UVa. president to retire in 2010

CHARLOTTESVILLE | University of Virginia President John T. Casteen III announced Friday that he will retire on Aug. 10, 2010, at the conclusion of his 20th year on the job.

Mr. Casteen, 65, made the announcement at a Board of Visitors meeting. Upon retirement, he will become president emeritus.

“These years have been all but magical for my family and me,” Mr. Casteen said in a news release. “We have had the pleasure of living and working among students, staff members, faculty members, alumni, other backers of the university, and the women and men of a community that we see as America’s best.”

Heywood Fralin, rector of the university, said he expects the board to begin a search for Mr. Casteen’s successor in late July.

Mr. Casteen has led the university during its $3 billion fundraising campaign, one of the largest capital campaigns ever undertaken by a university. He also led the university through a major restructuring of its administration and governance.

The Board of Visitors voted in December not to give Mr. Casteen a raise after the university’s endowment took a nearly $1 billion hit because of the tanking economy. Nevertheless, Mr. Casteen remains one of the highest-paid public-university presidents. He gets $487,000 in base salary, less than half of which comes from state funds and the rest from private money.

Mr. Casteen also earns $31,000 for holding an endowed chair and received $23,400 as a bonus. He received a raise of about 5 percent in 2007.

Mr. Casteen received his bachelor’s, master’s and Ph.D. from the University of Virginia. He taught English at the University of California at Berkeley and at the University of Virginia before becoming the school’s dean of admissions in 1975.

In 1982, Mr. Casteen left the university to spend four years as Virginia’s secretary of education. He then served as president of the University of Connecticut, where he stayed until he took the top job at Virginia, considered one of the most prestigious public-university presidencies in the country.

The University of Virginia, founded in 1819 by Thomas Jefferson, had an enrollment of about 21,000 students in 2008-09.