Paul Katz, president of University of the Sciences since 2016, is retiring next month as the university completes its merger with St. Joseph’s University, writes Susan Snyder for The Philadelphia Inquirer.

 “It’s been something I’ve been thinking about for a long time,” Katz, 73, said in an interview. “I think the time is right for me.”

The university’s chief financial and operating officer, Valerie Weil, will become interim president and complete the merger.

The merger itself is expected to take a year.

The plan calls for the 200-year-old University of the Sciences, formerly Philadelphia College of Pharmacy, to merge with St. Joseph’s, a 170-year-old Jesuit institution

The combined institution will be called St. Joseph’s and will be led by current St. Joseph’s University President Mark C. Reed.

It will enroll more than 9,000 undergraduate and graduate students, and employ nearly 450 faculty.

 It will have an endowment in excess of half-a-billion dollars, $1.2 billion in assets and 95,000 living alumni..

“I have great confidence in my colleagues,” Katz said. “St. Joe’s is the perfect partner for USciences and vice versa.”

Read more at The Philadelphia Inquirer about the latest on the merger of St. Joseph’s University and the University of the Sciences.