Edward L. Ayers, the University of Richmond president who was pulled into a recent controversy involving a trustee’s offensive jokes about gay people, said on Friday he intended to resign.
Mr. Ayers, a prominent scholar of the Civil War, said he planned to join Richmond’s faculty full time after he steps down, on June 30, 2015. By then, he will have been president for eight years.
In an email on Saturday, Mr. Ayers, who is 61, said the conclusion of the university’s capital campaign next year presented a natural opportunity for a transition of leadership. Any suggestion that the recent controversy had influenced his decision, Mr. Ayers said, would be “factually inaccurate and should not be implied.”
Last month, New York magazine published a recording of Paul B. Queally, a board member at Richmond and a generous donor to the university, telling jokes that many considered homophobic and sexist. The recording was surreptitiously made by a reporter, who sneaked into a 2012 meeting of a secret society of Wall Street financiers, whose members include Mr. Queally.
“This incident had nothing at all to do with my decision to return to teaching, writing, and advocacy for history,” Mr. Ayers wrote in his email. “My decision was made for the simple reason that the university has accomplished what it set out to accomplish, over the course of seven years in which many remarkably positive things have come to pass, and I have other things in my own life that I still need to accomplish.”
Mr. Ayers said that he would reach the end of his current contract term next year, and that he had begun talking with the board’s rector about his plans in January, before the controversy. He was required by the contract to declare his intentions by March, he said, and a Friday meeting of the board was his last opportunity to do so in person.
‘Grateful for Your Impatience’
There is little doubt that Mr. Queally’s comments put Mr. Ayers in a tight spot. The president is an outspoken advocate of civil rights, and he has taken some professional risks in the past by challenging the City of Richmond, the onetime Confederate capital, to more forthrightly reckon with its role in the brutal history of slavery.
But Mr. Ayers was uncharacteristically tight-lipped when the controversy erupted, waiting several days before he overtly condemned Mr. Queally’s remarks.
“I know that, prior to Mr. Queally’s apology, the remarks created questions among some about our genuine commitment to inclusivity,” Mr. Ayers wrote in an email to students and faculty and staff members on February 24. “For my own part, I am sorry that I allowed these questions to go unaddressed. Statements that subject people to ridicule based on their sexual orientation or gender are antithetical to our values, and I very much regret the hurt or insult caused to members of our community.”
Mr. Ayers spoke last week at a forum organized by a campus group for gay students, some of whom said they had been hurt and offended by Mr. Queally’s remarks. The Collegian, the university’s student newspaper, reported that Mr. Ayers had choked back tears as he addressed the group.
“It is humbling to see that no matter how hard we work, what we have built can be damaged quickly,” Mr. Ayers said. “But I hope it can be healed quickly as well. We can’t lose the work that all the people in this room have been doing. I’m grateful for your patience, and I’m grateful for your impatience as well.”
A Devoted Following
Charles A. Ledsinger Jr., rector of the university’s Board of Trustees, praised Mr. Ayers’s leadership in a written statement on Friday.
“The university is stronger today by every possible measure—in academic excellence, fiscal health, national and international reputation, and accessibility—because of President Ayers’ thoughtful leadership and vision,” Mr. Ledsinger said. “As you can imagine, the board accepted his decision with disappointment, but also with deep gratitude for his outstanding leadership over the past seven years.”
Mr. Ayers came to Richmond from the University of Virginia, where he was dean of the college and graduate school of arts and sciences. He was known to have a devoted following of students at Virginia, where some expected he might return as president some day.
In 2013, Mr. Ayers was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Obama.
One of his books, In the Presence of Mine Enemies: The Civil War in the Heart of America, 1859-1863 (W.W. Norton, 2003), won the Bancroft Prize in 2004.
