John Mills sits in his office at Paul Smith’s College in January 2011. (Enterprise photo — Chris Knight)

JOHNSON, Vt. (AP) — The president of Northern Vermont University has announced that she resigning in mid-August.

Elaine Collins said Monday that she plans to seek new professional challenges. She had served as president of Johnson State College starting in 2015 before it joined with Lyndon State College to become Northern Vermont University in 2018.

The board on Tuesday voted to appoint John Mills, a former president of Paul Smith’s College in New York and Mount Aloysius College in Pennsylvania, to serve as interim president of Northern Vermont University.

“Building Northern Vermont University–with the dedicated faculty, staff, students, alumni, and community members–is one of the proudest accomplishments of my career,” Collins said in a written statement. “I am honored to have had the opportunity to create NVU. Our unification achieved its goals and the transformation of the Vermont State Colleges System has begun.”

Lynn Dickinson, chairman of the state college’s board of trustees, said he accepted her resignation with great sadness.

“Her tenure at the VSCS is noted for her work to achieve national recognition for Northern Vermont University’s campuses and programs, for her leadership during the unification of Lyndon State College and Johnson State College into Northern Vermont University, and for her strategic, visionary approach to leading Johnson State College and later Northern Vermont University,” he said in a written statement.