Senior Vice President and Provost Marcella David will not continue in her role at the college after this month.
In an email the day after commencement, Interim President and CEO Jerry Tarrer, whose term ends at the end of June, said the college would name an interim chief academic officer before beginning a national search for a new provost.
David has been provost at Columbia since 2019. Before coming to Columbia, she was the Betty T. Ferguson visiting professor of Law at Florida State University and was formerly the provost and vice president for academic affairs at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University.
David had told the Chronicle in an exclusive interview in February that she had no plans to leave Columbia.
“I’m actually feeling pretty good about the contributions that I have made, and I appreciate that somebody else coming in with a different perspective might add value in a different way and I’m open to leaving room for that to happen,” she told the Chronicle.
But Tarrer said in the email that David would “leave her administrative duties and will not return to the faculty. We wish her well as she explores her next chapter.”
He did not specify whether David had resigned, whether the board had declined to renew her contract or whether incoming President and CEO Shantay Bolton had made or influenced the decision.
Although Bolton does not start until July 1, she has made multiple visits to campus and was at the Manifest Arts Festival and commencement on Sunday, May 18.
David was also a professor in the School of Business and Entrepreneurship and taught a Big Chicago course: “Access, Civic Life & City Design.” In her interview with the Chronicle, she said that she would be “honored” to be able to continue to contribute to the college in a different role.
David presided over a historic restructuring of the college’s academic offerings this past year to address the college’s financial challenges. In January, the college announced that it would lay off 23 full-time faculty at the end of the spring semester, which ended on Friday, May 16.
In her interview with the Chronicle, David said she was “incredibly proud of the work” she was able to do in addressing the COVID crisis, the budget challenges and the academic restructuring. She said she saw the program overhaul as a necessary “refresh.”
“This is my sixth year,” David said in the interview. “Six years as a provost is actually a pretty good length of time.”
The provost is the second high-ranking administrator at the college after the president and presides over all academic matters.
Faculty Senate President Rojhat Avsar, associate professor of economics, declined to comment, saying only that it was “unexpected.”
Student Government Association President Jenna Davis said David’s departure is an opportunity to move forward from the past few years.
“I look forward to seeing what the new provost has in store for the student body,” Davis said.
This is a developing story.
Copy edited by Vanessa Orozco
