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ECU Interim Chancellor Resigns

The campus of East Carolina University. Courtesy of ECU News Services.

The interim chancellor of East Carolina University retired over the weekend.

The announcement comes after photos of Dan Gerlach at a bar with students made their way to social media. 

University system officials announced Saturday that Gerlach stepped down weeks after the controversial images became public.

Gerlach previously said that he went to a local pub with two male acquaintances in late September. The videos shared on social media show him interacting with college-aged young adult and taking selfies at the bar.

Gerlach was placed on leave, prompting students and supporters to start a social media campaign backing the embattled chancellor.

University of North Carolina Interim President Bill Roper said Gerlach's resignation is in the best interest of the university.  

Gerlach had been interim chancellor since April, taking over for Cecil P. Staton, who had been chancellor for three years.

Gerlach's retirement is effective immediately.

Paul Garber is a Winston-Salem native and an award-winning reporter who began his journalism career with an internship at The High Point Enterprise in 1993. He has previously worked at The Augusta (Ga.) Chronicle, The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The News and Record of Greensboro and the Winston-Salem Journal, where he was the newspaper's first full-time multimedia reporter. He won the statewide Media and the Law award in 2000 and has also been recognized for his business, investigative and multimedia reporting. Paul earned a BA from Wake Forest University and has a Master's of Liberal Arts degree from Johns Hopkins University and a Master's of Journalism and Mass Communication from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He lives in Lewisville.

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