Stanford University President to Step Down in 2016
Hennessy, 62, regarded as the driving force behind transforming Stanford into a prestigious academic institution, said he will depart his post in summer 2016. Under Hennessy, Stanford has eclipsed Harvard University as the most selective school in the country for the past two years. The announcement Thursday at the university’s Faculty Senate meeting came as a surprise to most.
“The time has come to return to what brought me to Stanford – teaching and research. Maintaining and improving this university is the work of many people, and I am deeply appreciative of the dedication of so many colleagues to Stanford and its students,”Hennessy said to the Faculty Senate, where he received a standing ovation.
Hennessy joined Stanford’s faculty in 1977 as an assistant professor of electrical engineering and went on to lead the Computer Science Department and serve as dean of the School of Engineering. He became president in 2000. He currently serves on the boards of Google and Cisco Systems.
The school is credited for spawning more than 5,000 companies founded by graduates and faculty, including Google, Yahoo! and LinkedIn. Stanford was the first university to collect more than $1 billion in donations in a single year and is the fourth-richest U.S. university with a $21.4 billion endowment.
A search committee will be named in the coming weeks to find a replacement.
