Jim Gallogly surprised everyone by announcing his retirement as president of The University of Oklahoma shortly after spring commencement.

Gallogly was under fire because of his conservative fiscal views and his apparent unwillingness to toe the line with some ultra-liberal professors and staffers at OU.

Add to that the allegations of sexual harassment against former OU President David Boren and you a tough job became much tougher.

Gallogly inherited a financial mess at OU. The Norman campus reportedly had a debt of $1 billion and it wasn’t bringing in enough to cover normal expenses.

Gallogly started personnel reviews and laid off some over-paid administrators to trim costs. His plan seems to be working but it irked the college bureaucrats and some tenured professors who wanted no cuts whatsoever.

Race baiters seem to target OU and any incident gets blown up in liberal news media. The school is getting an undeserved reputation for racial incidents and efforts to diffuse the problems are underreported.

Who will be the next president? Will it be an academic without any fiscal accountability? Or will it be a common-sense administrator who can unify the campus?

If it’s an academic, look for problems to continue.