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Shortly after 6 p.m. Saturday, life in Ann Arbor came to a standstill as word spread: The University of Michigan’s Board of Regents had unanimously fired President Mark Schlissel for an inappropriate relationship with a female employee.

“Everyone was on their phone,” Mary Walsh, 54, of Ann Arbor, who was eating with friends in a downtown restaurant, told the Free Press on Sunday morning. “We were just leaving and it seemed like at every table we walked past people were reading the story or talking about it. It was stunning.”

The school’s board sent a letter to Schlissel firing him immediately for the supervisor-subordinate relationship and then posted that letter and dozens of his emails on the university’s website.

Less than 24 hours later, the streets of the small college town were hazy with frost and hushed in the quiet of a Sunday morning.

Students who were up and braving the cold were still talking about the firing.

“I, honestly, was very surprised that it was so all of a sudden, it just kind of seemed like it came out of nowhere,” said Eleanor Wang, 21, a movement sciences student. “Since I started here (in 2018), everything seems like it’s just gone downhill.”

Those interviewed and others who issued statements in the university community were glad to hear of the dismissal.

“President Schlissel has consistently acted as if he is above the rest of the university community, as if the rules do not apply to him and as if he is only responsible to his own elite circles,” said the One University Coalition in a statement. The group of faculty, students and staff from U-M’s three campuses advocates for equitable funding. “Any progress made toward equity priorities over the last few years has been the result of student and faculty organizing, over the objections of Dr. Schlissel. After watching our campuses suffer due to his neglect of our student bodies, our specific missions, and our staff and faculty colleagues, we greet this decision with relief and gratitude.”