Shirley Collado
Shirley M. Collado, who became Ithaca College’s president amid student protests over racism and led the private New York institution during a messy period of pandemic-era financial turmoil, announced on Thursday she would resign.
In January she will become president and chief executive officer of College Track, a nonprofit that aims to help underrepresented students get through college. Her four-year tenure at Ithaca is the shortest presidency in its 129-year history.
Higher-ed experts have speculated that the stress of leading through the pandemic would hasten the departures of college presidents. By the end of 2020, that exodus hadn’t yet happened. There were reasons that presidents wouldn’t leave right away — to preserve continuity in the midst of a crisis, for example, and to project strength across their institutions. Over time, though, experts said more turnover could occur.