Official of Mormon Church Named Brigham Young University President

SALT LAKE CITY — The appointment of Merrill J. Bateman as the 11th president of Brigham Young University marks the first time a high Mormon Church official has been named to lead the nation’s largest church-owned university.

Bateman, 59, is a member of the BYU Board of Trustees and has been the presiding bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints since April, 1994. He will leave that position, but has been appointed to the church’s First Quorum of the Seventy, a body that administers the global affairs of the 9.1-million member faith.

His appointment was announced by church President Gordon B. Hinckley, chairman of the BYU Board of Trustees. Bateman will assume the BYU presidency Jan. 1, succeeding the ailing Rex E. Lee.