Dan Fogel, president of the University of Vermont, announced on Wednesday that he would resign effective July 31.
Fogel is widely credited with putting UVM on sound financial and academic footing over the course of the last nine years. He created the Honors College, raised the school’s academic profile, embarked on the construction of new facilities and raised millions of dollars for the institution. Since 2002, Fogel also increased the size of the student body by 41 percent, according to a Vermont Public Radio report.
His decision comes in the wake of negative publicity about his wife, Rachel Kahn-Fogel. The Burlington Free Press and Seven Days, the alternative weekly, both ran extensive stories about a relationship between Kahn-Fogel and a member of the UVM staff. Fogel was not aware of his wife’s emotional attachment to Michael Schultz, vice president of development and alumni relations, until the newspapers cited emails between Schultz and Kahn-Fogel. The information surfaced in a divorce suit filed by Schultz’s wife. Another revelation came to light in the stories: Kahn-Fogel, according to her husband, had mental health problems.
The news reports unleashed a wave of events, including the dismissal of Kahn-Fogel from her role as a fundraising volunteer, the launch of an internal review of the situation and university rules, and Fogel’s initial decision to leave his post as president a year from now.
Fogel decided yesterday to accelerate his departure in order to take care of his wife. In a statement to the UVM community, he said he had tendered his resignation “for deeply personal reasons.”
“Suffice it to say that I care greatly about my wife and our marriage, and it has become increasingly clear to me that, in the face of difficult challenges, I cannot serve the University to the best of my ability while obeying the imperative need I feel today to devote significant time and my very best energies to taking care of her and myself,” Fogel wrote.
He was not available for comment. The UVM board of trustees accepted his resignation in a meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
The university will hire an interim president by Aug. 1 and conduct a yearlong search to find a new candidate to fill the role.
Rob Cioffi, chair of the UVM board of trustees, said “seeing his private life splashed across newspapers” over the last three months had taken a toll on Fogel, and he was not surprised that he had decided to leave much earlier than previously anticipated.
“I’m disappointed for Dan,” Cioffi said. “We’re looking out for what’s best for the university and for Dan. We’re moving on the trajectory he set us on.”
Cioffi said Fogel put the university on solid financial footing, increased the number and improved the caliber of student applicants and put UVM on the map as an academic institution. He pointed to the honors college, which now has 750 students, as an example of Fogel’s commitment to raising the bar at the university.
“He’s done an incredible job,” Cioffi said. “Dan Fogel’s legacy is the great growth of UVM.”
Though Cioffi described the scandal that engulfed Fogel as a “serious issue,” but he said no laws or university rules were broken. The board, he said, reacted in a proactive way and immediately called for an internal review, which will be released in mid-August. He anticipates that the review will lead to changes in school policies. But he emphasized that the university is not in “crisis mode.”
“I think this (the scandal) will be a blip,” Cioffi said. “We’re in a great position. This whole story doesn’t mar our reputation or our search in any way.”
Cioffi described the position of president as a 24/7 job, and “Dan realized he can’t give 100 percent (right now),” he said, because of the impact the negative publicity has had on his personal life. Cioffi said Fogel appears to be “comfortable” with the decision.
After a leave of absence, Fogel plans to return to the university in January 2013 as a professor of English.
The board of trustees will appoint an interim president next week and begin work on Aug. 1. Cioffi said the board wanted to ensure there is no “gap period” in the academic calendar; it has also created a case statement for the search committee.
Cioffi said the interim president will be someone who does not have an interest in the permanent position. “To have an interim president who wanted the job would be a roadblock,” he said.
Daniel Mark Fogel
President
July 20, 2011
To All Members of the University of Vermont Community,
After much soul-searching, I have decided to tender my resignation from the presidency of UVM effective July 31. I am doing so for the good of this wonderful University and for deeply personal reasons. Suffice it to say that I care greatly about my wife and our marriage, and it has become increasingly clear to me that, in the face of difficult challenges, I cannot serve the University to the best of my ability while obeying the imperative need I feel today to devote significant time and my very best energies to taking care of her and myself and, collaterally, to preparing to resume my work as a teacher and scholar, right here at UVM, in what my father always told me never to forget is the University’s highest rank, the rank of Professor. That for me will be a great joy, which I consecrate to his memory.
