On January 31, 2013, ORU announced that William "Billy" Wilson, executive director of the International Center for Spiritual Renewal and vice-chair of the ORU board of trustees, had been selected to succeed Rutland as president, effective July 1, 2013. A day earlier, the ORU student newspaper had briefly posted an erroneous report on its website, mistakenly identifying someone else as the new president. Rutland criticized the report at a student assembly and the newspaper's longtime faculty adviser left the school the next day.