Former UI President Mary Sue Coleman to retire from Michigan

A former president at the University of Iowa who has led the University of Michigan for the past 11 years will retire next year, it was announced Thursday.

Mary Sue Coleman was UI president from 1995 to 2002. She left the UI in the summer of 2002 to take the Michigan presidency.

Coleman made her retirement announcement at the Michigan board of regents meeting, according to the university website. She will retire in July 2014 when her current contract expires, Michigan officials said.

In her retirement letter, Coleman said "leading the University of Michigan is the most challenging and rewarding work of my career," adding that she is "extremely proud of the work we have done, together, to make Michigan more vibrant, more accessible and more global."

Coleman said in her letter that after a new president is in place, she and her husband Ken plan to live in Ann Arbor.

Coleman grew up in Cedar Falls, where her father taught at the University of Northern Iowa, and she has a bachelor's degree in chemistry from Grinnell College. Her husband, Ken Coleman, is a Cedar Rapids native.

Before coming to the UI, Coleman was a professor and administrator at the University of Kentucky, the University of North Carolina and the University of New Mexico.