University of North Carolina system President Molly Broad, who has guided the state's system of higher education over the last eight years, notified members of the UNC Board of Governors in a letter Tuesday that she intends to retire from her position by the end of the next school year.
On Wednesday, Broad said that the university system is at a stable point and can handle the transition.
Over the past year, Broad worked to find a new chancellor for North Carolina State University and UNC-Charlotte. She hopes to name a new head for UNC-Asheville this spring.
"The university [system] is in strong and healthy shape," Broad said.
Broad said she also thinks the system is financially sound.
"We have about a 9-and-a-half percent increase in our operating budget this year," she said.
Under her tenure, enrollment has grown by 50,000 students, and there is also a major construction boom.
Broad, 64, is an economist who came to the UNC system in 1997 after working as executive vice chancellor and chief operating officer for the California State University system.
Broad's predecessors as UNC president were C.D. Spangler and William Friday. Both retired at 65, though there is no mandatory retirement age for UNC system heads.
Broad has said she would like to teach after she leaves her current job. Last year, the Board of Trustees at UNC-Chapel Hill approved a five-year teaching term at the school of government. She would earn 60 percent of the $312,000 salary she now earns as president.
The UNC system also runs the 11-station UNC Center for Public Television, the UNC Health Care System, the North Carolina School of Science and Mathematics in Durham, and the North Carolina Arboretum in the Pisgah National Forest.
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