President David Adamany and Chairman of the Board of Trustees Howard Gittis publicly announced their retirements Thursday afternoon during an Executive Session of the Board of Trustees meeting.
Their retirement will be effective June 30, and a Presidential Search Committee has been appointed. This committee plans to choose the new president by May 9. The new chairman of the Board will also be chosen at that time.
Adamany’s tenure as president brought sweeping changes to the university, which included booming student enrollment, constant expansion and a drive to make Temple a nationally renowned research institution.
“I began my term as president when Howard became chairman and we want to give the new chairman an opportunity to work with a president that he or she may have a hand in selecting,” Adamany said. “I will say that there is a second reason, which is in September, I will be 70. And at 70 you don’t have quite the same energy that you did six years earlier.”
Adamany said if Gittis had chosen to remain the chairman of the Board, he would have continued as president.
President Adamany said he will take a leave of absence for the next school year, but plans to return to Temple in Fall 2007 as an undergraduate professor. Adamany said he will most likely teach in the political science department and the law school. Adamany has taught a course on the U.S. Supreme Court at Temple before.
“I’m planning to stay in Philadelphia. I’ll be on leave next year, which I’ll be glad to have after 21 years as a university president,” Adamany said. “Then I’m going to return to teaching.”
Gittis, who announced his retirement to the Board of Trustees in October 2005, said he will stay on as a member of the Board.
As chairman of the Board, Gittis said he thought Adamany’s legacy will be in the way students regard Temple University.
“What I wanted to see collocated in our student body was pride,” Gittis said. “Pride in being a graduate of Temple University, pride to wear the Temple “T,” pride to be an Owl. And, I think in six years, we’ve come a long way toward that. We have a proud student body, not someone being ashamed to go to a second-class institution.”
The Presidential Search Committee will begin its search immediately and will recommend candidates on May 3. The search committee will then vote and elect the new president from the list of candidates.
“We expect to have a new president by July 1,” Adamany said. “If we don’t, we’ll improvise a little bit.”
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