U. of Tennessee’s Chancellor to Step Down and Return to Teaching

The chancellor of the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, Jimmy G. Cheek, will leave the job to return to the classroom, the Knoxville News Sentinel reported on Tuesday.

Mr. Cheek, 69, who has led the university since 2009, said he would remain in office until the Board of Trustees found a successor.

This academic year, Mr. Cheek defended the campus’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion when state legislators criticized it for promoting what they said was political correctness at the flagship university.

State lawmakers later defunded the office, which had been created during Mr. Cheek’s tenure.