Citing health reasons, UT System Chancellor to resign in May

University of Texas System Chancellor Bill McRaven will step down next year, he announced Friday.

McRaven cited health reasons when he announced his decision at a special telephone meeting of the system’s governing board Friday. His short speech — and a press release sent afterward — didn’t say when he was leaving other than in 2018. But an e-mail obtained by the Tribune that was sent to an external mailing list, UT System Vice Chancellor for Governmental Relations Barry McBee said he’d be stepping down “at the end of May 2018.”

“There is going to be a lot of speculation as to why I am stepping down, but the fact is that this is a very personal decision for me,” McRaven told the regents, according to a video of the meeting. “As many of you know, over the past several months, I have been dealing with some health issues. They are not serious — let me say that again, they are not serious — but they have caused me to rethink my future.”

He presided over the system for about three years, and he has recently come under fire from some regents about growth in the administrative offices of the system. He also angered many legislators last year when he announced plans to build a new UT System research campus in Houston. That Houston plan has since been shelved.

McRaven, 62, came to the UT System from the Navy, where he became famous as the architect of the SEAL raid that killed Osama bin Laden. He has previously disclosed that he suffers from chronic lymphocytic leukemia, but has stressed that it isn’t life-threatening.

In a 2015 commencement address at the UT Southwestern Medical Center, he said a doctor gave his wife an optimistic prognosis soon after he was diagnosed: “Something else will kill him long before this does.”

Minutes after McRaven announced his resignation, UT System Regent Steve Hicks praised McRaven, who regents have frequently proclaimed a great leader.

“I think he did great service to UT, as he has done all of his career,” Hicks told the Tribune.

McRaven didn’t say what his plans were after he leaves the system.

“I want to teach,” he said. “I want to write. I want to do some traveling. And as hackneyed as it sounds when someone is stepping down, I want to spend time with my family.”

But, he added, “I am not leaving for a while, and we still have a lot of work to do.”

This story was originally published December 15, 2017 at 5:10 PM with the headline "Citing health reasons, UT System Chancellor to resign in May."