COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The embattled chancellor of the University of Missouri’s flagship campus in Columbia says he’s stepping down at the end of the year to take a different position.
Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin’s announcement Monday came hours after the university system’s president, Tim Wolfe, said he was resigning, effective immediately.
Black student groups had been calling for leadership changes at the university, saying it had done a poor job of responding to complaints about racial issues, including that minority students had been subjected to slurs.
The deans of nine university departments wrote to Wolfe and the university system’s governing board on Monday calling for Loftin’s removal, citing a “deep concern about the multitude of crises on our flagship campus.”
As president, Wolfe oversaw all four University of Missouri campuses.