Ole Miss chancellor Jeffrey Vitter is resigning, per report

University of Mississippi chancellor Jeffrey Vitter is resigning from his position effective the conclusion of the calendar year, per RebelGrove.com’s Neal McCready and Chase Parham. The university’s staff members were notified of Vitter’s resignation on Friday morning.

Rebel Grove expects an interim to be named, but the process to find the permanent replacement is going to be a lengthy one because there are going to be several moving parts and stockholders in the mix, literally and figuratively.

Multiple factions of Ole Miss stakeholders are going to support different candidates, and one source told us earlier today that the fight will be representative of the thought that this is the most important decision on behalf of the university in a long time.

Vitter was hired because of his expertise in the fields of computer and information science, and it’s possible that he stays in Oxford in some form of capacity until he finds another gig.

McCready and Parham also bring up that his contract with the university is still in play, for now, and that he could be hanging around in a higher education capacity.

His contract -- which he has done nothing to void -- runs through June 2020. We’re told he’s likely to remain in position until the end of the calendar year.

Vitter came to the university from Kansas as a respected member of the higher education community where he served as provost and executive vice chancellor. He received his bachelor of science in mathematics with highest honors from the University of Notre Dame in 1977, a Ph.D. in computer science from Stanford University, and a master of business administration from Duke University in 2002. He was preceded by Dan Jones who was hired in 2009 after Robert Khayat announced his retirement.

As always, this is going to be a developing story and we will provide context and information as we get it.