Office of the President

President Dr. Tom Evans

On November 5, 2012, Dr. Thomas M. Evans was inaugurated as the 16th president of Carroll College, a four-year Catholic diocesan college in the state capital of Helena, Mont. Attending the ceremony were dignitaries from colleges throughout the nation and elected officials, including Montana’s long-serving US Senator Max Baucus, plus past Carroll presidents, bishops and many others.

Founded in 1909, Carroll College has a student body of 1,500 and is ranked number one in its class by USNews & World Report; in Forbes magazine’s America’s 650 Top Colleges, Carroll is #152—far and away the highest ranked in Montana and one of the region’s leading private colleges and universities of any size. The college’s pre-professional and liberal arts programs and professors have received numerous honors and awards, and its students receive top national and international rankings in extracurricular competition focused on various pursuits, including forensics, moot court, math, engineering and charitable fundraising and service.

Dr. Evans was selected through a national search as Carroll College’s new president on December 20, 2011, with his term at Carroll beginning June 2012. At the time of his presidential selection, Dr. Evans was serving as associate vice president for professional education and global initiatives at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas, a leading Catholic institution with over 5,400 undergraduate and graduate students. In the associate vice presidential role he had held since 2008 at St. Edward’s, Dr. Evans was a leader in expanding global education, including study abroad and exchange programs, while enhancing professional education programming. During his 15-year career at St. Edward’s, Dr. Evans became thoroughly knowledgeable about all aspects of higher education through work in myriad departments, including service as director of graduate admission, director for the Center for Academic Progress, and dean of Graduate and Adult Services and through teaching Japanese culture and master’s thesis courses.

With an interest in international cultural and educational exchange dating back to his upbringing overseas by multilingual parents, Dr. Evans pursued his passion for international education by majoring in Japanese at Georgetown University, during which time he studied abroad at Keio University’s Center for Japanese Language and Culture in Tokyo. He also found his calling at Georgetown to minor in theology, become a Catholic and champion the gold standard of Catholic higher education. He went on to receive a Master of Arts in Asian studies and a PhD in educational administration from The University of Texas at Austin. In recent years, he attended Harvard University’s Institute for Educational Management. He is conversant in both Japanese and French.

Since beginning his work as Carroll president, Evans has made news for several significant achievements, including the college’s receipt of a $1 million “Christmas gift” in December 2012 from Carroll alumnus Dr. Earl Heller and another $1 million received from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute for furthering the college’s infectious disease research. Evans has created abundant new study abroad and intellectual exchange programs between Carroll and colleges and universities around the world. These include Catholic University of Korea in Seoul, Korea, Ritsumeikan Aisa Pacific Univerity in Beppu, Japan, Universite´ Catholique de l'Ouest in Angers, France and Universidad Ponificia Comillas in Madrid, Spain. Evans is also exploring opportunites in Chile and Ireland.

In the coming months, Dr. Evans will be releasing the new Carroll College strategic vision, which will encompass several new construction projects on campus including a residence hall project set to break ground in spring 2013.

Dr. Evans and his wife Lisa (a graduate of Georgetown and The University of Texas at Austin Graduate School) have two young sons: Walter and Leland.