Read It: UND President Mark Kennedy Announces His Resignation

Embattled University of North Dakota President Mark Kennedy has announced his resignation in an email today.

You can read it below.

Rumors of Kennedy’s resignation have been swirling all week. Today the Grand Forks Herald reports that Kennedy is a finalist for a new job Colorado. Which seems at odds with what Kennedy has said about seeking other jobs in the not-so-distant past:

In February, UND told the Herald that Kennedy had no interest in jobs outside of the university. Rumors then had circulated that Kennedy had applied to be the president of the University of Minnesota. Kennedy had previously told the Herald in December he did not apply for that position.

I can tell you that I questioned UND spokesman David Dodds about Kennedy seeking a new job in Minnesota (the rumor at that time, repeated to me by people who were absolutely confident of it, was that he had applied for a position at the University of Minnesota) or anywhere else and Dodds flat-out denied it. At one point Dodds told me he put the question to Kennedy directly and that he denied it.

It sure seems like Kennedy has been something less than forthcoming.

Earlier this year a story I broke about Kennedy giving his long time assistant an enormous raise, and tens of thousands of dollars in allowances to facilitate her commuting to her job from Texas, prompted the president to terminate the arrangement. I was also able to reveal that a long time Kennedy associate had been given a similar arrangement allowing him to commute to work from Boston.