President of Mills College Resigns : Education: She says she cannot make a long-term commitment to the school while it struggles to boost enrollment to keep it from going co-ed.

Mills College President Mary Metz has resigned, seven weeks after her hesitant support for a now-abandoned proposal to admit men to the women’s school sparked passionate criticism from students.

Metz said in a written statement that she was leaving because she could not commit herself to stay at Mills during a demanding five-year plan to boost enrollment by nearly one-third and raise $10 million to keep the college from having to go co-ed.

Metz was unavailable for comment Friday, but a college spokesperson said Metz decided to pursue other professional opportunities and permit the college to find someone able to make a long-term commitment to lead Mills.

Students’ anger and charges that Metz betrayed them by going along with plans to admit undergraduate men in 1991 also took a toll on the nine-year Mills president, colleagues said.

“I can’t imagine that it didn’t hurt,” said Terry Fairman, an alumna who sits on the Board of Trustees. “Mary is a very human person. That’s the reason the students liked her so much, but it also makes her more vulnerable to their anger.”

Some students still harbor resentment they first felt when Metz and the trustees announced in May the plans to boost enrollment by admitting men, student body President Melissa Stevenson-Dile said. Students will have mixed emotions when they learn of Metz’s departure, she said.

“Her seeming betrayal was really what sparked our anger,” Stevenson-Dile said. “There was a great deal of animosity that came out of that. I’m hopeful that now we can clear the air.”

Student protests and a campus strike prompted Mills’ trustees to reverse their decision to make the college, which already accepts male graduate students, completely co-ed. The trustees agreed to let Mills remain a women’s college until 1995, provided cost-cutting and enrollment-boosting measures could help erase an annual deficit of $24 million.

Stevenson-Dile and Metz’s colleagues praised the outgoing president for her leadership of what has long been considered the premier women’s college in the West.

Under Metz’s leadership, Mills tripled its endowment, which now totals $72 million.

“We have had phenomenal success in fund-raising, and a lot of that is due to the tireless work of Dr. Metz,” said Donna Howard, Mills vice president for institutional advancement.

Mills trustee and former Vassar College President Virginia Smith will become acting Mills College president, pending a search for someone to fill the post permanently, a Mills spokesman said. Smith also has a proven track record in raising money for colleges, the spokesman said.

The Oakland school will need all the help it can get to bring in enough money to remain an all-woman college, Mills officials said.

“We all have a ton of work to do,” said Warren Hellman, chairman of the Mills Board of Trustees. “We’ve got to translate a lot of enthusiasm into action.”