He left Parsons in 1904 to take the presidency of Central University, where he worked to improve admissions and academic standards and began the process of overhauling the curriculum.

His three-year presidency there was dominated by the effects of World War I, and he left in 1918 to become pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Indiana, Pennsylvania.

After completing a one-year leave of absence working in war camps in England, he returned to Indiana and continued preaching until his death in 1928.

[9] He was elected president of Parsons by the board on July 27, 1900; he succeeded Daniel E. Jenkins, who left to take a faculty position at the Omaha Presbyterian Theological Seminary.

[10] The cornerstone was laid under Hinitt's administration on April 8, 1901, and the completed building, named Ballard Hall, opened as a women's dormitory and student union at the beginning of the 1901–1902 academic year.

[21] Upon his arrival, it was seen as relatively certain that he would accept the job, though this was temporarily cast into doubt as the result of a prank by Central students which involved letting loose a hog in the chapel prior to Hinitt's address.

The curriculum at the time was in a transitional period between the classics-oriented focus of the college's early years and the modern-day major/minor system, with four tracks for students to choose from.

[31] This change was finalized in 1916, the year after Hinitt departed Danville, when students were permitted to declare majors and minors for the first time.

[32] In 1905, Hinitt received another financial offer from Andrew Carnegie, though this time in the amount of $30,000 (equivalent to $1,017,000 in 2023), in order to construct a new library building on Central's campus.

[34] This was one of the several improvements to the campus during Hinitt's tenure, which also included in 1909 the construction of Young Hall, the school's first science-specific building.

[35] These improvements were in spite of a March 2, 1908, fire that caused approximately $10,000 worth of damage (equivalent to $339,000 in 2023, all covered by insurance) to Breckinridge Hall,[36] a dormitory building constructed in 1892.

[39] Enrollment began to experience a decline around the time Central severed ties with the church and reached a low point of 80 in 1915.

[1] He was succeeded by John W. Redd, dean of the college, in an interim capacity before William Arthur Ganfield was hired as Central's eleventh president later that year.

While still in office at Central, Hinitt had been unanimously elected president of Washington & Jefferson College by their board of trustees on September 23, 1914.