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San Francisco State University President Leslie Wong announced Monday he will retire next spring at the end of the academic year, his seventh year leading the sprawling campus of 30,000 students.

Wong’s tenure, shorter than that of his predecessor, Robert Corrigan, who held the job for 24 years, has been marked by extensive fundraising, campus renovations and occasional clashes with the College of Ethnic Studies.

Wong, 68, arrived in 2012 as San Francisco State’s 13th president. In July, the California State University trustees gave him a 3 percent raise, bringing his base pay to $367,690. His pending retirement means three of the 23 CSU campuses will be searching for a new president. Also leaving next spring are Lisa Rossbacher of Humboldt State, and Karen Haynes of Cal State San Marcos.

On Monday, Timothy White, chancellor of the CSU system, pointed to improved graduation rates at San Francisco State under Wong’s leadership.

“San Francisco State has made remarkable progress in improving student success with graduation rates reaching all-time highs,” White said in a statement. “The increase in graduation rates for students from traditionally underserved communities is particularly commendable.”

Those numbers were difficult to verify because the campus provided graduation data of underrepresented minority students only for the first three years of Wong’s tenure.

A sampling of those rates, for black and Latino freshmen, shows mixed performance. For black freshmen, the average six-year graduation rate stood at 39 percent after Wong’s first year, then fell to 34.5 percent before rising to 42 percent in 2015. The four-year rate showed a similar pattern, standing at 11 percent after Wong’s first year, falling to 7 percent, then growing to 14.5 percent in 2015.

For Latino freshmen, the average six-year rate was 45 percent after Wong’s first year, rose to 48 percent, then dropped to just below 47 percent in 2015. The four-year rate was 15 percent after the president’s first year, then fell to 14.5 percent, and landed at 13.4 percent in 2015. (San Francisco State is a “Hispanic Serving Institution,” meaning that at least 1 in 4 students is Latino.)

More recently, the average six-year graduation rate for freshmen of all ethnicities was 53.6 percent in 2017, up from 53.2 percent a year before. The four-year rate was 17.8 percent in 2017, down slightly from 18 percent 2016.

Wong focused strongly on fundraising, expanding outreach to alumni living abroad, according to a campus statement. With money from his “Bold Thinking” campaign, the campus added new scholarships, built a health center, renovated the gymnasium, jump-started the athletic program, and constructed its first new academic building — “Liberal & Creative Arts” — in 25 years.

Wong has also worked with the adjacent Holloway (Avenue) Mixed-Use Project, a public-private partnership expected to enable more student housing and street-level businesses.

White praised Wong’s fundraising as a “tremendous success” that will “benefit future students, as well as the entire San Francisco community.”

One rocky moment in Wong’s tenure came in February 2016, when students calling themselves the Third World Liberation Front staged a hunger strike, while hundreds of others demanded that Wong not only shield the school’s beloved College of Ethnic Studies from threatened cuts, but expand it.

Ethnic Studies was created in 1969 and remains the nation’s only college on a university campus devoted to non-European history and cultural programs.

“It’s the jewel in the crown at San Francisco State, and should be revered above all else — but it isn’t,” said James Martel, a political science professor and president of the faculty union. The college, he said, continues to struggle for funds and is given too few tenure-track professors.

Martel also described low morale among faculty across the entire campus.

“It’s bad,” he said, adding that “faculty feel besieged” by administrative efforts to micromanage their classrooms. He also noted that faculty have lodged about a dozen complaints, including some formal grievances, alleging racial discrimination.

“I think President Wong does have an appreciation for some of these problems, but a new administration hopefully will be more successful in correcting them,” Martel said.

Wong took a different view. Regarding the College of Ethnic Studies, he said in an interview Monday that the campus has “established a fair and open process” around budgeting that resolved many of the complaints. In 2016, Wong also co-signed an agreement with the hunger strikers that met their demands by promising numerous changes, including two new full-time Africana Studies professors, and another two for an Arab and Muslim studies program.

Nancy Gerber, a biochemistry professor and chair of the Academic Senate, said faculty leaders have mainly been pleased with Wong.

“He seems to listen to us, and when (we) push back on issues we disagree with, he has backed down or slowed down,” Gerber said. “We’ve had a good relationship with him.”

She conceded, however, that Wong’s relationship has not gone as smoothly with all faculty.

Wong acknowledged that the school “is ready for a new leader. I genuinely believe it was the right moment.” And after 46 years in academia, he said, “I’m really looking forward to being a grandpa.” He and his wife, Phyllis Wong, have three sons and eight grandchildren.

Wong said he is particularly pleased at having moved the graduation ceremony from San Francisco State to AT&T Park. He said about 38,000 people show up at the ballpark each year to cheer on their kids — many of whom are the first in their family to graduate.

“It’s a powerful symbol that they’ve achieved something,” he said. “And I feel pretty good about that.”

Nanette Asimov is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: nasimov@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @NanetteAsimov