Many questions on UConn president’s departure

The stunning announcement Thursday that the University of Connecticut is again looking for a new president raises questions that may not be answered for some time. But regardless of what we learn, this is a major embarrassment for the state’s flagship university and should bring new scrutiny to the hiring process.

UConn President Tom Katsouleas, in a letter dated March 13, told the school’s board of trustees he would resign effective June 30, but his tenure may not even last that long. It’s hard to believe the news stayed a secret for two months, and it raises questions of what the university has been doing in the meantime to prepare for a transition. No one is going to come out of this situation looking good.

Katsouleas arrived at UConn in October 2019 after serving as executive vice president and provost at the University of Virginia. His arrival was only months before the COVID-19 pandemic threw all of society into turmoil, with higher education taking a particularly hard hit. University administrators across America were faced with unprecedented questions of how to maintain safety while emptying campuses and holding remote classes that professors had not prepared for.

But UConn was hardly alone in these difficulties, and the university has seemingly weathered the pandemic as well as could be hoped. There’s surely much more at play that led to Katsouleas’ departure so soon into a five-year contract.

Reporting Thursday from the Hartford Courant showed Katsouleas frustrated at high labor costs in Connecticut, including complaints the state was losing out on research grants because of Connecticut’s historic underfunding of pension and health care benefits. There’s some truth to those concerns, but this is not a situation that has worsened in the past 16 months, so whatever worries he has now were certainly present when Katsouleas accepted the job. If anything, the future is brighter in terms of Connecticut paying its obligations to its current and former work force.

UConn has made great strides in the past generation, to the point that it is out of reach academically even for some high-achieving in-state students. It has continually climbed the national ranks of public universities, and has committed to increasing its research spending to go along with its continuing spate of new buildings on campus.

But with so much public investment at stake, the university has an obligation to the rest of the state. A president’s sudden resignation barely a year into a long-term contract is enough to raise questions of whether the university and its leaders know what they’re doing. The next hire, whoever replaces Katsouleas, now takes on even greater importance. The state can’t get this wrong twice.

Among Connecticut’s top calling cards is its highly educated population, and the state’s namesake public university has a major role to play in our economic future. The progress UConn has made in recent decades is real, but its future status is not guaranteed. Leadership is vital, and that starts with telling the rest of the state how we got where we are.

UConn needs to answer some questions.

With so much public investment at stake, the university has an obligation to the rest of the state.