President George Bridges announced he will step down from his position at the end of the next academic year in an email sent out to the student body on Wednesday, Feb. 26.

Bridges, formerly a sociology professor and associate dean at University of Washington, was appointed as Whitman College’s president by the Board of Trustees in 2005. According to his email, his retirement on June 30, 2015 will coincide with the conclusion of the “Now is the Time” campaign, a fundraising drive he launched with the college in 2011 with the stated goal of collecting $150 million for Whitman’s endowment.

“George has accomplished a tremendous number of great successes at Whitman in what will be a 10-year tenure,” said Board of Trustees Chair Peter Van Oppen. “We are grateful that he’s announced his plans in a timely fashion so we can plan an orderly transition … We look forward to working with him over the next 16 months and the successful completion of the [‘Now is the Time’] campaign.”

Van Oppen cited an increase in tenure-track faculty hires, student-faculty research and the raising of the endowment to $500 million as evidence of Bridges’s impact on the college during his presidency.

Bridges’s announcement closely follows the retirement announcement of Dean of Faculty and Provost Tim Kaufman-Osborn, who stated last fall that he will leave his post after the end of the 2014 academic term. The College appointed Professor of Geology Pat Spencer to fill the position as an interim while they conduct a nationwide search for a permanent dean of faculty.

The Board of Trustees will begin preparing to begin its search for Bridges’s replacement in the coming months. The search will be happening concurrently with the last year of Bridges’ presidency and the search for a new provost.

According to Van Oppen, the board will solicit input from a search committee while hiring Whitman’s next president.