Kennedy School of Government (KSG) Dean Joseph S. Nye, who led the school through an unprecedented period of growth and internationalization, announced yesterday that he will step down at the end of the academic year.

Nye, who received several standing ovations at the faculty meeting where he announced his decision, said that he was ready to return to teaching after eight years at the school’s helm.

“I became an academic because I like teaching and research, and I’ve been doing administrative jobs now for more than a decade,” Nye said.

It is an opportune time for Nye to step down. His decision comes a month after the school announced that it had reversed the massive $5.9 million deficit it ran in 2002.

“Whoever succeeds Joe will inherit a school that is focused, intellectually vital, strongly engaged with the world and in healthy financial condition,” University President Lawrence H. Summers said after the faculty meeting, where he and others toasted Nye over champagne.

Colleagues described a tenure in which the school’s national and international presence increased dramatically through a larger and more intellectually distinguished faculty.

As the school grew in size, it also increased its research output and its prominence in public affairs.

“He really put the Kennedy School on the map,” said Robert Orr, the recently-appointed executive director for research at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. “I think Joe has made this into an absolute powerhouse.”

Under Nye, the school’s faculty increased by over 40 percent. The number of minority and female professors also increased significantly.

He added five new research centers and a Masters in Public Administration degree in international development.

As part of his focus both on international outreach and shaping public policy, Nye tripled the number of KSG-run executive programs—courses in management and governance the school holds for U.S. and foreign leaders.

“What was striking about Joe was that in many directions, he was an innovator,” said Williams Professor of International Trade and Investment Robert Z. Lawrence. “We had pressing issues by the way our faculty was sort of white and male, and so we became a more diverse faculty and we also became a much larger faculty.”

When Nye came in, Lawrence said, he turned around what had been a “holding pattern” at the school for several years. “It wasn’t a period in which the school really grew or formulated new ideas.”

Nye took over in 1995 as the school’s third dean in four years.

Robert D. Putnam, now Malkin professor of public policy, had stepped down in 1991 after a rocky two years as dean. He was succeeded by Albert Carnesale, who was quickly tapped to be the University’s provost.Putnam said Nye was able to combine high-quality scholarship with relevance to government—two areas that he said have always been the school’s major challenge.