Dr. Wallace L. Daniel, the University's chief academic officer overseeing all academic programs, is the new Provost effective 1 July 2008.

Prior to joining Mercer, Dr. Daniel served at Baylor University in Waco, Texas, as:

• The Ralph L. and Bessie Mae Lynn Professor of History (1988 to 2008)
• Editor of the Journal of Church and State (2006 to 2008)
• Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, the university's largest academic unit with more than 400 faculty and 6,500 students  (1996 to 2005)
• Founding Director of the Slavic Studies Program (1986 to 1996)
• Chair of the History Department (1992 to 1996)
• Director of the Honors Program (1991 to 2003)

Dr. Daniel is the 2008 recipient of the Cornelia Marschall Smith Professor of the Year award for Teaching, Scholarship, and Service at Baylor University. 

An honors graduate in economics from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Dr. Daniel received his Ph.D. from the same institution, specializing in Russia. He twice has been awarded IREX fellowships and three times Fulbright-Hays Fellowships to Russia and the former Soviet Union.  Dr. Daniel’s publications include Grigorii Teplov: A Statesman at the Court of Catherine the Great, and, most recently (autumn 2006), The Orthodox Church and Civil Society in Russia, and co-editor of Perspectives on Church and State in Russia (summer 2008).  His articles on intellectual and social history, as well as on church and state issues, are published in Russian Review, The Slavonic and East European Review, Canadian-American Slavic Studies, Russian Review (in Russian), Religion, State and Society, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, and Journal of Church and State. He is working on a new project, an intellectual biography of Fr Aleksandr Men’.

Dr. Daniel is a member of Phi Beta Kappa, Omicron Delta Kappa Honorary Society, and the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies. He serves on the Keston Center Advisory Board and on the Editorial Council of Journal of Church and State. 

Dr. Daniel and his wife, Karol Koger Daniel, have two children, Zach, a graduate of Baylor University, and Elizabeth, a recent graduate of the University of Chicago.

Dr. Daniel’s extracurricular activities include reading, travel, Tarheel basketball, and golf.