CHAPEL HILL, N.C. – Elizabeth City State University Chancellor Stacey Franklin Jones has announced plans to resign from the positon effective Dec. 31.

A statement from UNC General Administration said Jones informed system President Tom Ross of her decision on Monday. Jones had served as chancellor at the historically black college since October 2014.

Over the last five years, Elizabeth City State enrollment has dropped by more than 50 percent and state appropriations and tuition revenue have declined by 21 percent. State lawmakers last year considered closing the campus, but they provided $3 million in short-term stabilization funding this year.

The historically black university has struggled with tougher minimum admissions standards for the University of North Carolina system, state budget cuts during the recession and operational deficiencies, UNC officials said. The chancellor who preceded Jones resigned in 2013 amid a state investigation into how the school handled sexual assault cases on campus.

Jones, a mathematician and systems engineer who had worked as a technology management consultant, was brought in to right the ship, and she promised at the September 2014 Board of Governors meeting during which she was hired to make Elizabeth City State a national model for affordability and academic success.

Thomas Conway, vice chancellor and chief of staff at Fayetteville State University, will serve as interim chancellor. Ross said Conway begins serving on Jan. 1, 2016.

According to the statement, the UNC Board of Governors is expected to consider electing Conway to the position permanently at its regularly scheduled January meeting.