The Regent should replace Robbins now.

Robert Robbins needs to step down as president of the University of Arizona sooner rather than later.

The Arizona Board of Regents must name an interim president to manage the university until a search for Robbins’ replacement can be completed.

A few names come to mind. My wife pointedly mentioned Janet Napolitano. She is a former Arizona governor, former Secretary of Homeland Security in the Obama administration, and former chancellor of her 10-school system at the University of California.

There are priorities. After Robert Shelton resigned as UA president in 2011, the regents appointed Eugene G. Sander as interim president. Mr. Sander is the former campus president and vice president, serving for one year until Mr. Shelton’s successor, Ann Weaver Hart, arrived.

The appointment, whether Napolitano or another capable administrator, needs to be made as soon as possible.

Robbins’ continued presence casts a shadow over UA’s reputation and is a constant reminder of the difficulties he posed to the university. The fact that he remains president for another year or two, or even just a few months, means he will be making decisions that the university should not make, such as who the new president will be or how to cut the budget. means.

John P. Schaefer, the university’s former president, got that right in a statement released April 18, saying that the school’s current needs “require the nature of the university in the coming years.” “There is a broad consensus on what the situation should be.”

Notice the words “broad consensus.” Robbins’ Machiavellian tendencies continue to send out emails to the campus community boasting about deficit reduction, and I doubt Robbins would have wanted them to occur. He pours water on the fire he has started.

Listening to faculty, student leaders, and others who spoke during the regents’ “Address the Audience” session at the April 18 meeting, it is clear how closed off Robbins has been to consensus. did it.

Last November, shortly after the financial crisis became clear, then-Regents Chairman Fred Duvall declared the board’s full support for Robbins. Mr. Duvall’s irresponsible and hasty declaration was undermined by further revelations of Robbins’ financial fraud and his inability to tell the whole truth about what he was doing.

Now that Robbins has submitted his resignation, the idea of ​​full support is moot. Yet he remains in charge, and that leaves many on campus and in Tucson in a state of distrust.

Board of Directors: We are looking for a chairperson and will appoint a caretaker. That way, Robbins and his mismanagement could be a thing of the past, and he might be able to regain some of the credibility he lost due to the regent’s failure to oversee his presidency.