Marked by large-scale campus protests, congressional hearings on antisemitism and waning public trust, 2024 was a hard year for college presidents.
As with every year, top leaders came and went. Some garnered more attention than others, either because of who they are or the circumstances surrounding their arrival (or departure). Inside Higher Ed has compiled a list of presidential hires that made a splash, as well as leaders who left amid controversy during the year.
But with numerous presidential vacancies filled every year, how should we define what makes a splashy hire?
Michael Harris, a professor of higher education at Southern Methodist University, wrote by email that he would define a splashy hire in two ways: It’s either someone regarded as an academic superstar, or it’s a “well-known sitting president or super established provost moving into a presidency.”
(In a caveat, Harris acknowledged that his definition “privileges those with more prestige” and ignores “presidents at smaller schools that may well be rock stars” but lack name recognition.)
Larry Ladd, subject matter specialist at the Association of Governing Boards of Universities and Colleges, emphasized nontraditional presidents in his definition of a splashy hire, citing as an example Ted Carter at Ohio State University (who was not under consideration this year, since he was hired in 2023). Carter had a long military career before he was hired as president of the University of Nebraska and later Ohio State. Another example would be a former governor, like Terry Sanford at Duke University, Ladd said. (A more recent example would be former Indiana governor Mitch Daniels, who was president of Purdue University from 2013 to 2022.)
“But I can’t think of anyone like that in 2024,” he noted.
When hiring a president, most universities tend to go the safe route, Ladd said, prioritizing candidates “who embody their values and mission and will improve the place a little bit.”
By the same token, what makes a messy exit from a presidency? In this context, Inside Higher Ed has defined it as a resignation or termination fraught with tension—or a case in which details emerged after the fact that indicate the president left for reasons other than the ones originally given.
Ladd added that sometimes presidents were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.
The list below, presented in chronological order, is not intended to be comprehensive. It also does not include presidents who were hired in 2023 and took office this year.
Splashy Hires
Jon Alger, American University
After 12 years leading James Madison University, Alger made the jump to American, trading a public university in Virginia for a private institution 130 miles away in Washington, D.C.
Alger was credited with overseeing a boom in research funding and launching civic engagement and first-generation scholarship programs at JMU, which also saw its endowment double during his time there. At American University, he inherited a budget gap estimated at more than $60 million, which will likely force difficult decisions in his first year on the job.
Alger was hired in March and began in July.
Maurie McInnis, Yale University
McInnis jumped from Stony Brook University, where she was president from 2020 until she stepped into the top job at Yale in July. An art historian with three graduate degrees from Yale, McInnis began her academic career teaching at James Madison University and went on to hold administrative roles at the University of Texas at Austin and the University of Virginia.
McInnis is only the second woman to ascend to the Yale presidency since the university was founded in 1701.
Her path to the job—leaving a public university presidency for a spot in the Ivy League—breaks with recent Yale tradition; past hires typically held administrative roles before climbing to the top.
Julio Frenk, University of California, Los Angeles
Frenk was president of the University of Miami from 2015 until earlier this year, when he was hired to lead UCLA, replacing long-serving chancellor Gene Block, who retired at the end of July.
Born in Mexico, Frenk earned a bachelor’s degree at the National Autonomous University of Mexico before earning multiple graduate degrees at the University of Michigan. During his transnational career, Frenk worked for the World Health Organization, served as Mexico’s minister of health from 2000 to 2006, and was dean of the faculty at Harvard University’s T. H. Chan School of Public Health from 2009 to 2015 before decamping for Miami.
Frenk will formally assume the UCLA chancellorship on Jan. 1.
John Fry, Temple University
The longtime president of Drexel University didn’t have to leave Philadelphia for his next job, making the cross-town move to Temple.
Fry is a rare three-time college president. After working in higher education consulting, he served as an administrator at the University of Pennsylvania before holding presidencies at Franklin & Marshall College from 2002 to 2010 and then Drexel from 2010 until this year. He holds a bachelor’s degree from Lafayette College and an M.B.A. from New York University.
Hired in July, Fry took office in November.
Suresh Garimella, University of Arizona
Hired away from the University of Vermont, where he’d served as president since 2019, Garimella stepped into a role that will require him to hit the ground running and make difficult decisions as the University of Arizona grapples with a budget deficit recently estimated at $65 million.
A mechanical engineer by training, Garimella earned his bachelor’s degree at the Indian Institute of Technology in Madras before coming to the U.S., where he completed a master’s program at Ohio State University and earned his doctorate at the University of California, Berkeley.
Garimella, who has held faculty jobs at various universities in the U.S. and abroad, spent much of his career at Purdue University, where he served in a variety of roles, including executive vice president for research and partnerships, before he left to lead the University of Vermont.
Hired in August, Garimella started as Arizona president in October.
Messy Exits
Claudine Gay, Harvard University
Gay was the first—and one of the biggest—resignations of the year, stepping down in early January following the one-two punch of a widely panned appearance at a congressional hearing on campus antisemitism and plagiarism allegations, which prompted corrections to two articles.
