Seligman quits, says UR's interests 'best served with new leadership'

University of Rochester President Joel Seligman announced his resignation Thursday, just hours after the release of a report on sexual misconduct on campus.

The news came late Thursday afternoon, just as his silence on the Mary Jo White report was becoming conspicuous. That report, which examined the university's response to sexual misconduct allegations in the Brain and Cognitive Sciences department, largely approved the role Seligman and his cabinet played in the affair.

His decision to resign, though, was made before the White report came out.

In an email to the campus, he wrote: "It is clear to me that the best interests of the University are best served with new leadership, and a fresh perspective to focus on healing our campus and moving us forward in a spirit of cooperation and unity."

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In a statement, Board of Trustees President Danny Wegman wrote: "President Seligman has been a brilliant, transformative leader of University of Rochester who will long be remembered for substantially expanding our academic programs and our campus, broadening our student and faculty diversity, strengthening our finances, increasing our enrollment and securing Rochester’s place among America’s finest academic institutions. We thank him for his distinguished service to our university, our community and our state and we wish him well."

Seligman, 68, became UR's 10th president in 2005, replacing Thomas Jackson. He oversaw a massive expansion of the school's enrollment and endowment.

During his tenure, enrollment increased 40 percent to 11,648 students. Total net assets grew from $2.1 billion in 2009 to $3.5 billion in 2017, helped in large part by a $1.4 billion fundraiser completed in 2016.

In that time, the University of Rochester Medical Center added its Wilmot Cancer Center and Golisano Children's Hospital and the Eastman Theatre was renovated and expanded.

"It has been the greatest honor of my life to have served the University of Rochester for the last twelve and a half years," he wrote to faculty.

Beyond his role in academia, Seligman was instrumental in the university's emergence as the most prominent employer in the Rochester area. The school is at the center of nearly every civic venture in Monroe County, in keeping with Seligman's vision of an outward-facing institution.

"The university cannot be apart from the community, but is a vital part of it," he told the Democrat and Chronicle in 2010.

Erica Fee, the founder and producer of the KeyBank Rochester Fringe Festival, said Seligman was instrumental in bringing the arts festival to the region. He began promoting the idea of a community-wide arts festival in 2008, and that eventually morphed into the popular Fringe Festival.

"We do feel that he’s been an absolutely massive supporter both of the community and the arts," said Fee, a UR graduate who delivered the 2016 commencement speech. "Without him, we would not exist."

Seligman was a major force in regional economic development efforts, particularly through his past co-leadership of the Finger Lakes Regional Economic Development Council.

In a statement, Greater Rochester Chamber of Commerce President Bob Duffy said: "I can say emphatically that no leader of the University of Rochester has done more for the community than Joel Seligman. He has broken down walls and created outreach opportunities from education to economic development, impacting almost every area of the fabric of life in the city of Rochester."

Jennifer Leonard collaborated often with Seligman as president of the Rochester Area Community Foundation. She said his tenure had "resulted in remarkable gains for both institution and community, and today’s decision is right and critical for both as well.

"Now the university can move forward with fresh leadership and heal, learn, and grow from the difficulties."

In the last few years, Seligman had to steer the institution through successive crises, first over racism on campus, then sexual harassment.

Despite having been largely cleared in the White report, Seligman's standing on campus took a beating in the last several months. He was sharply criticized at a closed-door meeting with the Faculty Senate, then named prominently in a lawsuit by the complainants against Florian Jaeger.

As recently as this week, the Faculty Senate Executive Committee wrote: "(Seligman) has not responded to the university community's crisis in confidence with a strong, renewed commitment to shared governance or with increased transparency in decision making."

Richard Aslin, one of the Jaeger complainants and a prominent UR researcher for over 30 years who left the university in protest, said Thursday: "I would have to say that President Seligman's resignation is some vindication that what we were doing (raising the complaints) is right."

Rochester Mayor Lovely Warren called his resignation "a positive step forward toward establishing a culture at this important local institution that fosters openness in an environment of respect."

In his resignation letter, Seligman wrote: "In everything that I have done, I have been animated by a single overriding criterion: What is the best interest of our University? I do so again today.



"From that perspective, it is clear to me: The felt needs of our university and our nation have changed. The university today needs a new president. I say this with no bitterness, no regret, but seeing facts for what they are. The university today most needs a period of healing. I fully support this process."

Seligman said he intends to return to UR as a faculty member after a one-year sabbatical. He began his career in academia as a law professor specializing in financial regulation. His 11-volume "Securities Regulation" and history of the Securities and Exchange Commission are both landmark texts in that field.

Seligman came to Rochester from the Washington University School of Law, where he was dean from 1999 to 2005. Before that he was on the law school faculty at Arizona, Northeastern, George Washington and Michigan universities.

Seligman's resignation takes effect Feb. 28. No interim replacement has been named. His salary was $1.3 million, one of the highest in the country, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

JMURPHY7@Gannett.com

Includes reporting by staff writer Gary Craig

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