All Over Albany

UAlbany president Robert Jones is leaving

UAlbany president Robert Jones at the event this past Monday for the downtown campus corridor study.

UAlbany president Robert Jones announced Tuesday that he's leaving the university to become chancellor of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His last day at UAlbany will be September 30.

From a Jones statement sent to the university community:

This decision wasn't easy for me and my family. In fact, it was one of the most difficult dilemmas I've faced in more than 37 years in higher education. I hope you all know how much I've really enjoyed and loved serving this institution and working with all of you and the leadership team to advance the University at Albany to the next level of excellence. Although I had planned to retire in this position, the opportunity to lead one of the most highly-regarded land-grant institutions among America's public research universities and the flagship campus of the University of Illinois System is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Jones started in the position at UAlbany in 2013 after coming over from the University of Minnesota, where he was a senior vice president. SUNY has posted supportive statements from both chancellor Nancy Zimpher and board of trustees chair Carl McCall.

UAlbany started a lot of initiatives during Jones's tenure at the university, notably two new colleges -- the College of Emergency Preparedness, Homeland Security and Cybersecurity and the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences. Both have major new facilities in the works -- the emergency preparedness college on the Harriman State Office Campus and the engineering college on the downtown campus. It was just yesterday that Jones appeared at a public event related to promoting plans for the downtown campus.

In Jones's statement, he said McCall and Zimpher will be appointing an interim president for UAlbany at the board of trustees meeting in September.