Alecia A. DeCoudreaux, who announced last week that she would not seek to renew her contract as president of Mills College, was facing the possibility of a faculty no-confidence vote in her leadership when she made her decision.
In a memo to the campus, sent on Thursday, Ms. DeCoudreaux said she would step down in June 2016 after five years as president of Mills, a liberal-arts college for women in Oakland, Calif. She cited a desire to spend more time with her husband and her mother, but did not acknowledge simmering unrest among professors.
Juliana Spahr, an English professor, said the college’s faculty was considering a vote of no confidence in Ms. DeCoudreaux as early as Monday.
“She has had a rocky presidency, a complicated time,” Ms. Spahr said.
In a letter to the college’s Board of Trustees, a draft of which was provided to The Chronicle, the Faculty Executive Committee said an imminent vote would “call for the immediate resignation of the president.” The letter cited a “lack of meaningful leadership” and “consistent refusal to collaborate or consult with faculty on college affairs or to act on ideas put forward by faculty.”
In an interview on Friday, Ms. DeCoudreaux, who is 60, said her decision had not in any way been influenced by the possibility of a no-confidence vote. Indeed, she did not even mention the matter in her first conversation with The Chronicle, saying in a subsequent interview that she did not see the relevance of the vote.
“If there were such a vote, it’s an indication of the fact that all day, every day, I make the tough decisions the board expects of me,” she said. “Sometimes they don’t sit well with the faculty.”
Those tough decisions have included staff layoffs and a slowdown of hiring at Mills, which has experienced financial struggles similar to other women’s colleges. In November, Moody’s Investors Service downgraded the college’s debt rating to one notch above junk-bond status and characterized its outlook as “negative.”
Ms. DeCoudreaux came to Mills from the pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly, where she had worked for nearly three decades in various positions, most recently as vice president and general counsel. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Wellesley College and later served as chair of the board of the selective liberal-arts institution for women in Massachusetts.
At Mills, the president said, some professors had trouble accepting her unconventional background and viewed her as overly corporate in her approach.
Women’s colleges have long faced challenges, but the recent surprise closure of Sweet Briar College, a women’s college in Virginia, has created renewed anxiety about the stability of similar institutions. Ms. DeCoudreaux acknowledged that Mills has faced some financial difficulties, but she said the college’s relatively steady enrollment and endowment of $189 million — more than twice that of Sweet Briar — place it in a more stable position.
During Ms. DeCoudreaux’s tenure, Mills made news for its early adoption of an application process for transgender students. The policy states that the college’s undergraduate program, which admits only women, is open to applicants “not assigned to the female sex at birth” but who identify as female. The graduate program at Mills is coed.
Ms. DeCoudreaux, who lives with her elderly mother, said she planned to move to the East Coast and had no desire to return to the pharmaceutical giant, where she spent most of her career.
Jack Stripling covers college leadership, particularly presidents and governing boards. Follow him on Twitter @jackstripling, or email him at jack.stripling@chronicle.com.
