Embattled President of American Academy of Arts and Sciences to Resign

Leslie Cohen Berlowitz, the embattled president of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, will officially depart her post at the end of the month, the academy has announced.

Ms. Berlowitz has been on paid administrative leave since early June, following reports that she had falsely claimed, on several grant applications and other documents, to have a doctorate.

In a letter sent to members, Louis W. Cabot, the chairman of the academy’s board, said that Ms. Berlowitz would resign effective July 31, without any severance. She will receive a one-time payment of $475,000, reflecting vested retirement benefits to which she was contractually entitled, as well as unused vacation time and “other deferred compensation,” the letter noted. She will also receive supplemental health insurance for five years “at a cost not to exceed $3,500 per year.”

The election of a successor to lead the 233-year-old honorary society, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., would probably take “some months,” Mr. Cabot wrote.

The letter also announced that Mr. Cabot’s term as board chairman, which began in 2009, would end in October. He is to be replaced by Don M. Randel, a former president of the University of Chicago and of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, who will serve a three-year term.

The letter did not comment on the credentials controversy, which is subject to an ongoing independent investigation, according to an Academy spokesman. But the detailed information about the financial terms of Ms. Berlowitz’s departure seemed to be a response to anger among many of the Academy’s more than 4,000 members about her compensation, totaling more than $598,000 for the fiscal year ending March 2012, which was also noted in a Boston Globe article first reporting on the issue.

In the letter, Mr. Cabot wrote that the board had appointed a special committee “to examine the process by which the president and C.E.O.’s salary and benefits have been determined in the past, assess the reasonableness of the total compensation for that position, and to make recommendations for any changes in the compensation process going forward.”