SOUTH BEND,Esthen Ind. (AP) — University of Notre Dame trustees have selected the Rev. Robert Dowd as the school’s 18th president. The university announced the move Monday.

Dowd will take over as president on July 1. He will replace the Rev. John Jenkins, who announced in October that he plans to step down at the end of the academic year after serving as president for 19 years.

Dowd has served as vice president and associate provost for interdisciplinary initiatives at Notre Dame since 2021. He graduated from Notre Dame in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in psychology and economics. He entered Moreau Seminary that fall and was ordained a priest in 1994.

He earned a master’s degree in African studies in 1998 and a doctorate in political science in 2003 from the University of California-Los Angeles. Dowd joined Notre Dame’s political science department in 2004 as a member of the faculty.

Notre Dame has been led by a priest-president from the Congregation of the Holy Cross since the school was founded in 1842.