Robert H. (Doc) Foglesong has resigned abruptly as Mississippi State University’s president, after just two years on the job.

Mr. Foglesong, a retired four-star U.S. Air Force general, submitted his resignation on Friday and did not offer a reason for his departure, The Clarion-Ledger, a newspaper in Jackson, Miss., reported. He asked that he be relieved as president by June 30.

The Clarion-Ledger reported that Mr. Foglesong, who came to Mississippi State in 2006, had recently become the target of criticism by some students, faculty members, and alumni who, the newspaper says, “blamed him for everything from removing daffodils on the campus to architecture students not being allowed to display projects in a window.” He also had been questioned about his lack of attendance at faculty senate meetings.

Mr. Foglesong is the latest nontraditional college president to step down after run-ins with academic bureaucracy. Sean O’Keefe, a former NASA administrator, resigned as president of Louisiana State University at Baton Rouge in January. —Karin Fischer