UConn leader resigns post
Katsouleas will remain a professor at university
STORRS — After two years at the post, UConn President Thomas Katsouleas plans to resign next month.
In a letter dated March 13, Katsouleas told the University of Connecticut’s Board of Trustees that he will resign effective June 30 but remain at the school as a faculty member.
According to his contract, as a professor, he will be paid at the highest base rate payable to a nine-month faculty member at the university excluding UConn Health — which
a university spokesman confirmed would be about $339,000.
As president, his base salary this fiscal year was $540,750.
“I have made the difficult decision to resign my position as President of the University of Connecticut,” he wrote in the letter to Dan Toscano, the chairman of UConn’s Board of Trustees.
The March resignation letter was made public Thursday morning. A spokesperson for the university said Katsouleas and the Board of Trustees agreed to hold off on an announcement until after the end of the academic semester and graduation to avoid distracting from those events.
The outgoing president cited “reasons we have discussed at length over time” for his departure from the role, but did not name those points in the letter.
“I am very proud of the advancements made by the University during my tenure as its 16th president,” he wrote. “UConn has fared extraordinarily well in the face of unprecedented challenges under the leadership and decision making of our leadership team and the board.”
The Board of Trustees, with Gov. Ned Lamont’s support, had voted unanimously to appoint Katsouleas to the position, and he began a five-year contract in August 2019. Previously, he served as executive vice president and provost at the University of Virginia.
The Board of Trustees circulated a statement Thursday afternoon with the announcement of Katsouleas’ resignation, noting the board supported his decision.
“Looking forward, as a board, we are committed to ensuring a smooth leadership transition that allows UConn to maintain its forward momentum while minimizing any disruption,” wrote Toscano.
He announced the board will vote to appoint an interim president at its next meeting on May 19 and will release the individual’s name that day.
Sources told Hearst Connecticut Media and the CT Mirror that the relationship between Katsouleas and UConn’s Board of Trustees had deteriorated since he was hired. Among the actions cited by sources were an unexpected announcement at his inauguration to provide free tuition for families making less than $50,000. The university had to put the program on hold this fall during the pandemic.
More recently, he announced the university would cut slated tuition increases by half without consulting with trustees.
Katsouleas’s tenure was marked by COVID-19-induced fiscal woes, when UConn had more than 300 managerial staff take furlough days without pay last summer amounting to at least 5 percent of their annual salaries, and cut four sports teams impacting 124 student-athletes and four coaches.
UConn recently announced it had lost $110 million during the pandemic but erased its deficit with about $100 million in federal relief funds and additional dollars from the state legislature.
“I don’t know if there was ever one thing” that led to the resignation, said Speaker of the House Matt Ritter, D-Hartford. “It just didn’t work out. I enjoyed working with Tom. I thought we worked well to help the university.”
“On behalf of the State of Connecticut, I want to thank Tom Katsouleas for his time leading Connecticut’s flagship institution of higher education, UConn,” Gov. Ned Lamont said in a statement. “I had the pleasure of working with President Katsouleas since he started leading Husky Nation in 2019. His energy and enthusiasm for UConn is infectious, and I always enjoyed spending time with him, hearing about his ideas for the university.
“He and members of the Board of Trustees agreed that it was time for a change in leadership, and I look forward to working with the Board of Trustees to find a suitable replacement who shares their vision of growth, and building on its reputation as one of the top public institutions of higher learning in the country,” he added.
Next, UConn will begin its search for a new president.
“Hopefully, it will begin quickly and they can find someone to be there for a while and continue to make the flagship state university the best it can be,” Ritter said in a Thursday phone interview.
Katsouleas, a physicist and inventor, signaled plans to continue working at UConn as a tenured faculty member.
“I look forward to contributing further to the continued success of the state’s flagship institution of higher education as a member of our distinguished faculty,” he wrote in the letter.
The transition from president to tenured faculty member was made possible by a provision of his contract that entitles him to post-presidency benefits, including a position in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering.
Katsouleas’s predecessor, Susan Herbst, held the position for eight years before him and is now a political science professor at UConn’s Stamford campus. According to OpenPayroll.ct.gov, Herbst’s projected annual salary for 2021 is $330,165.