Mark Yudof, photograph by Tom Foley

When University of Minnesota President Mark Yudof was lured back to Texas to take over the university system there, he left behind an impressive record. "Mark Yudof has built a great foundation for this University of Minnesota," Maureen Reed, chair of the Board of Regents, said at a news conference May 31. "The accomplishments are many and they are outstanding."

Yudof will head up a much larger system, one in which he spent over two decades as a professor, dean, and provost of the Austin campus. His ties to that community were one of his reasons for moving on. "This was an intensely personal decision," he said at the news conference, where he announced his decision. "Texas is where we lived for 26 years. . . . It is home to us in a way."

In his five years at the U, he had significant successes.

One of his first rallying cries was to beautify campus. Indeed, through renovation of historic buildings, more attention to grounds and facilities, and legislative support through bonding, the University looks better than it has in decades.

Yudof identified several interdisciplinary "strategic initiatives" designed to build on the University’s strengths in biology, medicine, computer technology, media, design, agriculture, and the U’s graduate school. Research rankings have continued to climb. He also takes pride in helping "bring a great medical school back from the brink," he said. He convinced the state legislature that more support was needed and he approved actions such as the sale of the University Hospital to the Fairview Health System.

Continuing work begun by Nils Hasselmo on improving the undergraduate experience, Yudof sought to make the U a "more humane place" to learn and work. In his five years, applications have skyrocketed, the quality of incoming classes has continued to rise, the percentage of students living on campus has increased, and leading professors have taught a growing number of freshman seminars. (Yudof also taught freshman seminars.) And he oversaw a successful campaign to raise $1.3 billion in private funds.

Yudof worked through both the academic cheating scandal in the men’s basketball program and a painful restructuring of the overall athletics program, including consolidating the separate men’s and women’s departments.

In the last few years, as his efforts to maintain and build quality have run up against declining public subsidies, Yudof has become a leading figure in the national discussion over the future of the public university.

Reed said that although the University will miss Yudof, it will find a successor to continue the momentum. "The next president of this university will be very grateful that he or she is standing on the shoulders of Mark Yudof," she said. "The only direction we are going is up. We like up. We got used to up with President Yudof."

Yudof will remain at the University of Minnesota until late summer, when interim president Robert Bruininks, the University’s executive vice president and provost, will take over.