Columbia University’s temporary President Katrina Armstrong steps down from her current role and returns to lead the university’s medical center, the school board announced on Friday.
“Dr. Armstrong accepted the role of preliminary president at one point with great uncertainty for the university and worked tirelessly to promote the interests of our community,” wrote David J. Greenwald, president of the Columbia Board of Trustees, in a statement. “Katrina has always given her heart and soul to Columbia. We appreciate her service and look forward to her continued contribution to the university.”
Armstrong’s exit comes at a violent time for the university.
Last week, Columbia agreed to implement a series of sweeping changes to win potential access to $ 400 million in federal funding Trump administration threatens to withhold claims that the school has not done enough to fight anti-Semitism in the midst of Pro-Gaza protests.
The changes include building a new campus police force, partly prohibited face masks and removal of faculty control over the Institute of the Middle East, South Asian and African studies.
Academics within and outside the university largely condemned the move as an unprecedented capitulation to the outside influence.
In addition to the financing threat, Columbia has also been at the center of the administration’s crash at non-citizen students activists who participated in 2023 and 2024 Campus Pro-Palestine protests in the middle of the Israel-Hamas war.
The first widely reported immigration stop of the campaign was that of green card holder Mahmoud Khalil, a recent Columbia degree and student activist, originally detained in a university-owned apartment building earlier this month. He challenges his withholding in court and claims that he will be punished for exercising his constitutionally protected free expression rights.
Board of Directors Claire Shipman, a journalist and Columbia-Alun, has been appointed acting president as the school continues a management search.
Armstrong is the second person leaving the top job in Columbia over 12 months.
Minouche Shabik, an economist and former World Bank’s official, withdrew in 2024, after a period that included a large -scale campus protests with a camp and student occupying a university building, as well as accusations of tolerating anti -Semitism.
Shapen came in for criticism from some students for allowing more major police operations against protesters on campus, the first since the Vietnam War protests.