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NEWS RELEASE
October 20, 2009
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Richard H. Herman resigns as chancellor of Urbana-Champaign campus
Herman will join U of I faculty, assist in I-STEM initiative
URBANA, Ill. — University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Chancellor Richard H. Herman will resign his campus leadership position effective Oct. 26, and will join the University faculty, where he will continue to work with the campus’s Illinois Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (I-STEM) Initiative.
Herman submitted his letter of resignation Tuesday to Board of Trustees Chair Christopher G. Kennedy, who accepted it for consideration by the trustees. The Board’s Executive Committee is scheduled to meet Friday to act on Herman’s resignation and a revised employment agreement.
Herman said that serving as provost and chancellor of the Urbana campus has been the great privilege of a 40-year career in higher education, but that he is stepping aside to enable a newly constituted Board of Trustees to select new university and campus leadership.
“Ours is a great institution with its brilliant and hard-working faculty and staff, and its smart and ambitious students, and I plan to continue to contribute to ensuring the bright future of the University of Illinois,” Herman wrote in his letter to the Board. “Thank you for the honor to serve the University. I have enjoyed every minute, in fact, every nanosecond.”
Herman joined the University of Illinois in 1998 when he became provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs, the campus’s chief academic officer, at the Urbana campus. Herman was named interim chancellor in June of 2004 and became chancellor of the campus in May of 2005. Previously, he was dean of the College of Computer, Mathematical and Physical Sciences at the University of Maryland from 1990 to 1998. He was chair of the Department of Mathematics at Pennsylvania State University from 1986 to 1990.
“Richard Herman has made significant contributions to the Urbana-Champaign campus and to public higher education. The shared commitment that Richard and his wife Susan have made to the University and community is commendable,” Board of Trustees Chair Christopher G. Kennedy said.
Herman’s current contract as chancellor would have expired June 30, 2010, and he will forgo a $300,000 retention payment that he would have received at the end of the contract. Upon resignation as chancellor, and pending Board approval, Herman, 68, will serve as special assistant to the interim president of the University until June 30, 2010, at which time he will become a professor of mathematics in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences on the Urbana campus. Following a sabbatical leave of one academic year to prepare for the resumption of teaching and research activities, and beginning no later than July 1, 2011, Herman will move to the College of Education where he will serve as a professor, with an additional appointment as visiting professor in the College of Education on the University’s Chicago campus.
Active in national higher education organizations, such as the Association for Public Land-Grant Universities (APLU), Herman has been an advocate for more and better science education in U.S. schools. In November of 2008 he launched I-STEM, an initiative to increase the number and quality of science, technology, engineering and math teachers who graduate from the Urbana campus, along with improving student recruitment and retention rates in science and technology-affiliated programs.
“My hope is to promote partnerships between the entire University and Illinois businesses and industries, governmental agencies and other educational institutions, including community colleges and the Chicago Public Schools, to better understand the STEM pipeline,” Herman said.
The University’s interim president-designate, Stanley O. Ikenberry, said the U of I’s change in system-wide and Urbana campus leadership will move forward as a result of Herman’s action. “This has been a challenging time for Chancellor Herman and the Urbana campus. I respect his decision and wish him well,” Ikenberry said. Ikenberry will become interim president of the University on Jan. 1, 2010, taking over from B. Joseph White, who announced his resignation last month.
Urbana campus Interim Provost Robert A. Easter said, “I know that Richard Herman’s decision was made because he felt it was in the best interest of the University. The Urbana-Champaign campus will benefit for many years to come because of Richard’s extraordinary contributions and his dedication to public higher education.”
Ikenberry, a former U of I president from 1979 to 1995, said that he and Easter will assume several of the responsibilities of chancellor on a temporary basis and that an interim chancellor will not be named.
During his tenure as chancellor, Herman was instrumental in the creation of the Illinois Promise scholarship program for students from low-income families. He also has played a role in discussion of national science policy with an emphasis on positioning the sciences to meet the emerging needs of society. His experience in science and educational policy includes service on the President’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology and membership in the Business Higher Education Forum. Herman also serves on the Council on Competitiveness as co-chair of its High Performance Computing Initiative.
Herman graduated with a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Stevens Institute of Technology in 1963 and earned a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Maryland in 1967.
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The Urbana-Champaign campus has a total enrollment of more than 41,000 students and has more than 3,000 faculty members. In 2008-09, the operating budget was approximately $1.5 billion. The University of Illinois is a world leader in research and discovery, the largest educational institution in the state with almost 70,000 students, 24,000 faculty and staff, and campuses in Urbana-Champaign, Chicago and Springfield. The U of I awards more than 18,500 undergraduate, graduate and professional degrees annually.