Susan Herbst, the president of the University of Connecticut, has announced that she will step down at the end of the 2018-19 academic year. In a statement to the university community, President Herbst said that “being able to lead this outstanding institution has been one of the great honors and privileges of my life. Despite financial struggles because of the state budget, together we have become a stronger, better university,. UConn is among the finest research universities in the United States and the pride of the state of Connecticut, as it should be.”
During her tenure as president, the university has risen in the national rankings, enrollments have increased, and the academic standing of incoming students has improved considerably. The university’s endowment has grown from $272.3 million in 2010 to $421.8 million today.
Dr. Herbst was appointed the 15th president of the University of Connecticut in December 2010. She is the only woman to serve as president of the university since its founding in 1881. Prior to her appointment to the presidency, Dr. Herbst served as executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer of the University System of Georgia. Earlier she was dean of the College of Liberal Arts at Temple University in Philadelaphia, provost and executive vice president at the University at Albany, a campus of the State University of New York system, and taught for 14 years at Northwestern University. Dr. Herbst is the author of the book Rude Democracy: Civility and Incivility in American Politics (Temple University Press, 2010).
Dr. Herbst is a graduate of Duke University and earned a Ph.D. in communication theory and research from the University of Southern California’s Annenberg School for Communication in Los Angeles.