Chicago will forever be our second home

Dear UIC community,  

Earlier this afternoon, the University of South Carolina’s Board of Trustees confirmed my appointment as the university’s 30th president. As a result, I will be leaving UIC as of July 1.   

Over the last seven years, it has been a great honor to serve as your chancellor. Together, we advanced our mission by impacting the lives of students and our community through compelling visionary research and scholarship to establish UIC as the country’s model urban research university. Together, we navigated crises by escaping forward and emerging even stronger every time. Together, we broke record after record in enrollments, research and fundraising. Together, we expanded our impact and footprint with Chicago’s first public law school. Together, we revitalized our human and physical infrastructure. And most importantly, together we celebrated the remarkable success of our students, faculty and staff.  

I want to thank you sincerely for all that you do daily for our students, patients, the academic community, and the people of Chicago and Illinois—especially for the most vulnerable among them. I also want to thank you for all the interactions that we had during my tenure. I have learned a lot from you — and even more so from our students — and I believe as a result, I am a far better person than when I arrived in Chicago. 

I also want to thank President Tim Killeen and our colleagues across the University of Illinois System. Our values have always been aligned and we have worked diligently and effectively together. Tim and I are committed to a smooth transition this spring to ensure UIC’s momentum and to create the best conditions for recruiting a new leader.   

This is a bittersweet moment for me and Ero. We are excited to return to Columbia and to the University of South Carolina, a place where we spent 21 years building long-lasting friendships and a legacy — every member of our family — except me — has or will receive a degree from there. At the same time, we are sad to leave UIC and the city that warmly embraced us. Chicago will forever be our second home. We will continue to follow UIC’s meteoric rise and cheer for its success.   

Go Flames!  

Michael Amiridis 
Chancellor