Jason Wingard had a short tenure at Temple, but a lot happened on his watch. Here’s an overview.

Temple University president Jason Wingard tendered his resignation Tuesday, after a tumultuous 2023 and ending a 20-month tenure marked by firsts, and controversies.

Here is a look back at his time overseeing the 33,600-student North Philadelphia university:

Temple University taps the Chestnut Hill resident whose career had straddled both business and academia. With previous leadership appointments at two Ivy League universities and Stanford, Wingard became in July of that year the first Black president in the school’s 137-year history. “He understands the future of education is changing,” said Mitchell Morgan, chair of the board of trustees. “Dr. Wingard recognized that and wrote about that before COVID hit.”

» READ MORE: After a tumultuous tenure, Jason Wingard has resigned as Temple University president

In a major reorganization, Wingard moves out the provost, chief operating officer, head of advancement, and two other senior administrators. Some characterized the moves as indicative of a new president shaping his own team, though others wondered why the changes came so suddenly rather than allowing time for searches. JoAnne A. Epps, an employee of Temple for more than 35 years, was removed as provost.

After returning to North Philadelphia on the Sunday after Thanksgiving, student Samuel Collington is shot and killed on the 2200 block of North Park Avenue when a gunman approached him in a carjacking. He was shot twice in the chest and died about a half-hour later. Students and parents demanded better security, and Wingard pledged at that time to increase its police force by 50%. More than a year later, it had fewer.

Temple’s top leaders take a 10-day trip to the Middle East to foster relations with universities, visit historic religious sites, and seek insight on how to combat antisemitism and broader discrimination. The June 2022 trek followed the creation of a Blue Ribbon Commission on Antisemitism and University Responses that Wingard formed after reports of growing incidents of discrimination at colleges nationwide — Temple’s campus no exception.

“The value of the college degree, in my estimation, has reached its peak and is on the wane,” Wingard wrote in his then-new book, The College Devaluation Crisis, “thanks to a host of factors stretching from cost and affordability to curriculum relevance to rapidly evolving skill needs to advances in automation and technology — and including the disruption in the workforce due to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

He acknowledged some might view his book and his job as being in conflict. In a summer 2022 interview, Wingard called it an opportunity.

The university hires a Delaware State Police captain and educator as its first vice president for public safety. Police Capt. Jennifer Griffin started Aug. 22 as the university prepared to launch the fall semester amid a record pace in gun violence.

Wingard and his wife, Gingi, announce they will move to the 2000 block of Carlisle Street, a block from campus. They say they will sell the house they’ve owned for more than 20 years and move to a university-owned, three-story rowhome. At the time, he says he will move as soon as the house can be renovated, likely by early April.

After more than a year of unsuccessful negotiations, the union representing 750 graduate student teaching and research assistants at Temple goes on strike Jan. 31, for the first time in the union’s history. The strike by members of Temple University Graduate Students’ Association (TUGSA) lasted 42 days.

Temple Police Sgt. Christopher Fitzgerald is shot and killed Feb. 18 near 17th Street and Montgomery Avenue near the campus border, making it the first time in the school’s history that a university law enforcement officer had been killed in the line of duty. The fatal shooting shocked the campus, where safety concerns have been mounting.

In a historic move, the university’s faculty union decides to hold no-confidence votes against three university leaders — Wingard, provost Gregory N. Mandel, and Mitchell Morgan, chair of the board of trustees. While the administration’s handling of the graduate student negotiations may have been the impetus for considering a vote, union leaders cited other areas of concern, including the failure to renew contracts for some nontenured faculty, mounting public safety concerns, and vacancies in some key administrative jobs. They also cited Wingard’s seeming lack of presence on campus.

Temple’s board of trustees takes a stronger oversight role of the university as it faces what chairman Morgan called an “unprecedented confluence of serious challenges.” In a March 13 message to the Temple community, the board said it formed a special committee with support of Wingard, to apply “more rigorous attention to urgent matters,” specifically campus safety, enrollment, and “university engagement and responsiveness,” between its quarterly board meeting

Wingard tenders his resignation and the board accepts it at a special meeting Tuesday afternoon, March 28. “The plan over the next week is to identify interim leadership and then move forward with a search for a new president,” said Morgan. “In the meantime we have a strong core group of senior administrators that we will rely on.”