Baker University President Pat Long announced at the Faculty Appreciation Dinner Friday at the DoubleTree hotel in Overland Park that she will step down from her position, effective June 30, 2014.

While Long was overcome with emotion Friday, she said that she believes the timing of her decision was right and remains eager about the rest of her presidency.

“I’m just excited about the next 16 months,” Long said. “I have loved every day I have been president at Baker. The way this whole process works. To find a new president takes at least a year, so I knew I was going to have to make the decision at a year ahead of time. The last couple of years we have been looking for a date, so I think this is just a good time.”

Long made the announcement to the Board of Trustees earlier in the day Friday when they gathered for their quarterly meeting.

“I just feel pretty overwhelmed with the emotion as people are finding out and just how kind they are to me,” Long said.

Long came to Baker in June of 2006 and became the first female to serve as the president since it opened in 1858. In Long’s presidency, Baker has renovated or constructed three main buildings on campus, beginning with a new $6.3 million residence hall, the New Living Center, which was the first one built on campus in almost half a century.

After the NLC was constructed, Long supervised the renovation of Denious Hall, which is the university’s admissions and financial aid building.

Most recently, Long assisted Professor of Biology Darcy Russell in spearheading the fundraising for the Ivan L. Boyd Center for Collaborative Science Education. The project totaled $11.3 million and was just completed in October of 2012.

Although Long took pride in the final results of those three projects, she has one more that is soon to begin and is scheduled to be completed before her retirement. Long has laid out the plans for a renovated student union, which will begin being remodeled in the near future.

“It feels like it is going to be at exactly the right time and right place to be able to leave knowing that is what is going to be left behind for the students,” Long said. “That will make me feel really good.”

Despite having mixed emotions about her retirement and being excited about the renovation of Harter Union, even Long finds irony in the timing of her decision.

“Every time I’ve built a new student center (as a university administrator), within six months to a year, I have left,” Long said. “So I really have never got to enjoy them.”

Besides the reconstruction of Harter Union, Long’s main goal in her last 16 months at BU is to attend as many student events as possible.

After retirement, Long hopes to spend more time with her husband and stay involved with some aspects of education.

“I think (Dennis and I) are going to try to travel some, but I’d like to serve on some boards,” Long said. “I’d like to do some volunteer work and I like to teach. I’d like to at least do some adjunct work in teaching and especially in leadership.”

With Long stepping down in at the end June of 2014, the Board of Trustees will begin a search for her replacement soon.

“The presidential transition committee has been formed and is engaged on their task,” Hoot Gibson, Baker’s Chairman of the Board of Trustees, said. “I can assure everyone that this will be a wonderful transition and we will do everything possible to bring on another wonderful president for this great university.”

While the search will begin for Long’s successor, she made one thing very clear with her announcement.

“This is not goodbye, because I’m going to be here for 16 months and I plan to be president for 16 months,” Long said. “We have some big goals and big things to accomplish and that is what I plan to do.”