The chancellor of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, Robert Jones, plans to step down at the end of the current academic year, according to a Wednesday news release.
Robert Jones who will have served nine years as chancellor at the state’s flagship public university, is currently considering an offer to stay on with the U. of I. system in some capacity to support the search for the next chancellor as well as continue offering his “considerable experience” in relation to expanding the system and Urbana-Champaign, the university system’s President, Tim Killeen, said in a news release.
Chancellor Jones is known for leading the university through the COVID-19 pandemic and reaching record enrollment levels this fall.
“Chancellor Jones understands, on a very profound level, the power of the university system to deliver when people need it most — our research prowess was never more evident than during the pandemic as the creator of a life-saving test for the virus and a partner in the drive to create a vaccine,” Killeen said in the news release.
The first African American chancellor at Urbana-Champaign, Jones started with the university in 2016 after more than 30 years as an “internationally respected authority on plant physiology and nationally recognized administrator,” the news release said. He is a native of Georgia and has a bachelor’s degree in agronomy from Fort Valley State College, a master’s degree in crop physiology from the University of Georgia and a doctorate in crop physiology from the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Jones will stay seated as chancellor until June 30, Killeen said in an email to the Tribune. In the meantime, the university will be starting the search for the next chancellor with the goal of hiring the new head by July 1. The search will be nationwide, Killeen said, with the hope of finding someone “who will build on the tremendously positive trajectory that Urbana-Champaign is currently on.”
The University of Illinois system reported a record number of enrollments in September with 97,772 students across U. of I.’s three campuses, including 59,238 students at Urbana-Champaign. Total enrollment at Urbana-Champaign during Jones’ tenure has grown 26%, according to the news release.
“From his first day on campus, Chancellor Jones has been relentlessly committed to delivering excellence at scale, and with him at the helm, the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has done just that through its expanded enrollment, through its commitment to growing its world-class faculty and through research that is helping meet the challenges of our time — feeding a growing global population, creating a sustainable economy and building the kind of just and equitable society we need,” Killeen said in the news release.
The university saw a number of launches and advancements under Jones’ leadership, like Illinois Commitment in 2018, which is a financial aid program that provides free tuition for four years for any Illinois resident whose family income is below $75,000.
Jones said in the news release Urbana-Champaign being “the greatest university in the world” made stepping down the “most difficult decision” in his 47 years in higher education.
“My time at Illinois has been the most profound experience of my professional life, and I thank every single campus community member for that,” Jones said. “We are at the high point in our 157-year history in terms of our educational and research impact. Next is a period of transition with our institutional strategy and collaborations. This is an appropriate time to look toward the next leader who will build on that momentum and promote the bold ideas for which Illinois is known.”
