A high-ranking governing-board member who helped engineer the controversial departure of the president of the University of Virginia has stepped down, The Washington Post writes.

Mark J. Kington, an Alexandria, Va., businessman and the vice rector of the Board of Visitors, wrote in a letter to Gov. Robert F. McDonnell that he hoped his action would “begin a needed healing process at the university,” which has been embroiled in protest over the forced resignation of Teresa A. Sullivan.

Mr. Kington and the board’s leader, Helen E. Dragas, reportedly led the effort to remove Ms. Sullivan from office. His exit came as the panel approved an interim president, Carl P. Zeithaml, dean of the university’s McIntire School of Commerce.

Two board members said after the vote that they would have supported reinstating Ms. Sullivan, a popular administrator who retains wide faculty and student backing on the Charlottesville campus and whose ouster prompted some donors to threaten to withhold gifts.