Head of U-M Flint campus to leave this fall after declining enrollment, graduation rates

The leader of the University of Michigan's Flint campus, Chancellor Deba Dutta, will leave this fall for the University of Illinois, the university's president told the U-M community in a message Tuesday.

"Chancellor Dutta has been a strong advocate for the UM-Flint campus even before he was appointed chancellor in the fall of 2019. He accepted this key position knowing the challenges that lay ahead — even before the pandemic disrupted everything," U-M President Santa J. Ono wrote.

Dutta is slated to become a senior adviser to the University of Illinois president, a post that still needs approval by its board of trustees, according to a board agenda posted online. If approved, Dutta would begin his new role at Illinois on Sept. 16 and earn an annual salary of $425,000. (He currently earns $469,000 at U-M Flint, according to a spokesman.)

Dutta did not immediately return a request for comment through a U-M spokesman Tuesday.

In recent years, the number of students at U-M's Flint campus has shrunk and its graduation rate has dipped. There have been financial struggles as well, leading to cuts and rising faculty concerns about the future direction of the school.

Last year, then-U-M President Mary Sue Coleman told the Flint campus leadership it needed to conduct a "transformation" study to determine the course of the campus' future. In a letter explaining the move, Coleman cited a 25% decline in enrollment over the last seven years and six-year graduation rates ranking at the bottom of the 15 public universities in the state. Recent figures show 1 in 3 U-M Flint students graduates in six years.

“We must make changes, and they must be bold, if U-M Flint is to thrive,” Coleman said at a Board of Regents meeting at the time announcing the move.

"We've not been attractive for what the students are considering when they are considering what college to attend," Dutta told the Free Press for a February news article. "In this competitive environment, we have lost ground. We have to make it up."

The overall U-M system was ready to invest up to $100 million into the Flint campus, officials had said, with the goal of not only turning U-M Flint around but growing it and stabilizing it, as well as the surrounding city of Flint.

Ono said that Dutta "has maintained that commitment and strongly advocated for the transformation of the UM-Flint campus to better align the academic programs with the skills sought by employers throughout mid-Michigan. I applaud him for this essential work that seeks to create new opportunities for UM-Flint students and the entire Flint community."

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Ono added that he expected to name an interim chancellor in the coming weeks as well as launch a nationwide search for Dutta's permanent replacement.

"This transition also will require a pause in the transformation work that so many UM-Flint faculty, staff and students have helped to develop. The Board of Regents and I remain firmly committed to a brighter future for the Flint campus. I want to assure you the transformation work will move forward once we have a new campus leader in place," Ono wrote.

Dutta came to U-M Flint after serving as chancellor of Rutgers University-New Brunswick. Before Rutgers, Dutta served at Purdue University as provost and executive vice president for academic affairs and diversity.

Moving to the University of Illinois would be a homecoming of sorts for Dutta. Prior to joining Purdue in 2014, Dutta served as associate provost and dean of the graduate college at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he was a professor of mechanical science and engineering and served as interim vice-chancellor for research.

Former Free Press staff writer David Jesse contributed to this article.

Contact Matthew Dolan: 313-223-4743 or msdolan@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter at @matthewsdolan

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: University of Michigan Flint campus leader to depart this fall