University of Arizona fires police chief, provost amid school safety concerns

TUCSON, Ariz. - The University of Arizona is severing ties with its first female police chief as well as a provost after criticism of campus safety issues arose following a professor’s shooting death.

Various Tucson media outlets reported that UA President Robert Robbins announced Monday in a memo that Chief Paula Balafas was departing effective immediately. Senior Vice President and Provost Liesl Folks will step down at the end of the school year, Robbins said in the memo.

Balafas has been chief since February 2022. Chris Olson, a commander in the nearby Oro Valley Police Department, will take over in the interim.

Robbins said Folks will stay on as a faculty member in electrical and computer engineering.

Administrators came under heavy scrutiny in the wake of the October shooting death of Thomas Meixner, a hydrology professor who was gunned down by an expelled student.

Faculty members said not enough was done after former student Murad Dervish kept sending threatening messages to Meixner and others.

The UA Faculty Senate gave a vote of "no confidence" in Robbins during a meeting a month ago. They also singled out Balafas and Folks.

A sign in front of some cacti mark one of the entrances to the University of Arizona, in Tucson, Arizona. The University was founded in 1885 and was the first university in the Arizona Territory. (Photo by Epics/Getty Images)

Robbins and Balafas initially were dismissive of a faculty-led report on how the threatening communications were handled. They urged the community to wait for a third-party investigator contracted by the school to complete an investigation, which found there were gaps in communication and security.

Robbins later apologized for dismissing the faculty’s review.

Dervish is set to go on trial in September for first-degree murder and other charges. He has pleaded not guilty.