CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (CBSDC/AP) — The vice rector of the University of Virginia’s Board of Visitors has resigned, bidding to quell some of the turmoil surrounding the ouster of President Teresa Sullivan.

Mark Kington said in a letter Tuesday to Gov. Bob McDonnell that he’s resigning immediately as vice rector and also will step down from the board. Kington said in the letter that he hopes the move “will begin a needed healing process at the university.”

U.Va.’s Faculty Senate and other groups had called for Kington and Rector Helen Dragas to step down and roundly criticized the board’s handling of Sullivan’s removal.

Read statement from Sullivan

The board named McIntire School of Commerce Dean Carl Zeithaml as the interim president. He will take up the post after Sullivan’s Aug. 15 departure.

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