyd K. Chair of Christian Leadership, professor of Old Testament and the interim dean of the Divisions of Behavioral and Social Sciences and Language and Literature. He joined the OBU faculty in 2015 after serving as director of Ph.D. studies and associate professor of Old Testament and Hebrew at Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary in Wake Forest, North Carolina.

Thomas is a 1998 OBU graduate where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in English literature with a religion minor. He then earned a Master of Arts in theology from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary and a Ph.D. in Old Testament from the University of Gloucestershire (U.K). He also earned a certificate for leadership in higher education from Baylor University in 2016. He has served on staff at churches in Oklahoma, Texas, North Carolina and in the United Kingdom. He preaches and teaches regularly and has served as interim pastor for several Oklahoma churches during his time at OBU, currently serving at First Baptist Church of Moore.