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SCRANTON — The University of Scranton took a step toward what could be called back to the future Thursday with the installation of the Rev. Herbert B. Keller as interim president.
Keller will serve through June 30 of next year, when past university president Rev. Scott Pilarz returns to that post. Pilarz served as president from 2003 to 2011, and was succeeded by the Rev. Kevin Quinn.
When Quinn announced he would step down at the end of the 2016-17 academic year, a national search was launched, and in March the Board of Trustees Chair Lawrence Lynch announced Pilarz would be coming back. But Pilarz could not immediately return to Scranton due to obligations in his current job as president of Georgetown Preparatory School in Washington, D.C.
Keller’s installation Thursday was conducted at the conclusion of the university’s Mass of the Holy Spirit in the Byron Recreation Complex. Reflecting on his own interim status, Keller referenced a line from the school’s alma mater: “The legacy of those who’ve gone before – is briefly ours to hold.”
Keller said he is “conscious of that legacy of our predecessors: and not just the legacy of former presidents, but the legacy of faculty, staff, administrators and students who have gone before us; for it is all of them who have passed on the legacy, the mission, the spirit of The University of Scranton.”
Ordained in 1981, Keller spent much of priesthood in secondary education, becoming principal of Scranton Preparatory School in 1983. He became principal and Jesuit Community Rector at St. Joseph’s Prep in Philadelphia in 1991, and returned to Scranton Prep to serve as president for 18 years, stepping down in 2015.
Keller has served on the University of Scranton board of trustees for 17 years.