Hired in late 2022, Gay was the first Black person—and second woman—to lead Harvard. She took office in 2023 and served roughly six months before resigning at the start of 2024, making her presidency the shortest in the university’s nearly 400-year history.
She remains a tenured faculty member at Harvard.
Wiebe Boer, Calvin University
Accused of “unwelcome and inappropriate communication and attention toward a non-student member of the community,” according to a university statement, Boer resigned in February.
While the Christian university in Michigan noted Boer had done nothing of a sexual or physical nature, an external investigation found that he sent “inappropriate” communications, which were deemed “inconsistent with the high standard of conduct and character expected of the president of Calvin University.”
Boer then sued Calvin for breach of contract and defamation but eventually dropped his lawsuit, and Calvin announced it had “resolved the matter.” The university offered no specifics on an agreement.
Mike Lee, Sonoma State University
Like many campuses, Sonoma State was roiled by pro-Palestinian student protests in the spring. And like a handful of other institutions across the nation, Sonoma State struck a deal with protesters in May. Lee agreed to some student demands, including a promise not to pursue study-abroad programs, faculty exchanges and other collaboration with Israeli institutions. That agreement effectively constituted an academic boycott of Israel, prompting swift blowback from state officials and some faculty members, who accused Lee of deferring power to student protesters.
California State University System chancellor Mildred García quickly announced that Lee had been placed on administrative leave, accusing him of insubordination.
Lee, who had served as president since 2022, retired in May amid the fallout from the controversy. Sonoma State has since walked back much of what Lee promised student protesters.
Roger Ramsammy, Hudson Valley Community College
Ramsammy was placed on administrative leave in May following a human resources complaint. While college officials did not specify the nature of the complaint against him, local media later reported that Ramsammy had been accused of sexual harassment by an HVCC employee.
Ramsammy was fired with cause in June and did not receive a severance package.
Ben Sasse, University of Florida
When Sasse announced he was stepping down in July after less than 18 months on the job, he attributed his abrupt departure to his wife’s worsening health condition. But since he resigned, his stated reason has come under question, given his profligate spending and other issues.
Sasse spent more than $17.3 million in his first year as he doled out lucrative contracts to consulting firms, hired associates into plum jobs and even dropped $38,000 on sushi. Reports following his exit indicate Sasse’s resignation was forced due to conflict with UF’s board—which officials have denied. A promised state investigation into his spending has yet to materialize.
Sasse, who still holds a faculty role, will make $1 million a year through 2028.
In the aftermath of his exit, critics have argued that Sasse—a former Republican U.S. senator from Nebraska—lacked the experience needed for the job and was not properly vetted by the university.
Stephen Easton, Dickinson State University
In July, Dickinson State’s full-time nursing faculty resigned en masse in protest of heavy workloads and concerns over accreditation. They pointed the finger at the administration on the way out, arguing that changes to faculty credit hour production requirements would expand their class sizes, undermining the personal, hands-on way nursing education is usually delivered.
Days later, Easton resigned, blaming the North Dakota Board of Nursing for allegedly shutting down a plan to quickly hire new faculty members for Dickinson State’s nursing program.
“Now the North Dakota Board of Nursing has told me that I cannot fight for our students, that I cannot even look for new Nursing faculty members. Here is the bottom line: The North Dakota Board of Nursing has prohibited me, and the other administrators at DSU, from even trying to find new faculty members for DSU’s Nursing students,” Easton claimed in his resignation letter.
The North Dakota nursing board disputed the allegation, arguing it had raised compliance concerns in the wake of the resignations but “DID NOT force” his resignation or prevent him from hiring faculty members.
Minouche Shafik, Columbia University
Shafik temporarily won over Congress by taking a harder line during her campus antisemitism hearing in April than her peers had earlier. But back on campus, she appeared to lose the support of faculty members, who accused her of throwing them under the bus. A pro-Palestinian student encampment sprang up the same day she appeared on Capitol Hill, launching a new phase in the protest movement as activists on dozens of other U.S. campuses followed suit.
Shafik was caught between competing forces. Some Congress members called on her to resign for not doing enough to crack down on the protests, and a handful of prominent Jewish donors pulled their support. Then, when she asked police to clear the student encampment, leading to more than 100 arrests, outraged students and faculty lambasted her.
She survived the pressure for several more months before stepping down abruptly in August to take a job in international development with the United Kingdom’s foreign secretary.
Ron Liebowitz, Brandeis University
Following a public fight with the governing board over a contract extension and job and budget cuts—as well as a faculty vote of no confidence—Liebowitz resigned from the Brandeis presidency in November.
Other pressures included declining enrollment and a budget gap that he inherited with the job, which he shrank but was never able to fully close. He also faced backlash for his handling of pro-Palestinian protests in the fall of 2023, when several students were arrested and some forcefully detained.
Liebowitz, who previously served as president of Middlebury College, had led Brandeis since 2016.