CSU Chancellor Timothy P. White announces retirement

California State University Chancellor Timothy P. White announced his retirement from the largest university system in the country Tuesday. 

“I found Chancellor White a wonderful person to work with because of his interpersonal skills and his unwavering commitment to the mission of the CSU – student success,” President Jane Close Conoley said.

White, 70, has been the CSU chancellor since 2012. He said he plans to retire by June 30, 2020, but will stay as late as December 2020 to help search for a successor.

“I will miss his leadership a lot,” Conoley said. “He is straight talking and principled. I think a big part of his legacy is his success in hiring fabulous vice chancellors for the system and hiring wonderful presidents for the campuses. 

White has led searches for 21 of the 23 CSU presidents – including Conoley. 

“That’s an amazing way to leave a mark on the system by hiring people who are as passionate as he is about student welfare and success with a clear commitment to shared governance and academic excellence,” Conoley said of White’s CSU presidential hirings.  

The CSU system is the largest in the nation with 52,000 staff and faculty and 481,000 students, according to the CSU. 

“It has been my great honor to work with our state’s elected leaders, our Board of Trustees and our campus, faculty, staff and student leaders to reinvest in our university to expand access and improve academic outcomes for the future,” White said in a statement Tuesday.

White’s policies drew criticism from the California Faculty Association in 2016 for increasing tuition after a six-year tuition freeze and giving larger raises to administrators than faculty.

According to Edsource, White has not decided what he will do after stepping down as chancellor, but he is considering becoming a professor of kinesiology at Long Beach State.