Amy Parsons, CSU Fort Collins president, announces resignation

Amy Parsons, the president of Colorado State University’s flagship campus in Fort Collins, announced her resignation Wednesday.

In a message to the campus, Parsons said she would serve in her role through the end of the year. She did not give a reason for her resignation but said she and her husband will remain in Fort Collins and “continue to be active members of this community we love.”

“Serving as CSU’s 16th president has been the honor of a lifetime,” Parsons wrote in her statement. “I am deeply grateful for the trust you have placed in me and extraordinarily proud of what we have accomplished together.”

Parsons served as CSU Fort Collins’ president for nearly four years, and, in her resignation message, she said that during her tenure “our university has achieved remarkable momentum.” Among the achievements she cited are the opening of a new veterinary hospital and education complex and the move of the university’s athletics teams into the Pac-12 Conference.

But Parsons has also faced criticism from faculty and students as well as administrative turmoil. Students protested last year when the university announced it would follow directives from President Donald Trump’s administration that made significant changes to the university’s programs for diversity, equity and inclusion. Later in 2025, a proposed revision to the university’s free speech policy sparked a weeklong protest before the new policy was revoked.

In January, it was announced that the university’s provost — the No. 2 position in campus leadership — was stepping down. It was subsequently revealed that the university agreed to pay that provost $325,000 as part of a separation agreement.

This spring, the university system announced more than $30 million in budget cuts to the Fort Collins campus, as well as staff layoffs to deal with an ongoing budget deficit.

Parsons’ hiring was also controversial, coming after her predecessor, Joyce McConnell, was paid nearly $1.6 million to resign. Parsons, a CSU graduate, had previously held executive roles on the Fort Collins campus and with the overarching CSU system, which also includes a campus in Pueblo and an online program called CSU Global. But she was working in the private sector when she was hired as CSU’s president, and faculty questioned whether she had the necessary expertise for the role.

“The question is really, ‘Where did she come from? Why is she there?’” CSU economics professor Steven Shulman told The Chronicle of Higher Education when Parsons was named the sole finalist for the president job in late 2022.

Faculty members speculated that one factor in her hiring was Parsons’ close working relationship with CSU system chancellor Tony Frank, whom Shulman described as the university’s Wizard of Oz, an all-powerful leader pulling strings behind the scenes. When Frank was president of CSU Fort Collins, he appointed Parsons to be the campus’s vice president for university operations. And when Frank moved up to the university chancellor job, he named Parsons his executive vice chancellor.

In a statement released Wednesday shortly after Parsons’ announcement, Frank praised Parsons for making CSU “more visible and competitive nationally than at any time in our history.”

“She has profoundly helped shape CSU into a national model for the modern Western land-grant university through her vision, enduring commitment to this place, and care for the students, faculty, staff, and alumni who make up the extended CSU community,” Frank said.

Frank announced his resignation late last year — though he intends to stay in his role through June 2027. Faculty derided the search for Frank’s successor as a sham, in part because it was open only to internal candidates who could meet a strict list of qualifications, with application materials submitted to an email address tied to Frank.

Earlier this year, the university’s board of governors hired veteran education leader Rico Munn to be the next chancellor. In his statement, Frank said Munn would lead the search for CSU Fort Collins’ next president.

“Because CSU’s next president will work most closely with Rico, he will lead the search for the university’s 17th president,” Frank said.

In the meantime, longtime CSU official Rick Miranda will serve as CSU Fort Collins’ interim president. He served in the same capacity after McConnell resigned in 2022 prior to Parsons being hired.