A renowned researcher and dean at Utah State University will serve as interim president while the search starts to find a replacement for Elizabeth “Betsy” Cantwell, who announced her sudden departure last week.
Alan L. Smith will take the helm of the Logan school in the coming weeks, with Cantwell slated to leave quickly — starting a new position as president of Washington State University on April 1.
Smith has been at USU since 2021 and currently oversees the College of Education and Human Services. In a statement Wednesday, he said he wants to “ensure stability and continued momentum as the search for the next president moves forward.”
He also previously served on the committee that selected Cantwell to lead the school.
The Utah Board of Higher Education met Wednesday afternoon to approve his appointment, moving fast to install a temporary leader and also launch the official search for someone to take the post long-term. Those actions came just days after Cantwell surprised many by saying she was stepping down; she had been in her post for only about a year and a half.
Her short tenure was tumultuous, though. The outgoing leader faced continued questions about alleged misconduct in the school’s football department, renewed federal scrutiny over how those concerns have been addressed and, more recently, concerns that prompted state legislation about transgender students living in university dorms.
Cantwell — who was being paid an annual salary of roughly $533,000, before benefits, according to Utah’s transparent public salary data — took over at the northern Utah research and land-grant institution in summer 2023.
She came in following the troubled tenure of former President Noelle Cockett, who stepped down amid similar concerns over the football program.
Some of that carried into Cantwell’s term, with the president making national headlines when she chose to fire former football coach Blake Anderson in July 2024 — a controversial decision she made a year after she took the job — saying an investigation found he failed to respond appropriately when a player was arrested for domestic violence.
She also fired former athletic director Jerry Bovee, among other sports staff, related to the situation. Both Anderson and Bovee have filed lawsuits.
The ongoing problems also triggered action from the U.S. Department of Justice, which has been monitoring the university since a 2020 settlement over mishandling cases of sexual misconduct. Federal investigators issued a new notice of “substantial noncompliance” against USU in August, saying the school wasn’t sufficiently taking “prompt, equitable, and effective steps to remedy an ongoing hostile environment within its football program” as it had promised it would.
Cantwell’s departure also came hours after the Utah Senate gave its final approval to a bill that would ban transgender students from living in dorms that align with their gender identity. The measure was drafted largely in response to a roommate conflict this semester at USU that garnered widespread attention when a female student complained about having a transgender resident advisor living in the same suite.
Leaders in the Utah Legislature expressed frustration over the situation. They also pushed USU to join a federal lawsuit against the Mountain West Conference, challenging the organization’s transgender athlete participation policy. That came last fall after USU players forfeited a match against San Jose State for allegedly having a player who is transgender.
(Bethany Baker | The Salt Lake Tribune) Utah State University President Elizabeth Cantwell speaks during the Newsmaker Breakfast: The Value of Higher Education at the Thomas S. Monson Center in Salt Lake City on Wednesday, Feb. 14, 2024.
And like other public university presidents in the state, Cantwell has had to prepare for the Legislature’s plans to cut the higher education budget. At USU, the reduction will be $12.6 million; the state has instructed schools that they can get their share of the funding back, as long they show it will be reinvested in high-demand, high-wage programs.
In a statement Wednesday announcing the search for a new president, Amanda Covington, the chair of the Utah Board of Higher Education, thanked Cantwell for her service.
The USU search will run concurrently with the search for a new president at Utah Tech University, which has also had its share of controversy this past year.
Richard “Biff” Williams stepped down as president of the St. George school in January 2024. It was later revealed that he left while he was being investigated for misconduct involving a phallic gag gift he gave to a senior administrator.
At the same time, Utah’s eight institutions of higher education have seen major leadership turnover in recent years, with six of those schools now having new presidents appointed within the last three years. USU, once it chooses another president, will have had two in that same stretch.
The announcement Wednesday from the state board of higher education noted that Smith does not intend to throw his name in as a candidate to become president of Utah State. Once a new leader is selected, it says, he will return to his role as dean.
Jacey Skinner, chair of USU’s board of trustees, added in a separate statement that she believes Smith’s “steady leadership style” will help the school through the transition. The board had met in an emergency meeting Monday that was closed to the public.
Smith was the first person to hold an endowed deanship at USU. And he is known for his studies on the role of sports in how youth develop psychologically and socially. He’s also researched whether physical activity can help kids with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD. He works, too, as a professor of kinesiology.
Under his direction, the College of Education and Human Services nabbed state support to create the Alzheimer’s Disease and Dementia Research Center and doubled its nursing program’s student capacity, according to the new release from the school.
Prior to coming to Utah, Smith was held leadership positions and was a professor at Michigan State University and Purdue University. He started his career at the University of Virginia, Charlottesville.
