Brian Connolly, Associate Vice President for Public Affairs from the Office of Communications, has released the following statement (emphasis ours) from President Bollinger regarding the resignation of Columbia College Dean Michele Moody-Adams. Bollinger writes that “under the circumstances,” Moody-Adams will step down immediately, rather than on June 30, 2012, as she proposes in her statement. Bollinger plans to choose an Interim Dean in the next few weeks.

I have accepted Dean Moody-Adams’s decision to resign as Dean of Columbia College and Vice President for Undergraduate Education. In her position as dean and vice president, we had looked forward to her playing a central role in shaping the academic administration of the College to ensure the finest educational experience for our students, and had hoped that she would be a key voice in the ongoing discussions involving faculty, alumni and administrators about how to position the College even more centrally in the life of Columbia’s Faculty of Arts & Sciences. Under the circumstances, it is in the best interests of the College and the University that she step down immediately so that we can have an Interim Dean in place at the beginning of the new academic year.