It eliminated varsity athletics to concentrate on academics in 2000, the year President Hinckley announced the school would offer four-year degrees. A three-tiered admissions system allows for more students than other schools with more traditional semesters, in part to accommodate men and some women who return from LDS missions throughout the year.

And Clark's move, viewed from inside the church, could be seen as a promotion: Some say this establishes Clark, a bishop, as a rising star. His predecessor, Elder David A. Bednar, was named in 2004 to the Quorum of the Twelve.

"If one were thinking for the church either about university matters or future ecclesiastical office, Kim Clark is clearly on the radar screen," said Philip Barlow, a church member and religion professor at Indiana's Hanover College.

At Harvard, Clark kept his Mormonism separate from his academic life. With his wife, Sue, the nondrinker and nonsmoker by faith opted to entertain university guests at school, not the off-campus home where they've raised seven kids.

That will change at BYU-Idaho, where every Tuesday many of its 14,500 students attend religious services. The president guides their spiritual fundament as well as their academic development.

"The church influences washes over, runs through, pervades everything we do," said Robert Wilkes, BYU-Idaho interim president.

Clark's decision has aroused much debate, even among church members. On an LDS-related Web site called "Times and Seasons," some called Clark's move to largely LDS eastern Idaho a wasteful sacrifice of church influence in the northeastern U.S.

In leaving his $407,000 post at Harvard, Clark steps from a platform that lent him instant gravitas. He sits on boards at JetBlue Airways and toolmaker Black & Decker.

The church's education commissioner, Elder W. Rolfe Kerr, calls the BYU-Idaho presidency a "paid job," not an "ecclesiastical calling."

Still, a request from President Hinckley would be a difficult to refuse, church members say.

Said Paul Pugmire, president of the Rexburg City Council, "If Gordon Hinckley called and said, 'What I need you to do is go work on the grounds crew at BYU-Idaho,' I would say 'Yes.' "