C.L. Max Nikias has agreed to step down immediately from his role as president of the University of Southern California, the board of trustees chairman announced on Tuesday night. A trustee will serve as interim president while the school searches for a permanent leader.
Nikias, 65, had faced intense pressure to step down after a series of scandals, with many in the campus community expressing disgust over the way the university had handled them. In May, the board chairman announced that Nikias had agreed to a transition to a new president.
But as the summer months passed with no further announcements made, calls for action grew. Last month, hundreds of faculty members signed a letter asking the board of trustees to ensure that students would not arrive on campus without news of an interim leader.
The school desperately needed new leadership, they wrote, to “heal the damage to the university, restore the trust of the community, and help us to move forward.”
On Tuesday night, Rick Caruso, the chairman of the private university’s board of trustees, announced to the campus community that Nikias had agreed to step down, effective immediately, and will move into the role of president emeritus and life trustee of the university.
Wanda Austin, a member of the board, engineer and business leader, was named interim president. Austin is the former president and chief executive of Aerospace Corp., a nonprofit organization considering issues confronting the nation’s space program. She earned her doctorate in systems engineering from USC.