Carlow University tonight announced the appointment of Mary E. Hines, Ph.D. as the institution's ninth president and the first layperson to lead the Oakland institution.

Hines joins Carlow from Penn State University's Wilkes-Barre campus, where she has served as its Campus Executive Officer since 1997.

In February, Carlow announced it was renewing a search for a president after a person a search committee planned to recommend withdrew from consideration, citing family reasons. The school did not identify the individual who withdrew.

Sister Grace Ann Geibel, who has been campus president longer than anyone else in Carlow's history, has announced her intent to step down in June.

She will have headed the mostly women's college for 17 years.

In a released statement, Sister Margaret Hannan, president of the Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy, said that, "While Dr. Hines is the first lay president of Carlow, she brings to the position the Catholic values and qualities of leadership that will carry forward the commitment and tradition of the Pittsburgh Sisters of Mercy in Catholic higher education."

The present university traces its founding to the Sisters of Mercy who arrived in Pittsburgh from Carlow, Ireland, in 1843. The sisters undertoook service to the poor and sick in the region, starting numerous orphanages, schools and the Mercy Hospital of Pittsburgh.

Among their works was the opening of a Catholic college for women, Mount Mercy College, on September 24, 1929. The name was changed to Carlow in 1969 in recognition of the history of the school's founding by the Sisters of Mercy and in 2004 Carlow achieved university status.