In a news release late Monday, Liberty announced that Jerry Prevo, who has served as chairman of the university’s board of trustees since 2003, will immediately assume the role of acting president.
Prevo, who was appointed by the board’s executive committee, expects to work from the Lynchburg campus starting Aug. 17 and will step aside from his position on the board for the duration of the new role, according to the news release.
He recently retired from the Anchorage Baptist Temple, one of the largest churches in Alaska, as the senior pastor, according to the university.
“Please pray for us as well as the Falwell family as we embark on our academic year and so we may continue to be united in our common purpose and our faith in Christ,” Prevo said in the news release.
The move comes just days after Falwell agreed to take an “indefinite leave of absence” from his roles as president and chancellor of Liberty University at the request of the board of trustees.
Falwell had led the private evangelical university founded by his evangelist father, the late Rev. Jerry Falwell, for 13 years. In just over 10 years, the university has become the second-largest nonprofit university in the world and the second-largest private nonprofit university in the nation.