The president of Williams College, Morton Owen Schapiro, will step down to take the top post at Northwestern University next September, the Illinois university announced today.

Mr. Schapiro, who has served as Williams’s president since 2000, is credited with spearheading a $400-million fund-raising campaign that’s set to close this month, with reducing class sizes, and with completing major building projects at Williams, according to The Berkshire Eagle.

Mr. Schapiro, a professor of economics, has also been a prominent thinker on student-aid policy and a range of other higher-education issues. His views have often appeared in essays written for The Chronicle Review with Michael S. McPherson, president of the Spencer Foundation (see links below).

In his years at Williams, Mr. Schapiro also drew attention for his generous pay. In The Chronicle’s most recent report on executive compensation, published last month, he ranked as the ninth-highest paid president of a baccalaureate institution, with a total compensation of nearly $515,000. The man he will succeed at Northwestern, Henry S. Bienen, ranked second in overall compensation among research-university presidents, at more than $1.7-million.

“The past nine [years] as president have been the greatest honor and privilege of my professional life,” Mr. Schapiro wrote in a letter sent today to Williams faculty and staff members, alumni, students, and their parents. “But with the completion of our comprehensive campaign this month and my strong feeling that institutions need new leadership every decade or so, I think the timing is right.” —David Shieh

Chronicle essays by Mr. Schapiro and Mr. McPherson: Moral Reasoning and Higher-Education Policy (9/7/2007) Public Colleges Should Save for a Rainy Day (9/19/2003) Preparing for Hard Times Shows Wisdom, Not Pessimism (4/20/2001) When Protests Proceed at Internet Speed (3/23/2001) Gaining Control of the Free-for-All in Financial Aid (7/2/1999) Needed: a Nobel Prize for the Giants of Social Science (1/30/1998)