News Release

Dr. Richardson will leave the university this coming summer and assume the Kellogg presidency on Aug. 1. He will succeed Russell G. Mawby, who for 25 years has headed a foundation that now has well over $5 billion in assets.

Dr. Richardson said the decision to leave Johns Hopkins, Baltimore and Maryland was a very difficult one.

"The warmth and generosity of the people who welcomed me and my family five years ago has only grown over the years, and, of course, the university is without peer," he said. "But the opportunity to lead one of the world's great philanthropic organizations comes very infrequently. Also, many of the founda tion's interests are very close to my own, including health, education and community development. Those two factors made the opportunity irresistible."

The Kellogg Foundation, established in 1930, seeks to "help people to help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations." The foundation, based in Battle Creek, Mich., awards most of its grants in higher education, youth development, leadership, philanthropy and volunteerism, health care and rural development. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America, the Caribbean and southern Africa.

Morris W. Offit, chairman of the Johns Hopkins board of trustees, expressed deep regret but said Dr. Richardson's five years at the university had been extraordinarily productive.

"Bill Richardson's strong, creative and energetic leadership has been an inspiration to the entire Hopkins community -- to students, faculty, staff and alumni -- and to the city of Balti more and the state of Maryland," Offit said.

"Further, he has been cited time and again for his leader ship among the presidents of America's research universities," Offit said.

Offit said Dr. Richardson was leaving the university at a time when its academic reputation, senior leadership and finan cial position are particularly strong. The university ended fiscal 1994 with a small surplus, the first in many years, he said. Enrollment is up again this year to a record 16,330. On Oct. 1, the university and The Johns Hopkins Health System announced a joint fund-raising campaign. That effort, The Johns Hopkins Initiative, has already raised one-third of its $900 million goal.

Offit also said the university had made great progress in each of the areas Dr. Richardson had set as priorities when he became president: curricular reform, interdisciplinary collabora tion, international outreach, and enhancement of the diversity of the student body, faculty and staff.

"There will be time later to describe in detail the ways in which Bill Richardson helped lift Johns Hopkins to new levels of achievement," Offit said. "For the moment, let me just say that we consider ourselves fortunate to have had him with us for as long as we did. We will miss him very much and wish him much good fortune in his new position."

Offit said the executive committee of the board of trustees meets Jan. 9 and will begin planning immediately to initiate a national and international search for a successor to Dr. Richardson.

Dr. Richardson became the 11th president of The Johns Hopkins University on July 1, 1990, succeeding Steven Muller. He has taken a leading role among university presidents in maintain ing and enhancing the critical relationship between the federal government and the research community, especially in the effort to retain full federal funding for the costs associated with scientific and medical research.

Nationally known as a health policy expert, Dr. Richardson was appointed in 1993 by Gov. William Donald Schaefer to chair Maryland's Health Care Access and Cost Commission, which is charged under the state's health care reform law with expanding health insurance coverage and containing medical costs.

While at Hopkins. Dr. Richardson also served as co-chair of the Pew Health Professions Commission, formed by the Pew Charita ble Trusts of Philadelphia to prompt national reform in the education of health care professionals, including doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists and others.

Dr. Richardson, who specializes in health care organization and financing, holds an appointment in the Johns Hopkins School of Hygiene and Public Health as a professor of health policy and management and occasionally finds time to teach at the school. He sits on the boards of the Glenmede Trust Co./Pew Charitable Trusts and the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.

He also serves on the boards of directors of CSX Corp. and Mercantile Bankshares Corp.

Dr. Richardson's M.B.A., earned in 1964, and Ph.D., in 1971, are from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business; he has written and lectured extensively on various aspects of the nation's health care system. He graduated from Trinity College in 1962 with a bachelor's degree in history.

Dr. Richardson served for 13 years at the University of Washington as, successively, a faculty member, chairman of the Department of Health Services, associate dean of the School of Public Health, and graduate dean and vice provost for research. In 1984, he became executive vice president and provost of The Pennsylvania State University, a position he held for six years.

He is a member of the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and a fellow of the American Public Health Association.

For comment from the Kellogg Foundation, contact spokesman Tom Springer at (616) 968-1611].