Turmoil at Columbia U: Dean who said she'd leave next June told to pack it in now. And unrelated, a Duke vice provost will depart with 8 days notice

Occasionally Fact Checker covers news from beyond Duke. It's interesting to see a quick departure at Columbia too. Scroll down: Duke losing its vice provost for academic affairs next week.

On Saturday, the supreme undergraduate dean at Columbia University, Michele M. Moody-Adams, sent out an e-mail to stakeholders saying she would resign when the 2011-12 academic year ends next June.

It's just been learned that on Monday, Columbia President Lee Bollinger told her to pack it in immediately.

She's the first female, the first black to be Dean of Columbia College, the undergraduate division. Moreover, in June, another prominent black administrator, Columbia Provost Claude M. Steele took a step or two backward and left to become dean of Stanford University’s School of Education.

In her e-mail, Moody-Adams wrote that she was losing power, as the university had started to “transform the administrative structure” of the faculty of arts and sciences. The changes cut into her authority over “crucial policy, fund-raising and budgetary matters.” Moreover, she complained the changes would eat into “the college’s academic quality and financial health” and had gotten to the point where she could not reverse them.

Columbia did not release the text of the message she got Monday from President Bollinger.