By Leah Bjornson,
Special to The Post

Just over one year into his first term as the University of British Columbia’s 13th president, Arvind Gupta has abruptly resigned.
The university’s board of governors announced Gupta’s resignation last Friday, stating that he will return to his position as a computing science professor at UBC in fall of 2016.

Although no explanation was given in the original press release, UBC board of governors’ chairman John Montalbano told the Vancouver Sun that Gupta’s reasons were “personal” and “in the best interest of his family, himself and the university.”
Gupta refused to comment on his resignation, stating.

Born in Jalandhar in the Indian state of Punjab, Gupta was raised in a family of academics. His mother, a mathematician, was one of the first women to teach at a university in Uttar Pradesh, and his father was a chemistry professor. When he was five years old, Gupta and his family moved to Detroit where his father had undertaken a fellowship with Wayne State University.

The family later moved to Timmins, Ontario, where Gupta earned his PhD in mathematics at the University of Ontario in 1991. For the next 18 years, Gupta would spend his days teaching Computer Science at Simon Fraser University until being recruited by UBC’s department in 2009.
Beyond academia, Gupta was involved with the federal government, sitting on the Science, Technology and Innovation Council and a six-member panel that reviewed federal spending on industrial research.

From 2000 until he became President of UBC in July of 2014, Gupta also served as CEO and scientific director of Mitacs Canada, a national, not-for-profit organization that supports support industrial and social innovation in Canada.

Gupta’s abrupt resignation and lack of explanation for his return to teaching has prompted some outcry from the university community. The head of UBC’s faculty association, Mark MacLean, recently released an open letter to the faculty, demanding an explanation from the UBC board of governors as to why Gupta stepped down.
In a recent blog post, Sauder School of Business professor Jennifer Berdahl described Gupta as a champion for women and visible minorities in leadership. She hypothesized that as an atypical president who refused to play into the university’s leadership politics, Gupta “lost the masculinity contest among the leadership at UBC.”
The university has yet to comment on either the open letter or Berdahl’s hypothesis.

Until a permanent replacement is found, former UBC president and vice-chancellor Martha Piper, who held the position from 1997 to 2006, will return to the role.