Drake is Stepping Down at End of Academic Year

From the LA Times (Teresa Watanabe): University of California President Michael V. Drake announced Wednesday he would step down at the end of 2024-25 academic year from the nation’s top public research university system after managing the pandemic, campus policing, tumultuous protests and budget woes during what will have been a challenging five-year tenure.

Drake, 74, brought leadership experience, academic credentials, political savvy and personal qualities that helped steady UC at a time of turmoil when he took the helm in 2020 after serving for four decades in the UC system and then as president of The Ohio State University. During his UC presidency, the pandemic blew up campus budgets and sowed uncertainty over reopening classrooms. The 2020 killing of George Floyd by a white police officer triggered demands to defund campus law enforcement. Relationships with Sacramento had frayed, jeopardizing state funding. Then last year campuses were roiled by protests over the Israel-Hamas war...

Full story at https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2024-07-31/uc-president-drake-to-step-down-after-managing-pandemic-policing-protests-budget-woes.