Photo by Wikkmedia Commons/Guoguo12

(Emmitsburg, Md.) -- Mount St. Mary's University has a new president.

The university, located just south of Gettysburg across the Mason-Dixon line, said in a statement that it has selected Army veteran Timothy Trainor to lead it.

He had been serving as president of the Emmitsburg school in an interim capacity over the past year.

Before joining the school in 2016, Trainor served for 33 years in the Army, retiring as a brigadier general. In his final six years he served as dean of the academic board at West Point, the U.S. Military Academy.

He earned his bachelor's degree from West Point, an MBA from Duke University and a doctorate in industrial engineering from North Carolina State University.

The university's previous president, Simon Newman, resigned amid criticism for his comments likening struggling freshmen to bunnies that should be drowned.