Susan Herbst to step down as UConn president

Susan Herbst, the first woman to serve as president of the University of Connecticut, announced that she will be leaving the job in the summer of 2019.

Herbst came to UConn in 2011 after serving as executive vice chancellor and chief academic officer for the University System of Georgia, overseeing 35 public universities in Georgia. During her leadership period, UConn saw major changes, including the expansion of the UConn Health facilities, the relocation of its suburban West Hartford campus to a downtown Hartford site, the closure of its Torrington campus and the establishment of a student residence hall at the Stamford campus.

Last fall, Herbst gained national prominence when UConn filed an amicus brief to support a lawsuit against President Donald Trump”™s announced plan to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Herbst also announced that the UConn Police Department would refuse to cooperate with federal law enforcement agencies in the arrest of illegal immigrant students and would continue to admit illegal immigrants as students.

“If DACA students are deported, forced to withdraw or leave the university, UConn will lose the tuition revenue that these students contribute,” she stated. “This is a significant impact on the university.”

Herbst announced that she would remain with UConn as a professor of political science at UConn”™s Stamford campus.