The University of Southern California’s president, Carol L. Folt, said on Friday that she would retire next summer, opening the top job at one of the West Coast’s most influential universities months after the campus faced immense turmoil around the war in Gaza.
Dr. Folt, 73, a former chancellor of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill who also had a stint as Dartmouth College’s interim president, said in an open letter that she was “excited to embrace the freedom that comes with a next big leap.” She said she would remain at U.S.C. as a faculty member.
U.S.C., which has almost 47,000 students, did not immediately name Dr. Folt’s successor.
Dr. Folt took over in 2019 as the university grappled with the fallout from a sexual abuse scandal and the federal “Varsity Blues” investigation that unearthed corruption in admissions at U.S.C. and other elite schools. When Dr. Folt arrived, according to The Los Angeles Times, the chair of the university’s board at the time predicted that she would spend at least a decade as president.
But Dr. Folt’s tenure is now expected to end at its six-year mark. Over the summer, U.S.C. said it had extended her contract but did not announce the terms of the agreement. (Like many other private universities, U.S.C. says little about its finances and contracts beyond what it must disclose in its tax returns.)
Dr. Folt often steadied the scandal-ridden campus and pursued enormous ambitions for it, like a $1 billion investment in computing and a move to the Big Ten Conference that will fortify the athletic department’s treasury at a time of seismic changes in college sports.
But she also faced stinging criticism in the spring, when the academic Senate voted to censure her.
The Senate resolution, which cited “widespread dissatisfaction and concern among the faculty,” followed protests at U.S.C. that were part of broader unrest on American campuses related to the war in Gaza.
U.S.C. drew particular scrutiny for its decisions to cancel a planned commencement speech by its valedictorian and, eventually, the signature event itself, because of security concerns.
Dr. Folt’s planned exit comes at a time of leadership transitions at several of California’s top public and private institutions.
The University of California’s president, Michael V. Drake, said in July that he would step down at the end of the academic year. The university’s Berkeley campus has a new chancellor, and the outpost in Los Angeles is getting one in January. The chancellors of the U.C. campuses in Riverside and Santa Barbara have also announced their retirements, and Stanford University’s new president started in August.
Suzanne Nora Johnson, the chair of U.S.C.’s board, said on Friday that the university would say more about its presidential search early next year.
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