GW Vice President for Administrative and Information Services Walter Bortz will leave GW to become president of Hampden-Sydney College at the end of this academic year.

Barbara Porter, GW’s director of Public Affairs, said an official announcement will be made Thursday.

GW President Stephen Joel Trachtenberg said Bortz’s departure is sad, but his time has arrived.

“Walter is going to be spectacular,” he said.

Bortz’s discussions with Hampden-Sydney, a college in Virginia 60 miles southwest of Richmond, have been in gestation for about a year, but the final decision to select him as president came Saturday, Trachtenberg said.

Bortz will replace current Hampden-Sydney President Samuel V. Wilson, who will retire at the end of the year, no later than July 1, 2000. Bortz was unavailable for comment.

Trachtenberg said Bortz offered great contributions that often did not get attention at GW. His efforts were are the kind that “run a little below the skin,” Trachtenberg said.

Bortz handled personnel difficulties and other potentially embarrassing situations with ease and diplomacy so such issues would not become a matter of public discourse, Trachtenberg said.

But he said Bortz’s greatest contribution was helping the University obtain and maintain state-of-the-art technology.

Trachtenberg said the University has made no plans to replace Bortz yet. He said administrators might use this departure as an opportunity to redistribute responsibilities among other vice presidents.

“Changing responsibilities refreshes the vice presidents,” Trachtenberg said.

Hampden-Sydney is a men’s college, one of three in the country, with an enrollment of about 1,000.

-Francesca Di Meglio and Steven Postal