Just 16 months after assuming office, Guiyou Huang, president of Edinboro University of Pennsylvania, announced Monday that he is leaving in January to become president of Western Illinois University.

Huang’s departure comes as officials at the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education work on the second phase of a study that could result in the merger or integration of Edinboro, California and Clarion universities as well as Bloomsburg, Mansfield and Lock Haven universities— three state-owned schools in the state’s Northern Tier— into what officials at PASSHE have termed two academic powerhouses.

Huang is the second university president in the proposed Cal U-Clarion-Edinboro triad to announce his departure. In May, Cal U President Geraldine Jones, who has been supportive of the proposed merger, announced she will retire in January after a career at the school that has spanned 46 years.

In a letter to the Edinboro community, Huang commended the staff, faculty and students at Edinboro for their work during the pandemic, which forced school officials to shutter the campus last spring and continue operations largely online this fall at the school that has been a fixture in the small town of the same name since 1857.

“I’m grateful for the opportunity to have talked with and worked with so many of you. I have been quite impressed with your support of each other and your commitment to the university. I am especially thankful to the council of trustees, the executive leadership team, the faculty and staff leaderships and SGA leadership for their good work and collaboration,” he wrote.

Huang was the fourth educator to occupy the president’s office at Edinboro since 2016.

The university, located just south of Erie, is among a many of Pennsylvania universities and colleges, including Clarion and Cal U, struggling with declining enrollment as the number of new high school graduates in Pennsylvania has declined dramatically over the last decade.

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