COLUMBUS - The president of Ohio State University will retire when her contract expires in June, 2007, the school announced yesterday.

In a letter to the OSU Board of Trustees, Karen Holbrook said that she will step down in order to be with her husband, Jim Holbrook, an oceanographer.

"I have spent more than 35 years in higher education, and as you know, Jim has been retired from his active career for 10 years, following me to three universities and looking forward to the time when we can spend more time together," Ms. Holbrook, 63, wrote the trustees last week.

The university will begin a major fund-raising campaign next year, one of the other reasons Ms. Holbrook cited for her retirement.

"It will be important to the success of the campaign for donors to have confidence in consistent leadership over the next five years and perhaps longer," Ms. Holbrook wrote.

Ms. Holbrook agreed last year to inform the board of trustees before June 30, 2006, whether she would remain as OSU's president past 2007.

Robert Duncan, chairman of the board of trustees, formally accepted Ms. Holbrook's retirement on Saturday, complimenting her "exceptional" work and emphasizing that the upcoming academic year should be a "true recognition" of her career.

In addition to a university-provided home, housekeeper, two automobiles, and a chauffeur, Ms. Holbrook is set to receive a salary and performance and retention bonuses that total $562,031, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Ms. Holbrook was traveling yesterday and unavailable for comment, but the choice to retire was entirely her own, said OSU spokesman Shelly Hoffman.

An 11-page memo highlighting Ms. Holbrook's accomplishments since becoming OSU's 13th president in 2002 accompanied her retirement letter. With more than 50,000 students, OSU is among the largest universities in the country and practically a small city within Columbus.

The memo said that OSU's endowment has more than doubled to $2.02 billion in the past four years. It noted that the SAT scores and class rankings of incoming students continue to improve with each new class.

The memo also addressed some of the obstacles Ms. Holbrook encountered at a school known for its athletics program and the abuse of alcohol among students.

"Ohio State had a culture associated with unlawful alcohol use that led to riots following the win or loss of a key football game, the African-American Heritage Festival, and random warm spring weekends," the memo said.

Soon after Ms. Holbrook took office, a campus riot erupted after the Nov. 23, 2002, football win over the University of Michigan that was televised nationally and internationally. A national championship followed more than a month later.

She faced criticism as the university cracked down on underage drinking and alcohol use during game-day tailgating, and as the university dealt with a series of NCAA investigations of its football and basketball programs.

"Usually, when you're president, the buck stops with you. I don't think she was directly involved [in problems with the athletics program]," said state Rep. Shawn Webster (R., Hamilton), chairman of the House Finance Committee's Subcommittee on Higher Education.

"Obviously, Ohio State has its share of problems and, as president of the university, some responsibility rests at her doorstep," he said.

Ms. Holbrook joined OSU as the state's budget was tanking. The legislature denied many of the university's requests for greater funding, shifting more of the financial burden of a college education onto students.

"I really feel that there were mixed feelings among students toward President Holbrook," said Nick Benson, an incoming OSU senior and speaker of the student senate. "A lot of students recognized she took aggressive steps to improve Ohio State's stature as a research university, but there was frustration about tuition increases, fairly or unfairly."

The school's long-term blueprint had already been put in place by her predecessor, William "Brit" Kirwan.

But in selecting a University of Georgia provost with expertise in fetal skin stem-cell research as president, OSU sought an individual who could elevate the school's national reputation in research and development.

Annual research expenditures at OSU surpassed $552 million last year, a $126 million jump from 2002. The National Science Foundation ranked OSU as the ninth leading public university in terms of sponsored research in 2004, up from 12th two years earlier.

"Under President Holbrook, there have been significant increases in academic standards at the university and an enhanced research standing of the university," said Mark Rickel, a spokesman for Gov. Bob Taft.

"Ohio State became more aggressive in applying for and receiving Third Frontier research dollars, and Dr. Holbrook was a strong advocate for higher [K-12] standards in science and math."

Contact Joshua Boak at:

jboak@theblade.com

or 419-724-6728.

First Published June 8, 2006, 10:49 a.m.