University of Arizona President Ann Weaver Hart will leave the schoolβs top job when her contract expires in mid-2018, but she isnβt going anywhere.
After a tumultuous school year in which her leadership drew criticism from around the state, Hartβs bosses announced Friday that she will not seek an extension to her presidentβs contract.
However, she intends to stay on as a faculty member at the school. Her contract includes a clause that gives her a job as a tenured professor in the College of Education when she steps down as the UAβs leader.
The announcement came in the closing moments of an Arizona Board of Regents meeting in Flagstaff.
Hart, 67, who makes $665,000 a year in base pay as the UAβs president, told the board she has decided βto become a full-time teacher and scholar again.β
It wasnβt immediately clear Friday how much she would earn as a faculty member.
Hart holds bachelorβs and masterβs degrees in history and a Ph.D in educational administration, all from the University of Utah. One of her research interests is in leadership succession.
She said she intends to spend her last two years as president moving the university forward by implementing changes from the UAβs strategic plan.
Regents board chairman Jay Heiler said Hart decided on her own to leave the top job, and he praised her commitment to the UA. He said the board would likely start the succession planning process this fall.
βThe decision not to seek an extension is hers, and true to her character she has made it in full consideration of both her personal aspirations and her institutional commitments,β Heiler said.
Hartβs critics expressed disappointment and questioned why sheβs being allowed to stay on for another two years.
βShe should leave immediately. Two more years of her leadership is going to hurt the UA even more than it already has,β said state Rep. Bruce Wheeler of Tucson.
The presidentβs supporters disagreed, saying Hart has made many needed improvements in her four years at the helm
βI believe the university is better today than when she arrived. On balance, sheβs had a positive effect,β said Lynn Nadel, chair of the faculty.
He cited the Banner Health deal β in which the money-losing former University Medical Center was acquired by a nonprofit corporation β as evidence of Hartβs effectiveness in dealing with complex problems.
Hart also deserves credit for picking a talented leadership team and for making a push this year to increase diversity on campus, he said.
Among faculty, there are mixed opinions about Hartβs leadership, Nadel acknowledged. βI think if you took a poll some would be quite positive and others, quite negative.β
Controversies
Hart, hired in 2012 as the schoolβs first female president, has been the subject of several controversies that began not long after she arrived.
The biggest in terms of negative public reaction was her decision earlier this year to accept a paid position on the board of the for-profit education firm that runs DeVry University. The school is facing a Federal Trade Commission lawsuit that claims DeVry routinely deceived students about their job prospects after graduation.
DeVry denies wrongdoing and Hart β who receives a $170,000 annual paycheck in salary and stock from DeVry β has expressed her confidence in the firm.
But hundreds of Arizonans, including UA donors, students and faculty members, have protested her side job. Critics say Hart should be devoting all her energies to her presidentβs job, and that sheβs tarnished the UAβs reputation by having its president associated with a questionable corporation.
Many donors have said they wonβt give to the UA as long as Hart remains its leader, and the UAβs new budget projects that private donations will decline by $8.7 million β a 9.6 percent drop β in the coming school year.
University officials couldnβt be reached for comment on the cause of the downward trend.
More recently, the Arizona Medical Association made a public statement of βno confidenceβ in Hartβs leadership of the UA, and in particular its Phoenix medical school.
The doctorsβ group passed a resolution at its recent annual meeting that asks regents to investigate after six deans at the Phoenix facility announced their departure. UA officials maintain that such turnover is normal in academic medicine.
Hard feelings also arose last year when Hart wrote a chapter for a book on leadership in which she publicly described the UA as an institution that was going downhill before she arrived.
Mixed reactions
Few students were on the campus Friday, but some of those who were had mixed reaction to news of Hartβs decision to step down.
βShe did some good work, like making the campus smoke-free,β said Desiree Esquivel, 22, a senior in public health and Spanish.
Zack Williams, 27, a graduate student in geosciences, said he recently signed a petition asking Hart to resign after she joined the board of DeVry.
βI thought it diminished the brand of the university,β he said. βTo have her use our brand to help make some money seemed low.β
Jacqueline Mwangi, 19, who just finished her junior year in accounting and management information systems, described Hart as βan OK president, not the best.β
Hart did a good job handling the demands from marginalized students, she said, but βI think the whole DeVry thing is why sheβs resigning. She took a lot of flack for that.β
The Board of Regents will conduct a nationwide search for Hartβs replacement, President Eileen Klein said.