University of Connecticut Provost Carl Lejuez, the school’s chief academic officer, will be departing in June to become the executive vice president and provost at Stony Brook University in New York, UConn’s Interim President Radenka Maric said in an email blast to the school’s employees and students Wednesday afternoon.
The announcement was made following a UConn Board of Trustees meeting, which was held Wednesday morning.
Lejuez has served as UConn’s chief academic officer since 2020. He has served as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs.
In her email to staff and faculty, Maric wrote that even though Lejuez started at UConn soon after the global health pandemic he “played an absolutely essential role in leading the academic enterprise through this immensely challenging and fraught period. He did so with the utmost skill, relying on his great foresight, determination and deep understanding of the needs of our faculty, students, and staff. It is difficult to overstate the level of effort he and his talented staff in the provost’s office needed to put forward in cooperation with countless others at UConn in order to do this successfully and continue to address the concerns and meet the needs of our academic community at this time.”
Maric said she’d be announcing an interim provost “in the coming days.”
The announcement comes at a time when the university is actively looking for a new president. Maric was named interim president in January. She replaced Andrew Agwunobi, who was also interim president. Agwunobi replaced Thomas Katsouleas, who stepped down abruptly as UConn president after only a few years on the job.
At Wednesday’s board of trustees meeting, it was announced that if “everything goes according to plan” a new permanent president could be on board by early September.
In addition, the university has recently announced plans to invest millions of dollars in research. At its March 30 meeting, the board announced plans to invest $46 million in research, entrepreneurship faculty and new lab space and equipment as part of a plan to increase research and new business start-up ventures. The $46 million is subject to approvals by the State Bond Commission.
