SOUTH KINGSTOWN – University of Rhode Island President Robert L. Carothers is set to officially announce that he will step down at the end of the current school year, after 18 years at the helm of the state’s largest public university.
The formal announcement will take place on URI’s main campus in Kingston at 10 a.m. tomorrow (Monday, Sept. 15), the university said in a news advisory. R.I. Higher Education Commissioner Jack R. Warner and Providence Municipal Court Chief Judge Frank Caprio, the chairman of the R.I. Board of Governors for Higher Education, are among those slated to attend.
Carothers’ tenure will end on June 30, 2009, the university said. (READ THE FULL MONDAY REPORT, including the names of search-committee members.)
Transition plans are to be outlined at the Monday news conference. Caprio will name the members and the chairperson of the search committee that will be charged with finding candidates for the post.
Carothers became URI’s 10th president in 1991, arriving in Kingston from the Minnesota State University System, where he had served as chancellor. Before his tenure in Minnesota, he had been president of Southwest Minnesota State University.
During his tenure at URI, the university has increased enrollment by about 33 percent; gained support to invest millions in buildings and improvements at all four of its campuses; and increased the school’s endowment from about $12 million to about $95 million, among other accomplishments, the university said.
The University of Rhode Island is a member – along with the Community College of Rhode Island and Rhode Island College – of the statewide public university system overseen by the R.I. Board of Governors for Higher Education. Additional information about the URI and Robert L. Carothers, its president since 1991, is available at www.uri.edu/president.
