Gonzaga University President Thayne McCulloh will retire in July 2025, he announced Monday.
“This decision follows a lengthy period of reflection, discernment and consultation,” McCulloh said in a statement. “After 30-plus years at this wonderful institution, the time is coming to step aside and allow others to have the great privilege and responsibility of serving Gonzaga into its future.”
McCulloh intends to continue working through the transition and complete “several important projects and initiatives during his final year,” according to a university news release.
He said his departure isn’t spurred by any specific event, he said, but rather the stressors of the job, many of which aren’t visible to the outside eye.
“The issues of the day play themselves out on a campus community, so after a time you start to realize that time on the road and all of those kinds of things start to kind of create real stress and challenges,” he said. “I think 15 years is quite a run.”
Christy Larsen, chair of the Gonzaga board of trustees, praised McCulloh in a statement.
“He has been a tireless champion of Gonzaga, and his commitment to advancing the Catholic and Jesuit mission, effective collaboration, academic excellence, student success, shared governance, fundraising, and fostering an inclusive and supportive environment for faculty, staff, and students has been foundational and instrumental to our success,” she said.
A 1989 graduate, McCulloch returned to Gonzaga to teach psychology after getting his master’s and doctorate degrees from Oxford University. He went on to work as the director of housing and dean of student financial services.
In 2010, he was elevated from interim president to the 26th president of Gonzaga, becoming the first non-Jesuit leader in the school’s history. He is the second-longest serving president at the school.
During the COVID pandemic, Gonzaga was one of the first universities in the West to open its campus for students in fall 2020, giving students the option to learn from home or on campus, and faculty could decide to hold classes remotely or in person. There were no pandemic-related layoffs or reductions in benefits or salaries for faculty and staff, according to the release.
“I think that that really helped people to feel as if they had agency in the face of a lot of real fear and concerns and legitimate worries about what this meant and where it was going to take us,” McCulloh said. “I am always going to be grateful and very proud of our community for the way in which people showed up.”
The announcement of McCulloh’s retirement comes just three days after Washington State University president Kirk Schulz announced that he will step down from his position at the end of 2025.