Northwestern President Morty Schapiro To Depart In August 2022

EVANSTON, IL — Northwestern University President Morty Schapiro announced Wednesday his contract will not be extended. He said he plans to step down next year, after nearly 13 years at the helm.

"This date was scheduled long ago, providing ample time to plan a smooth transition to my successor," Schapiro said in a message to the community.

"It has been my great honor to work alongside our illustrious faculty, staff, students, trustees and alumni during my time here," he said. "You have inspired me with your passion, dedication and resilience, especially during these most challenging times for our campus, our country and the world."

Schapiro pointed to increases in research funding and faculty prestige, nearly doubling the percentage of students from underrepresented and lower-income backgrounds as the acceptance rate fell to 7 percent and the endowment doubled to more than $12 billion.

The 16th president of the 170-year-old university also noted the 3.5 million square feet of buildings that have been added or renovated on campus during the past decade, including Welsh-Ryan Arena, Ryan Fieldhouse, the Walter Athletics Center, the Kellogg Global Hub, Kresge Hall, a biomedical research center, visitors center and musical arts center. That amounts to $2 billion in spending on construction and renovations.

"In the next 18 months, we have the opportunity to build our momentum as we prepare for the next chapter in Northwestern’s history," Schapiro said.

Schapiro was hired by Northwestern's board in 2009 after spending nine years as president of Williams College in Massachusetts. His initial five-year contract was extended twice and had been due to end at the end of the 2022 fiscal year, according to a news release.

“During President Schapiro’s tenure, Northwestern has further established itself as one of the world’s very finest academic institutions,” said J. Landis Martin, chairman of the Northwestern Board of Trustees. “Since he took office, the University has improved by every relevant measure. We will celebrate what we have achieved and continue to achieve under President Schapiro’s leadership. And, in the coming weeks, the Board of Trustees will announce steps toward identifying his successor, including the formation of a search committee that will represent Northwestern’s many constituencies.”

Evanston Township High School District 202 Superintendent Eric Witherspoon said Schapiro had a significant positive impact on Evanston, as well as the university.

“Our community could feel the difference in the town-gown relationship during his very first months here in Evanston, and he unfailingly has continued to build and strengthen relationships with our community during his entire tenure here," Witherspoon said in the release.

“President Schapiro created partnerships with ETHS beyond any collaborations that ever existed before or were ever imagined between ETHS and Northwestern," the superintendent said. "Because of his commitment to youth in our community, his vision for enhancing and enriching learning opportunities for our students, and his significant investment in Evanston students, he has made a difference for thousands of young lives here.”

Pat Fitzgerald, head coach of the school's football team, described Schapiro as the best university president in all of higher education.

“There is no more passionate Wildcats fan than Morty Schapiro; his belief in our students is unmatched. The transformational past decade for Northwestern Athletics and Recreation simply would not have been possible without his unwavering support, leadership and vision," Fitzgerald said. "President Schapiro has elevated ambitions across our community and prepared Northwestern to expect and earn excellence in everything it does.”

During the COVID-19 pandemic, Northwestern and its food service provider cut hundreds of non-faculty staff and slashed some benefits, ending the fiscal year in August 2020 with a deficit of about $90 million, with plans to reduce spending across departments. The school's credit rating with Moody's Investors Service was reduced in October 2019, but it still had the best credit among local private universities heading into the pandemic.

In addition to the financial and operational pressures of the pandemic, Schapiro has in recent months faced calls for his resignation from student protestors.

For several weeks in October, a group of protestors calling for the abolition of Northwestern's private police force convened nightly protests in Evanston, including a late-night visit to Schapiro's home. The university president said the anti-police protestors called him "piggy Morty," which he described as "dangerously close" to an anti-Semitic trope.

"I ask them to consider how their parents and siblings would feel if a group came to their homes in the middle of the night to wake up their families with such vile and personal attacks," Schapiro said. The protests continued, eventually leading to clashes with members of a network of suburban police deployed to the city.

And last month, a group of 80 women on the Northwestern faculty penned an open letter to Schapiro, Provost Kathleen Hagerty and the Northwestern community calling for an apology "for the abdication of leadership" over allegations of racist and sexist practices on the cheerleading squad.

"Many of us teach topics associated with the history of women, gender and patriarchy, and their intersections with racism and imperialism. We are frankly astounded that at the exact same time that we have been teaching our students about the baneful impacts of these phenomena in history and culture, the university where we work has evidently been engaging in them in blatant and illegal ways," the group said.

The female faculty's Feb. 14 open letter followed the filing of a federal civil rights lawsuit by a Northwestern senior and former cheerleader. Neither Schapiro nor Athletic Director Jim Phillips, who announced his resignation shortly before the allegations went public, were named as specific defendants. The lawsuit, filed Jan. 24, was followed by the Feb. 4 publication in the Daily Northwestern of an investigation by a former member of the cheerleading program that included descriptions of widespread racist behavior and abuse by the former coach.

"When will Northwestern change? We are tired of feeling like our employer is incapable of adequately addressing issues of structural racism and sexism," the letter continued. "We are tired of not seeing proactive efforts to get ahead of these challenges."