For the first time in its history, Carlow University has tapped a layperson as president, selecting Mary E. Hines, the current head of Penn State University's Wilkes-Barre campus to lead the Oakland school.

Alyssa Cwanger, Post-Gazette Dr. Mary Hines speaks with reporters last night at Grace Library on the campus of Carlow University. Click photo for larger image.

Officials late yesterday announced the hiring of Hines, a New York City native who has served as campus executive officer at Wilkes-Barre since 1997. Hines pledged to honor Carlow's Catholic traditions while pursuing growth.

She succeeds Sister Grace Ann Geibel, 67, who will step down June 30 after 17 years in the job, the second-longest presidency in Carlow's history.

In selecting someone from outside the Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy, who founded Carlow in 1929, the decision by the mostly women's school reflects a shift among the nation's Catholic colleges. As members of religious orders have aged, leaving fewer qualified candidates for presidential posts, more schools affiliated with those orders have turned to leaders from outside.

But in hiring Hines, the 2,200-student school adhered to another of its traditions -- that of placing a woman at the helm.

Speaking last evening at a news conference on the Oakland campus, Hines said she was privileged to assume the presidency of a school committed to educating women and the poor that "will soon take its place as one of the leading universities in the Pittsburgh area."

She acknowledged the crowded marketplace -- and cost pressures on a school with a small endowment -- but also noted that northeastern Pennsylvania itself has 15 colleges and universities.

Among those looking on was her husband, Kenneth, an assistant director of academic affairs and instructor at Penn State's Worthington Scranton campus.

"We are ready and eager to become vibrant and vital members of the Carlow community and of the Pittsburgh community," she said. "I am looking forward to spending time with Carlow's faculty, staff and students as we work together in our mutual commitment to fulfill Carlow University's mission."

Asked about those who might feel uneasy about the school's religious direction, Hines said her background is "strongly Catholic" and that she understands Carlow's traditions.

"We will not deviate from that mission," she said.

At Penn State Wilkes-Barre, Hines oversees a $10 million budget on a campus with 900 students. The school recently completed an $8 million fund-raising campaign.

Hines, who declined to give her age, previously held faculty and administrative posts at Dundalk Community College, Catonsville Community College, the University of Baltimore, St. Mary's Seminary and University, and the College of Notre Dame of Maryland.

Her academic degrees are in philosophy: A bachelor's from St. Francis College in Brooklyn, N.Y., and both a master's and a doctoral degree from The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.

She and her husband have four grown children.

Nationwide, the shift toward lay presidencies has accelerated in recent years. Among the 220 Catholic colleges and universities, 51 percent are now led by those from outside religious orders, said Michael James, a vice president with the Washington D.C.-based Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities.

Duquesne University hired its first lay president in 1988. St. Vincent College did the same about five years ago.

At Carlow, whose bylaws changed in the mid-1980s to allow someone from outside the order to take over, some described the transition in bittersweet terms.

"This is part of an evolution. We knew it was coming. We've been preparing for it," said Sister Margaret Hannan, president of the Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy.

"We feel very comfortable with her," Hannan said of Hines. "She's a woman of integrity. She was very committed to the Catholic identity of Carlow and understanding of the mission [and] that we have a strong commitment to the education of women and the poor.

"She was the strongest of the candidates we interviewed."

Carlow had narrowed its search to a handful of prospects in December but reopened the search. Since Hines does not begin until July 29, Carlow Provost Gary Smith will serve as acting president after Geibel becomes president emeritus and goes on sabbatical.

In becoming the school's ninth president, Hines will inherit a school that has long made due with fewer resources than many of its peers, including an endowment of less than $4 million. It is tiny compared with the two research giants just up the road in Oakland, the University of Pittsburgh and Carnegie Mellon University.

Still, Carlow has been on a development push of its own, beefing up offerings, including science programs with the completion in 1999 of the $17 million A.J. Palumbo Hall of Science and Technology.

Shepherding the school through that growth has been Geibel, a Carlow graduate herself who smiled in the background yesterday as she watched a twilight moment in her campus career spanning more than 30 years.

"Mary is just a superb individual," said Geibel, whose tenure is longer than any sitting college or university president in Pittsburgh. "There is no doubt that the choice was inspired. I think she'll be a real significant player in the Pittsburgh region."

Carlow's undergraduate majors now number almost 50 and its graduate degree programs total 16, many of them created during Geibel's tenure. It offers classes in satellite locations that include Cranberry and Greensburg. The school hopes to add a doctoral program.

It attained university status last year.