Hackney retires after a career that included terms as a professor and then provost at Princeton and president of Tulane before his time at Penn. Hackney's presidency saw a record-breaking $1.33 billion fundraising campaign and major improvements to the undergraduate programs. When U.S. News and World Report released its first-ever undergraduate rankings in 1983 — two years into his term — Penn didn't even make the list. It was number 11 when he left in 1993.

After Hackney left Penn he served as chair of the National Endowment for the Humanities before returning to Penn in 1997 as a professor of History. While Hackney will retire to Martha's Vineyard with his wife Lucy, he plans to remain connected to Penn. “It is my participation in this culture of Penn that has made me a better individual,” Hackney said Wednesday in his closing remarks. “I thank Penn for that, and Penn will always be in my life and in my family's life.”

To read an article in the DP about Hackney's retirement, see:
http://www.dailypennsylvanian.com/article/hackney-closing-chapter-penn-history