University president Rev. Edmund J. Dobbin, O.S.A., announced his intention to step down following the 2005-2006 academic year on June 27, 2005.Dobbin has served as president since 1988.”I think this is the perfect time for me to step down, because I’ll be turning 70 in September,” Dobbin said. “I really think the University is going very well, so I think this would be the ideal time for a younger person to step in and take over.”During his tenure, the University has seen its endowment grow to $240 million and has maintained a number-one rating in U.S. News and World Report’s rankings for the North.The Board of Trustees has appointed a special committee to select a replacement for Dobbin, according to Dorothy Malloy, vice president and general gounsel of the University. The committee will choose the next president from a list of recommended candidates provided by the Provincial of the Order of St. Augustine. Their decision is expected to be rendered by the end of the 2005-2006 academic year.”We’re at the stage where we haven’t yet had the initial meeting of the special committee, but we expect to have that by the end of September,” said Malloy.Dobbin said that he hopes to eventually return to the University in a different capacity. “I’m a tenured professor in the theology department, and I would like to return to the theology department and teach,” Dobbin said. “I was always a teacher until I became president. That’s what I’d like to do.”He said he will also be available to help the Board during the transition to the next administration. “I’ll be at Villanova one way or the other, that’s for sure,” he said.Prior to serving as president, Dobbin was a member of the Board of Trustees and then Vice President for Academic Affairs before being named president in 1988.Dobbin graduated the University with a B.A. in philosophy in 1958. He then earned degrees from Catholic University in Washington, D.C. and at the University of Louvain in Belgium.