The president of Columbia Katrina Armstrong resigns, marking the second Shake-up since 2024
The interim president of Columbia University Katrina Armstrong will resign from her current role and return to lead the University Medical Center, announced the school foundation council on Friday.
“Dr. Armstrong has accepted the role of interim president in a moment of great uncertainty for the university and has worked tirelessly to promote the interests of our community”, David J. Greenwald, president of the Board of Trustees of Columbia, he wrote in a declaration. “Katrina has always given her heart and soul to Columbia. We appreciate her service and we can’t wait to have her continuous contributions to the university.”
Armstrong’s release comes in a tumultuous moment for the University.
Last week, Columbia agreed to implement a series of radical changes to regain potential Access to $ 400 million In the federal funding, the Trump administration is threatening to retain the accusations that the school has not done enough to combat anti-Semitism in the midst of pro-gaza protests.
The changes include the construction of a new police force on the campus, partially prohibiting the masks for the face and removal of the control of the faculty on the Department of Studies of the Middle East, Southern Asia and African.
The academics inside and outside the University have widely condemned the move as an unprecedented capitulation of the external influence.
In addition to the threat of financing, Columbia was also at the center of the Administration repression on non -citizen students’ activists which took part in the pro-Palestine protests of 2023 and 2024 in the middle of the Israeli war.
The first arrest of largely reported immigration of the campaign was that of the Green Card holder Mahmoud Khalil, a recent graduate in Columbia and student activist who was initially prisoner in a university -owned condominium at the beginning of this month. He is stimulant His detention in court, claiming to be punished for having exercised his constitutionally protected freedom of freedom of speech.
The COPRESCANTE of the Council of Fondazione Claire Shipman, journalist and Alume of Columbia, has been appointed interim president while the school continues a leadership search.
Armstrong is the second person to leave the best job in Columbia over 12 months.
MINOUCH SHAFIK, economist and former World Bank Officer, resigned In 2024, following a mandate that included large -scale campus protests with a camp and students who occupy a university building, as well as accusations of tolerating anti -Semitism.
Shafik has arrived for criticism from some students for allowing multiple police operations on a large scale against the demonstrators on the campus, the first from the Vietnam Protest war.
