Appalachian State College Chancellor Sheri Everts is stepping down, citing well being issues. Her final day will probably be Friday.
“Over the previous couple of months, I’ve been experiencing vital well being challenges,” Everts wrote in a message to the college neighborhood early Monday. “And I need to now concentrate on my private well being and wellbeing.”
Everts has led App State for the final decade, throughout which the campus has considerably elevated its enrollment, fundraising and its footprint in Boone and past. Her tenure has additionally seen controversy, together with sustained tensions with college students, college members and alumni over political and speech points and her response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2020 the college’s College Senate handed a uncommon decision of “no confidence” in her management.
“The final decade has been a time of progress and momentum for Appalachian State,” UNC System President Peter Hans mentioned in a written assertion Monday. “Chancellor Everts welcomed a document variety of college students, celebrated quite a few educational and athletic accomplishments, and led a bodily transformation of the gorgeous Boone campus.”
“A brand new funding in Hickory builds on App State’s dedication to public service, and generations of North Carolinians will discover nice alternative near house due to Chancellor Everts’ imaginative and prescient,” Hans mentioned. “I’m very grateful for her devoted service.”
Over Everts’ decade on the helm, App State’s enrollment grew greater than 16 p.c to 21,000 complete pupil enrolled as of the 2023 fall semester. In a message Monday, the college touted the college’s dramatically elevated variety throughout Everts’ tenure.
“From 2014-2024, App State elevated its underrepresented college students by 77% and first-year underrepresented college students by 117%,” the college’s communications workplace wrote in its message. “Roughly one-third of the college’s undergraduate college students are from rural areas and one-third are first-generation school college students.”
App State additionally noticed document fundraising throughout her decade of management, following a then-unprecedented $31 million fundraising yr with a greater than $40 million marketing campaign final fiscal yr. The college’s endowment has doubled in worth as effectively to round $150 million.
“I’m extremely happy with the expansion and growth of the college during the last 10 years,” Everts wrote in her assertion Monday. “And I look ahead to seeing the event of the Innovation District and the Hickory Campus, specifically, and the various methods the area will proceed to thrive with the advantage of these vital state assets.”
No interim chancellor was introduced as of noon Monday. As UNC System president, Hans has the authority to nominate somebody to fill the position as a search is performed for Everts’ successor.
With Everts’ announcement, App State will develop into the fifth campus within the 16-university system to start a seek for a brand new chief. Searches are actually underway at UNC-Chapel Hill, N.C. A&T College, Winston Salem State College and N.C. Central College.