Harris-Stowe State University is losing the president who planned to stay for five years … but is retiring after 32. 

Doctor Henry Givens says he’ll leave as soon as the school finds his replacement in a nationwide search.

When Givens took over Harris-Stowe in 1979, it was a small historically-black teacher’s training school in St. Louis with one building and giving only one degree. Now it’s a university with about 2,000 students; it offers 14 degrees and has seven buildings.