Auburn’s Board Was Assessing the President. Now He’s Gone.

After two years as Auburn University’s president, Steven Leath is out.

The decision, which was announced in a news release late on Friday night, followed “extensive discussions about the university’s leadership” between Leath and a presidential-assessment working group of the Board of Trustees, the release stated.

University officials and members of the board did not immediately respond to requests on Saturday for more information about the reasons for Leath’s sudden departure. The board’s executive committee is slated to meet via conference call on Sunday to consider a “resolution regarding presidential actions.”

“As I’ve said many times, serving as Auburn’s president has been the highlight of my career,” Leath said in the statement. “I’m confident we leave Auburn stronger than when we arrived.”

Leath did not immediately respond on Saturday to a message on LinkedIn.

The trustees will convene soon to name an interim president, the news release states.

Following a national search, in 2017, Auburn’s board approved a five-year contract for Leath under which he earned $625,000 a year, the Opelika-Auburn News reported at the time.

Mike Clardy, a university spokesman, would not say on Saturday what the terms of Leath’s exit agreement might be — specifically whether the university has to buy him out of the remaining years on his contract.

Leath is among several presidents to resign or to be forced out this month, as many colleges and universities reach the end of their fiscal years. The presidents of Western Illinois University, Marist College, and Independence Community College, which was featured on the Netflix series Last Chance U, have all stepped down in recent days.

Michael Baginski, president of Auburn’s Faculty Senate, said the decision had caught the campus off guard.

“President Leath was very well liked by everyone I know, and he did so much in so little time,” Baginski, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, said in an email to The Chronicle. “He’s done everything very well, and everyone I know is surprised.”

In 2018, Leath announced that Auburn would hire 500 tenure-track faculty members by 2022.

Leath came to Auburn from Iowa State University, where he had been president for five years. Toward the end of his tenure at Iowa State, he came under criticism for damaging a university airplane while flying back from a family vacation in North Carolina — an accident that raised deeper concerns about his personal use of a university resource.

Just a few months into his tenure at Auburn, the university became embroiled in a larger basketball scandal, when Chuck Person, an assistant coach, was charged in connection with an FBI corruption investigation.

Person has pleaded guilty to accepting money for steering players toward a financial adviser.

The basketball controversy and others in athletics brought an end to Jay Jacobs’s tenure as Auburn’s athletics director.

Leath’s abrupt departure has the appearance of another failed presidency at Auburn, following what had been a period of relative calm under Jay Gogue, whose decade-long presidency preceded Leath’s appointment.

Before Gogue, several Auburn leaders had rocky tenures. William F. Walker resigned, in 2004, following a sports controversy and allegations of trustee micromanagement that had landed the university on probation with its accrediting agency. William V. Muse, Walker’s predecessor, who was forced out in 2001, cited untenable conflicts with a meddling board.

Wayne T. Smith, president pro tempore of the university’s board, illuminated little in a statement on Friday about what was behind the decision.

“Dr. Leath arrived with vision and enthusiasm to take Auburn to the next level,” Smith said. “We’re grateful for his dedication and commitment as Auburn made strides as a world-class public university.”

Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.