(BLOOMINGTON, Ind.) — Indiana University president Michael McRobbie is retiring.
McRobbie will turn 70 in two months — he told IU’s Board of Trustees he’s ready to spend more time with his grandchildren. His final day will be June 30, the last day of the fiscal year.
McRobbie notes his retirement date has been penciled in since 2015, when the university extended his contract by a year to ensure he’d remain as president until after IU’s bicentennial celebration this year.
McRobbie says he’s proud of the university’s progress over the last 13 years, with the creation of IU’s international studies and public health schools, and expansions of the informatics and medical schools. And he says the university has expanded its international engagement, a step he says is critical if IU is to be a first-rate research institution. The Australian-born McRobbie says more than a fifth of IU’s faculty is foreign-born, and adds, “It is my hope that we will again see immigration and immigrants widely valued for how they strengthen the United States, and not demonized as undesirables.”
Trustees Harry Gonso and Melanie Walker will co-chair a search committee for McRobbie’s successor. Trustees president Michael Mirro notes higher education was in a transitional period even before the pandemic upended operations. He says the university’s 19th president will need a combination of academic experience and administrative and business skills.
Mirro calls McRobbie an “extraordinary” leader notes the pandemic will make McRobbie’s final year an eventful one. He credits McRobbie with crafting a comprehensive plan for reopening IU’s campuses while addressing the medical challenges of the pandemic.
McRobbie was IU’s chief information officer and vice president of academic affairs for 10 years before becoming president in 2007. His 14-year tenure as president when he leaves office will rank second only to Herman B Wells.
