Following one year of service as interim president, John A. Nunes has been officially named the ninth president of California Lutheran University. His presidency went into effect on June 1.
Located in Thousand Oaks, California, the university enrolls nearly 2,400 undergraduate and over 1,000 graduate students. Black students represent 4 percent of the undergraduate student population.
Before his interim appointment, Dr. Nunes was a senior fellow at the Center for Religion, Culture, and Democracy for two years. Earlier, he spent over five years as president of Concordia College in New York and had a stint as an endowed professor at Valparaiso University in Indiana. Since 2020, Dr. Nunes has served on the Council of Independent Colleges’ Campus Free Expression Project.
Outside of academia, Dr. Nunes served as president and chief executive officer of Lutheran World Relief for over six years. He has authored five books, including Meant for More: In, With, and Under the Ordinary (Concordia Publishing House, 2020).
“I am blessed to continue serving in this community of creativity and inclusivity, at an institution built by pioneering, persevering people of faith,” said Dr. Nunes. “Even in this arduous higher ed environment, the faculty and staff of Cal Lutheran are brilliantly resilient for the sake of our students. We are committed to being a place where dreams take flight.”
Dr. Nunes received his bachelor’s degree from Concordia University and his master of divinity degree from Concordia Lutheran Theological Seminary. He holds a master of theology degree and a Ph.D. in postcolonial identity from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago.
