Eric Holder, the U.S. attorney general and former member of GW’s Board of Trustees, will resign, President Barack Obama announced Thursday.

Obama said Holder, who has been a member of the Obama administration since 2009 and was the first black attorney general, will stay in office until a replacement is found and confirmed by the Senate. Holder was a member of GW’s Board of Trustees from 1996 to 1997, and received an honorary law doctorate from the University in 1998.

Holder’s Installation Ceremony, a ceremonial swearing-in for the attorney general, was held at Lisner Auditorium in 2009. Both he and Obama spoke at the event.

“I’m proud of what the men and women of the Department of Justice have accomplished over the last six years, and at the same time, very said that I will not be a formal part of the great things that this department and this president will accomplish over the next two,” Holder said Thursday at a White House press conference.

Holder met with leaders from GW and other D.C.-area universities in the spring to discuss ways to prevent sexual assault on college campuses and also spoke at a mental health awareness event for at-risk teenagers in Lisner Auditorium two years ago.