UA President Judy Bonner Announces Plans to Leave Presidency

Colleges and Universities A-Z University of Alabama
1

<p>This is a surprise. Does anyone know who will replace her?</p>

<p><a href=“http://uanews.ua.edu/2014/12/ua-president-judy-bonner-announces-plans-to-leave-presidency/”>http://uanews.ua.edu/2014/12/ua-president-judy-bonner-announces-plans-to-leave-presidency/</a></p>

2

<p>It is a surprise. We thought she was a wonderful role model and an effective leader. I’m hoping it’s sincerely that she wants to go back to teaching and not some other ‘underlying’ story that’is influencing her to leave the presidency.</p>

3

<p>I don’t know why she is leaving the presidency, but she is a lovely woman and I am wishing her the best in all her future plans. I am also sure that Dr. Witt (UA Chancellor) will lead the search for a president who shares his vision for the future of The University of Alabama.
Roll Tide!</p>

4

<p>It’s good to hear that Judy will be returning to a position she really enjoys. Judy might have done better if UA would’ve had the courage to hire her instead of Guy Bailey and then having the fiasco which resulted in her becoming President anyway.</p>

<p>I’d like to see UA hire a President who will actually live in the President’s Mansion, which Drs. Bonner and Witt did not do, and who keep on bringing UA to prominence as an internationally acclaimed university while making decisions which work to end some of the negative “traditions” which put UA in the news for all the wrong reasons. UA deserves a President like that.</p>

5

<p>Well, Dr. Bonner already had a house. The President’s home gets a LOT of use for (official) social gatherings and meetings. I’m sure she probably has a private area to sleep in case she doesn’t want to drive home at night, but there would be very little privacy for a full-time resident. And despite the “mansion” moniker, it’s really not that big. Certainly not big enough for a president with young children.</p>

6

<p>@SEA_tide, what was the fiasco that led to Dr. Bonner ending up in the presidency anyway? I thought her predecessor had to withdraw shortly after taking the job because his wife was dying of cancer?</p>

<p>Do you think she was forced out of the job? I hope not. She seems like a really good person.</p>

7

<p>I think she has done a great job. Her nature is conservative and a bit methodical, but she has always ultimately done the right thing. Reading her letter, I don’t see how anyone can doubt that this was her sincere choice. 3 plus years is not a paltry amount of time anyway. I have told this before here, but a little over a year ago, on a Saturday morning!, she returned a call I had left for her regarding the public relations fiasco over the overt racism of that Fall’s sorority rush. She couldn’t have been nicer and more sincerely interested in this alum’s opinion. I never thought I would ever get a call from the president of UA, but that is just who she is. She has no children, has never been married, thus I think her long term service to UA has been her greatest life commitment.</p>

8

<p>It’s not like UA is not experiencing an amazing ascendancy under her leadership. There has only been even greater progress since she took on the presidency. So I strongly doubt she felt pushed out. </p>

9

<p>IIRC, Dr. Witt mentioned that Dr. Bonner was his first choice to become the UA President, but that others wanted someone who was or had been the president of another university. Guy Bailey’s quick departure was widely attributed to his decision to end fraternity pledging for a semester and generally upsetting the powers that be. He started applying for become president of other universities soon after he “stepped down” from the presidency and became a UA professor with a very high salary. Dr. Bonner was appointed president very quickly despite UA still having the contact information of the people who were runners up for the original opening.</p>

<p>Dr. Bonner was not the most popular with students who wanted UA to operate more transparently or who questioned the availability of facilities to handle an increased number of students as there were a few years when facilities like the Ferguson Center and Rec Center were extremely full.</p>

<p>Dr. Bonner is a very nice lady who has done a lot for UA and will continue to do so as a professor. Along with Dr. Witt, she further enhanced the expansion of UA which was started during the presidency of the late Andrew Sorensen, who left UA before his plans began to come to fruition. </p>

<p>If I’m remembering my UA history correctly, Dr. Witt was not UA’s first choice either as the Board had plans to make Barry Mason the non-interim president even though it had a hard time convincing him to become the interim president. Hiring Dr. Witt was an excellent decision on the part of the University.</p>

10

<p>UF and FSU recently completed their presidential searches, hopefully your search goes more like UF’s and less like FSU’s very painful experience. </p>

11

<p>Thanks for that background, @SEA_tide. Very interesting. </p>

<p>University presidents, on average, stay in their jobs a lot longer than 2 years (or 3+, depending on how you want to measure Dr. Bonner’s tenure), so I think that’s why the announcement caught a lot of people by surprise. Apparently the trend is towards shorter tenures, however:</p>

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<p><a href=“http://agb.org/knowledge-center/faq/what-average-tenure-college-or-university-president”>http://agb.org/knowledge-center/faq/what-average-tenure-college-or-university-president&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;