After 20 years at the helm, Richard C. Levin, the president of Yale University, announced on Thursday that he will be leaving the Ivy League school at the end of the academic year, our colleague Richard Pérez-Peña reports:
When Mr. Levin took office, Yale was being described as a university whose perch among the world's top schools had grown shaky. The administration often battled the faculty members and the troubled surrounding city, there were budget shortfalls and staff cuts, applications were down and facilities badly needed renovation and repair.
A search committee re peatedly postponed the deadline for naming a new president, reportedly settling unenthusiastically on the low-key Mr. Levin after being unable to find a more charismatic outsider. Almost two decades later, Yale's academic reputation and its finances are more secure, and Mr. Levin, commonly called Rick, is among the most respected university leaders in the country.
Under him, the university has built a new business school campus; greatly expanded its facilities, including its science center and medical school; overhauled its buildings, including all 12 undergraduate residential colleges; started construction of two new residential colleges to make room for the first major expansion in undergraduate enrollment in decades; and embarked on new programs overseas.
Yale's global initiatives grew under Mr. Levine's leadership. The student body became more internationally diverse. In 1999, the university announced that it wo uld offer need-blind admissions to international students and financial aid packages under the same terms as its American students. Yale's India Initiative also began during his tenure.
Mr. Levin, 65, who has served as the university's president since 1993, has had one of the longest tenures in Yale's history. He is also the most senior president among Ivy League leaders.
In a letter to the Yale community, Mr. Levin called his departure a “natural transition†after having accomplished many of the institution's goals.
“These years have been more rewarding and fulfilling than I ever could have imagined,†he wrote.
Mr. Levin, incidentally, is the second university president to leave the Ivy League this year. In July, Jim Yong Kim, the former president of Dartmouth College, became the new leader of the World Bank.
Mr. Levin intends to take a sabbatical next year, during which he plans to finish writing a book about higher education and econo mic policy.
