M.R.C. Greenwood, who drew high praise and strong criticism during her four years at the helm of the University of Hawaii system, has announced she will retire in September to spend more time with family and deal with her health problems.

Greenwood’s contract, after an extension in 2011, was set to expire July 31, 2015.

The announcement came nearly a year after UH became embroiled in the so-called "Wonder blunder" from a botched Stevie Wonder concert that shook public confidence in the university’s leadership and spurred big questions about UH accountability and operations.

However, Greenwood, who just turned 70, emphasized that her decision was not related to the fallout surrounding the concert, which was to benefit the cash-strapped athletic department but ended up costing the school more than $200,000 in an alleged scam.

"My reasons for deciding to retire are really related to personal issues, my health and the fact that I just think it’s the right time in my life for me to, as they say, move on," Greenwood told the Star-Advertiser on Monday from her offices at UH’s Bachman Hall. "I’ve been very, very privileged to be able to serve as the president. Overall I would rate it as an A+ experience, really four of the happiest years of my life."

Few were surprised by Greenwood’s decision, with many saying it was apparent the president was no longer able to effectively represent the university, especially at the Legislature.

Senate President Donna Mercado Kim, who led a special committee to investigate the concert and its aftermath and has butted heads with Greenwood and other UH administrators in recent months, said Greenwood’s departure is "the best course for the university."

"I think we need to get a new president in there and someone who is going to look at everything with a fresh pair of eyes," Kim said.

Her biggest concerns about Greenwood’s tenure centered on the "attitude and culture that seems to have flourished at the university when it came to how to handle problems," Kim said. "It didn’t seem like there was a lot of transparency. There was certainly no accountability."

Kim said the university and regents need to do some soul-searching.

"Just changing the figurehead is not going to solve the university’s problems," she said. "The Board of Regents will need to get their act together."

UH-Manoa Faculty Senate Chairwoman Bonnyjean Manini said that while she believes Greenwood did bring strengths to the university, she also supports the president’s decision to leave.

"I think there was no recovering for her after the Stevie Wonder blunder," Manini said. "Clearly, when you look at the state Legislature, her ability to be effective as a president was not going to happen. The fact that she wasn’t down at the Capitol for much of the session says that she was no longer able to be effective for us."

Manini said she’s hopeful that regents and university can now unite to choose an academic to lead the university who has business sense and who is from Hawaii.

"I think it’s about looking within, seeing if we have a leader who can emerge from within our University of Hawaii system."

In a statement Monday night, Gov. Neil Abercrombie did not comment specifically on Greenwood’s decision to leave, but praised the president and said he would be "contacting the Board of Regents and the wider university community as we chart our next steps."

Greenwood stepped into her role as the university’s 14th — and first female — president in August 2009 and has received widespread praise for her efforts to boost graduation rates and attract more Native Hawaiians to UH.

She raised eyebrows before even taking a step on campus, though, after her annual salary was announced — $475,000, about $60,000 more than her predecessor, not counting benefits, including a housing allowance. Her spokes­woman said Greenwood has voluntarily taken a 10 percent pay cut because of continuing budget problems, so her actual salary is $427,512.

Greenwood told Board of Regents members Monday about her decision to retire and said the details of her departure and the search for her successor must still be worked out.

After she steps down, Greenwood plans to take a year of unpaid leave, she said, before probably returning for a tenured faculty position at the UH John A. Burns School of Medicine. She is an internationally recognized expert in nutrition, obesity and diabetes.

Regents Chairman Eric Martinson praised Greenwood on Monday, saying her tenure has been "outstanding" and that the university’s reputation has advanced under her leadership.

"She helped navigate the university through one of our nation’s and state’s most severe recessions," Martinson said in a news release. "She has been instrumental in putting the university on the path to increased cooperation with the business community and has helped build recognition of the importance of the university for the economic engine it represents for Hawaii."

Martinson pointed out that Greenwood helped steer several major UH projects to completion, including the UH Cancer Center and the West Oahu campus. He also noted substantial progress with the Thirty Meter Telescope project at Mauna Kea and Hawaii Community College’s West Hawaii campus, set to break ground in late May.

But Manini said Greenwood’s name will be synonymous — at least in the short term — with the botched Wonder concert, which set off a chain of events that led to questions about the university’s operations and tarnished its reputation.

In September a Senate committee grilled UH administrators and regents about the concert fiasco and a host of broader concerns, including university transparency and accountability.

Meanwhile, lawmakers this session took issue with everything from executive salaries at UH to allegations of mismanagement in the procurement of construction contracts at UH.

Those actions led to push-back from the university, which charged legislators with threatening UH’s autonomy.

At several points through the last year, Greenwood appeared ready to resign or be terminated.

Her lawyer sent a letter to regents in October, later withdrawn, that asked for a $2 million settlement for her to step down and suggested she had legal cause to sue.

A month later, though, the board issued a statement supporting the president and pledging to "work together" after months of turmoil.

The Wonder debacle began in July when then-athletic director Jim Dono­­van announced the benefit concert would not happen because the pop star and his representative had not authorized the event.

In an interview, Greenwood said she will spend her last few months on the job dealing with operational concerns, some of which were raised by legislators, and UH’s "lines of authority."

While the last year was challenging, it was "not the hardest I’ve spent politically," she said. "I actually have loved this job."

Before coming to UH, Greenwood was provost and senior vice president for academic affairs for the University of California system. She was also chancellor of the University of California at Santa Cruz.