A Maryland university president resigned on Monday, weeks after a furor erupted on campus over faculty firings and a student newspaper article that quoted the president as comparing struggling freshmen to bunnies that should be drowned or shot.

The board of the university, Mount St. Mary’s in Emmitsburg, about 60 miles northwest of Baltimore, announced that the dean of the business school would replace the departing university leader, Simon Newman, as acting president effective immediately.

Mr. Newman, a former financial industry executive who was born in the United Kingdom and was in his first year as president, said the controversy over his administration at the nation’s second-oldest Catholic university had become too great a distraction.

“I believe it is the right course of action for the Mount at this time,” he said in a statement.

The decision was an abrupt reversal for Mr. Newman, who had vowed not to step down even after faculty members called for his resignation and his actions were denounced by advocates of academic and journalistic freedom.