Andreas Jeninga/The Hoya Wildes

Georgetown College Associate Dean Kevin Wildes, S.J. is one of two candidates under consideration for Loyola University of New Orleans’ presidency, officials confirmed last week.

Wildes, an associate philosophy professor and member of the Kennedy Institute of Ethics, visited Loyola yesterday to complete a series of interviews.

About 200 Loyola faculty and staff attended Wildes’ town-hall style interview, said Kristine David Lelong director of Loyola’s Office of Public Affairs.

Loyola, a Jesuit university with an enrollment of 5,500, has been without a president since October 2003 when then-President Bernard Knoth, S.J. resigned under allegations of past sexual misconduct. Knoth was a former associate dean of the College and one-time candidate to become Georgetown’s president.

The Rev. William J. Byron, S.J., who taught business at Georgetown for eight years, has been Loyola’s interim president since October 2003.

Amid interviews Thursday, Wildes expressed enthusiasm.

“I have been on the [Loyola] Board of Trustees here for six years now and am excited about the possibility,” he said in an e-mail.

Wildes entered the Society of Jesus in 1976 and was ordained a priest in 1986. He has studied at the Weston School of Theology and obtained philosophy degrees from Rice and Fordham Universities. He has also authored several books on bioethics and the Catholic perspective on medicine.

The other candidate under consideration is the Rev. Robert Niehoff, S.J., vice president for planning and budget and an associate provost at San Francisco University, the New Orleans Times-Picayune reported last week.

Niehoff holds a degree in philosophy, two master’s degrees in theology, an MBA from the University of Washington and a Ph.D. from Gonzaga University. After being ordained in 1982, Niehoff worked for non-profit organizations and church and Jesuit administration.

Loyola is part of the Jesuit educational network, one of the largest educational groups in American higher education. It consists of 28 colleges and universities, including Georgetown.

Last spring another Georgetown Jesuit assumed a university presidency when Interim University Chaplain Rev. Scott Pilarz, S.J., (CAS ’81) joined the University of Scranton. Scranton is also a Jesuit school in Pennsylvania.