Missouri president Tim Wolfe resigns amid student criticism of his handling of racial issues

— -- COLUMBIA, Mo. -- University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe has resigned amid criticism of his handling of racial issues on campus.

The announcement came at a special meeting of the university system's governing body, the Board of Curators.

"I take full responsibilty for the actions that have occurred," Wolfe said a a news conference. "I have asked everybody to use my resignation to heal. Let's focus in changing what we can change today and in the future, not what we can't change in the past."

Graduate student Jonathan Butler began a hunger strike last Monday, saying Wolfe should step down after failing to respond to student concerns about racial tension in the wake of several on-campus incidents.

Racial tension has been brewing on Missouri's campus in Columbia since September, when Payton Head, the Missouri Students Association president and an African-American, said he was racially abused while walking. Students protested when it took nearly a week for the university chancellor to address the incident.

Then in October, a student yelled the N-word at members of the Legion of Black Collegians in a campus plaza while they were rehearsing for a play. Later that month, someone smeared feces in the shape of a swastika on a bathroom wall in a new residence hall.