UBC president leaves top job after a year as interim president takes over

VANCOUVER – The president of the University of British Columbia has resigned after a year on the job.

Arvind Gupta was appointed to the role last July, when UBC said a 22-member committee conducted an international search for the position.

The university says in a news release that Gupta will return to his academic career as a computer science professor at UBC.

From 2000 to 2014, he was also CEO and scientific director of Mitacs, a national Canadian not-for-profit research organization.

The university’s board of governors’ chairman John Montalbano says that during his tenure as president, Gupta developed a strategy to support diversity and under-represented groups, and improved access to mental health services.

Martha Piper, who was UBC president from 1997 to 2006, will return to the role for the next academic year while the university finds a permanent replacement.