NASHVILLE (AP) - A Yale University scholar and ordained American Baptist clergywoman will be the new dean of Vanderbilt University Divinity School starting next July.

Emilie M. Townes succeeds James Hudnut-Beumler, who is taking a year's sabbatical after serving as the school's dean since 2000. Pending approval by the Vanderbilt Board of Trust, Townes will become the 16th dean for the Vanderbilt Divinity School and has been appointed to a five-year term.

Richard McCarty, provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, called her "an amazing scholar, a wonderful mentor to students and a leader in theological education."

Her areas of expertise include Christian ethics, womanist theology, critical social theology, cultural theory and studies, and postmodernism and social postmodernism.