One can’t do a job like the one I have been in for the last nine years without having some regrets. And yet on balance, looking back over the course of the richly packed and intense years since 2002, there is no question in my mind that the successes we have had as a University—and the satisfaction I take in those successes, not to mention the gratitude I feel for the opportunity I’ve had to serve this distinctive University and the people of Vermont—far outweigh my regrets about things I wish I had done better and passages in the life of the institution I wish had unfolded differently.
So much, after all, has gone exceedingly well. In a University, as in a family, no one stands alone. We are all interdependent, and our accomplishments are without question collective ones. I will say again, one more time, how profoundly grateful I am to all members of the UVM family—to our faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends—for helping UVM to advance in so many ways during my tenure as president: among others, the reduction of the deferred maintenance backlog; the transformation of the physical campus with land acquisitions and new facilities for teaching, research, and student life; the expansion of the undergraduate, graduate, and medical student bodies; the institution of new programs, ranging from the Honors College and the Vermont Integrated Curriculum to the Transdisciplinary Research Initiative and the just-approved program of General Education; the rise in the academic caliber and the ethnic and racial diversity of the student body, in the creative and scholarly output of the faculty, in external funding, and in faculty salaries that rose from near rock-bottom to a market-competitive mid-range; the successful campaign for the University of Vermont, which ended in 2007, and, since that time, the rising philanthropic trend, against strong economic headwinds, with record private gifts to UVM in 2011and the auspicious launch this year of the UVM Foundation; the many ways in which new programs such as the Burak Distinguished Lecture Series and the James Marsh Professors-at-Large Program have energized the intellectual life of the campus; the rising competitiveness of UVM Athletics, capped by the just-announced seventh straight America East Academic Cup garnered by UVM’s varsity athletes; and above all the rise in the academic quality of UVM, which has in turn lifted UVM in the hearts, minds, and esteem of the people of Vermont and raised the University’s standing in the academy nationally. We set out to boost the competitive metabolism of UVM, and together we have. Had we not, we would not be well positioned, as we are today, to continue rising above the economic storms that began four years ago, and to recruit a great new president to lead the next phase of UVM’s strong advance.
I want to express special gratitude to the colleagues with whom I have worked most closely—to my three provosts, John Bramley, John Hughes, and Jane Knodell; to the leadership of UVM’s dedicated faculty, including Faculty Senate Presidents Julie Roberts, Jim Burgmeier, Justin Joffe, and Michael Gurdon and Vice-Presidents Susan Crockenberg and Judy Cohen; to several generations of Staff Council and student leaders; to the deans; to each of the vice presidents and their teams, and especially to four on whose professionalism, expertise, and counsel I have relied through this whole long presidential run: Fran Bazluke, Gary Derr, Tom Gustafson, and Karen Meyer; and to all of our key support staff, with special thanks to my professional executive assistant Michelle Atherton. My thanks and admiration go to the Board of Trustees, collectively and individually, for sustained support and guidance, no less through times of challenge than through so many shared triumphs over the course of these nine years, and most of all to my Board chairs, Bruce Lisman, Dean Maglaris, Jim Pizzagalli, Carl Lisman, Ian Boyce, and Rob Cioffi. I am tremendously proud of UVM and of all we have accomplished together, and I look forward to assisting the University in its continuing advance. I have been one lucky guy to have had this opportunity of a lifetime, nine years of service as the President of the University of the Green Mountains! Thank you, UVM; and thank you, Vermont.
Sincerely yours,
Daniel Mark Fogel
OFFICE OF THE PRESIDENT
349 Waterman Building
85 South Prospect Street, Burlington, VT 05405
(802)656-7878 • daniel.fogel@uvm.edu
