Dean of Undergraduate Students Rovana Popoff announced her departure from the College on Monday, less than one month after the resignation of Dean of the College Tom Crady, who had been in office for just two years.
Popoff, who first came to Dartmouth in 2007, served as the dean of upperclass students until August 2009, when the Upperclass Dean's Office was merged with the First-Year Office.
Former Dean of First-Year Students Gail Zimmerman was laid off at the end of February, following the implementation of College-wide budget cuts. Assistant Dean of First-Year Students Meg Hancock's one-year contract was also not renewed for this year.
Acting Dean of the College Sylvia Spears announced Popoff's departure to faculty and administrators "a couple of weeks ago," according to an e-mail from Popoff obtained by The Dartmouth.
Popoff will return to her previous institution, the University of Chicago, to finish a dissertation in political science, and to serve as a deputy dean for academic affairs, she said in an interview.
"The decision was a long time coming, and it was something I'd been considering since probably June, but I didn't make my decision until late August in terms of finalizing it," Popoff said.
Popoff said that her decision was based on "a myriad of reasons," and added that neither Crady's departure nor Zimmerman's layoff affected her choice.
When asked if the restructuring in the Dean of the College's Office contributed to her decision, Popoff said, "It would be dishonest to say the reason I'm leaving is because of any one thing."
"It was a difficult year for the institution in general," she said. "There are a lot of changes that a lot of us are experiencing at Dartmouth, there are a lot of the people who are still here and a lot of people who left that can recount similar feelings to my own."
Popoff added that her decision was "more complicated than I have time to explain."
"Ultimately, I made the final decision mostly because I was weighing cost and benefits on both sides, and it leaned heavily toward Chicago," she said.
Popoff's last official day at the College was Monday.
"I trust that Dean Spears will try to put someone in my place who is dedicated to students, focused on the work, attentive to details and who is concerned with making Parkhurst more accessible to students," Popoff said.
Spears could not be reached for comment.
