Mark L. Greenberg is stepping down as provost and senior vice president of academic affairs at Drexel University, effective mid-September, university President John A. Fry told staff on Monday.

Greenberg, an English language and literature scholar who has served in several other roles at the university including founding dean of the honors college, has been provost for the last six years.

The decision was mutual, said Lori Doyle, a university spokeswoman, and Greenberg will remain with the university where he has worked for nearly three decades. Greenberg will take a one-year sabbatical and return as provost emeritus and a professor.

“Mark has met every critical challenge of the past six years with his customary thoughtfulness and inclusiveness,” Fry said in the staff email. “Those challenges ranged from integrating the Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University, to improving and scaling online learning, to achieving Middle States reaccreditation in 2012 and implementing the ideas that resulted from the process via innovations like the Drexel Student Learning Priorities.”