Sacred Heart University in Fairfield has removed the “interim” tag from John J. Petillo’s title and formally made the former dean of its business school the sixth president of New England’s second-largest Catholic university.
Petillo has served the past five months as interim chief of the university since the departure last October of Anthony J. Cernera.
The school’s board of trustees made the selection following a national search by a 15-member committee that unanimously endorsed Petillo, the school said. Petillo is a past chancellor and CEO of Seton Hall University in New Jersey.
Second in size after Boston College, Sacred Heart has more than 6,000 undergraduates and graduate students.
