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Purdue University President France Cordova says she'll step down next summer when her contract expires.
Cordova turns 65 in August 2012 and would have had to retire the following summer unless Purdue's Board of Trustees granted an extension from the mandatory retirement policy covering top university administrators. Cordova announced Friday that her contract won't be extended.
Cordova is an internationally recognized astrophysicist who served as chief scientist at NASA from 1993 to 1996. She was the chancellor of the University of California-Riverside before succeeding Martin Jischke as Purdue's 11th president in 2007.
She is the university's first female and Hispanic president.
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