(AP) -- Texas A&M University System Chancellor Mike McKinney announced his resignation Tuesday after five years of leading the 120,000-student system through record expansion, controversy and an escalating debate over the future of higher education in Texas.
McKinney wrote in a memo to system staff that he would step down July 1. A one-time chief of staff to Gov. Rick Perry, McKinney did not elaborate on the reasons for retiring beyond saying the time had come for him to step aside.
"I am proud of our collective accomplishments, and I am most proud that we now 'act like a system,"' McKinney said.
No replacement was immediately named. Richard Box, chairman of the TAMU System board of regents, said in a statement that the process to find a successor would begin in the near future.
Under McKinney, enrollment at Texas A&M campuses increased by nearly 17,000 students and $1.5 billion in new construction was spent. The system opened two new campuses in Killeen and San Antonio, and record enrollment was seen at the nine other campuses, including the flagship Texas A&M University in College Station.
Yet his tenure was not without controversy. In 2009, Texas A&M students and faculty criticized McKinney following the abrupt resignation of the first female and first Hispanic president in the 134-year history of the flagship campus. McKinney had personally given Elsa Moreno low marks for leadership and management in her first year on the job.
Before becoming chancellor, McKinney served as Perry's chief of staff from 2001 to 2002, and served as commissioner of the Texas Health and Human Services Commission after being appointed by then-Gov. George Bush in 1995.
McKinney is stepping down amid efforts to reform higher education throughout Texas. Last year, the TAMU system received a rebuke from leading higher education observers after compiling a spreadsheet of faculty professors that showed who generated revenue and who didn't.
It was produced in the wake of proposals to separate teaching and research budgets at Texas colleges and universities. The proposed reforms led to a group of 22 "distinguished alumni" of Texas A&M University who warned of weakening the school's academic reputation.
(Copyright ©2011 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
