With his recent ascension to apostle, Clark Gilbert will see his controversial tenure as education commissioner of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints come to an end.

His successor, starting April 1, will be general authority Seventy James R. Rasband, the global faith’s governing First Presidency announced Wednesday.

As education commissioner, the 62-year-old Rasband will oversee the faith’s flagship Brigham Young University in Provo, all other BYU campuses and BYU-Pathway Worldwide, along with its seminaries (for teenagers) and Institutes of Religion (for college-age individuals) throughout the world.

A general authority since 2019, Rasband, a distant relative of apostle Ronald A. Rasband, served for three years as a counselor in the Asia North Area Presidency and as assistant executive director in the Temple Department.

“Elder Rasband comes to this assignment with extensive academic experience, including an undergraduate degree from BYU and law degree from Harvard University, service as dean of the J. Reuben Clark Law School, and as the academic vice president of Brigham Young University,” the First Presidency wrote Wednesday in a letter to general authorities and other church leaders.

Rasband began his legal career as an attorney with Perkins Coie in his native Seattle. He later joined the BYU law school’s faculty in 1995 and worked as its dean from 2009 to 2016 before rising to BYU’s academic vice president.

Rasband and his wife, Mary Rasband, are parents of four children.

Interested eyes will be on the church’s new education boss after Gilbert’s stint was punctuated by controversy.

Critics say he implemented strict policies to weed out faculty members who did not support a certain approach to Latter-day Saint scriptures, practices and orthodoxy. That, they say, led to widespread feelings of fear and anxiety among a number of professors and other staffers.

Note to readers • Dylan Eubank is a Report for America corps member covering faith in Utah County for The Salt Lake Tribune.