Michele Moody-Adams, the first woman and the first African-American to head the undergraduate division of Columbia University, quit the gig just two weeks before classes are set to start. It’s the second high-profile administrative departure this summer; the university’s provost, whom the Times notes is also African-American, left to helm Stanford’s School of Education. Actually, Moody-Adams first sent a letter to alumni and donors announcing her intention to resign at the end of the academic year, citing administrative changes that would usurp her authority on “crucial policy, fund-raising and budgetary matters”; defining the college as a distinct entity within the university is exactly what she was recruited from Cornell to do in 2009. University President Lee Bollinger was less than pleased with her preemptive volley and suggested that Moody-Adams show herself the door sooner rather than later.
