Executive Director, Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement

Executive Director, Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement Charleston Southern University Position Summary Charleston Southern University seeks a founding executive director for a permanent university-based Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement. The executive director will be a Baptist scholar and public intellectual who can build a high-impact, academically serious, student-forming, faculty-engaging, and publicly visible apologetics center. The center will utilize traditional Christian apologetics while also promoting civic discourse and constructive engagement with the major academic fields of the university. Rather than functioning only as a lecture series or public platform, the center will also help faculty and students develop and deploy apologetic arguments for Christianity from the intellectual, moral, cultural, and social goods that emerge when Christians bring the faith to bear faithfully within their disciplines. The executive director’s primary responsibility will be catalytic academic and institutional leadership. The executive director’s work will focus on building programs, producing durable intellectual resources, mentoring students, engaging faculty, and establishing a visible evangelical apologetics presence that advances the mission of the university. Who is Charleston Southern University? Our Mission: Promoting Academic Excellence in a Christian Environment Our Vision: To be a Christian university nationally recognized for integrating faith in learning, leading, and serving. Our Work: We deliver distinctly Christian, academically excellent liberal arts, professional, and graduate education by integrating faith in student learning, leadership development, and service opportunities. Our educational commitments include high-engagement learning, holistic student formation, pathway success, and professional readiness. Primary Responsibilities Provide strategic, academic, and public leadership for the Center for Christian Apologetics and Civic Engagement. Develop and implement the center’s mission, programs, annual priorities, and long-term strategy. Build student-facing programs that form students in Christian apologetics, civic discourse, intellectual confidence, and faithful public witness. Engage faculty across the university in developing apologetic arguments and resources related to their academic disciplines. Create and oversee public programming, including lectures, forums, workshops, visiting scholar events, and church-facing apologetics events. Produce or coordinate durable intellectual resources, including essays, lectures, videos, podcasts, curriculum materials, white papers, edited volumes, and other apologetics resources. Represent the university publicly through speaking, writing, media engagement, conference participation, and relationships with churches, pastors, denominational leaders, and apologetics organizations. Support university advancement efforts related to the center by communicating the center’s vision, impact, and strategic importance to donors and external partners. The executive director will hold a faculty appointment in the College of Christian Studies at an appropriate rank based on academic qualifications and experience and will teach one course per major semester in an area related to apologetics, theology, philosophy, public theology, faith and culture, or another field connected to the center’s mission. Work warmly and constructively with evangelicals of multiple denominational traditions in a confessional Baptist university context, support the mission of the institution, and engage students, faculty, churches, pastors, donors, and the broader public with theological clarity and Christian charity. Perform other duties as required.