Drew Meyer groped for the right words to describe his final few months as chairman of the board of Suffolk University before summoning up the words of the Grateful Dead:

“What a long, strange trip it’s been,’’ said Meyer, with a hearty laugh.

Meyer sounded like a person who’s ready to exit, and no wonder. Since an attempt to oust its new president, Margaret McKenna, in January in a deeply misguided power play, Suffolk has been transformed from a quiet private school to which most people gave little thought into a cauldron of intrigue.

McKenna successfully stood her ground. She and Meyer both agreed to step down — Meyer on Friday, with McKenna to follow in September 2017. A new board chairman, retired banker Robert Lamb, is expected to be elected by Suffolk trustees Friday.

Those changes have done surprisingly little to resolve the civil war at Suffolk. McKenna’s tenure is being investigated by outside counsel hired by the trustees. The search for a new chairman has been a mess, to the point that the leading contenders for the job refused to consider it. The students and faculty have largely been reduced to helpless bystanders while the university’s alleged leadership continues to battle. The university community deserves better.

The Globe’s Laura Krantz reported this week that at least three fixtures of the city’s business community — former advertising executive Jack Connors, former Red Sox CEO Larry Lucchino, and former John Hancock CEO David D’Alessandro — declined to be considered for the post. None of them have ties to Suffolk, or any reason to want the headache of overhauling the school, a project that many consider a long-term project.

To my mind, the search process was botched from the beginning. The board itself is in need of a drastic overhaul, and that probably should have been the first order of business. The new board could have then selected a chairman, and a new president. Actually, D’Alessandro, Lucchino, and Connors should all be invited to join the board. They would be a drastic upgrade over most of the incumbents.

Not much is known about Lamb, the new chairman. He lives in New Hampshire, where he made an unsuccessful run for state Senate in 2012. He served as chief financial officer of FleetBoston Financial Group beginning in 2002. He attended West Point, though Suffolk is said to have been his second choice. People who’ve known every significant figure in the city’s business community for years say they have no clue who he is. Lamb has declined requests for interviews, including mine.

None of that means he won’t be a fine board chairman. But he will have his hands full dealing with the ghost of George Regan, the public relations executive who’s exerted outsize influence at Suffolk for years. It was Regan who engineered the aborted firing of McKenna. And even though the school has formally severed its ties with him, no one believes he has gone away. If nothing else, his unsubstantiated allegations against McKenna prompted the ridiculous investigation of her conduct. Lamb could do worse for a first act than to put an end to the toxic war between Suffolk’s board and its president, by ending the probe.

And what of McKenna? Is she really leaving? She decisively won the showdown with the board and is said to have fallen in love with the job. She has said that it was clear that she had to agree to step down to resolve the mess. But she has never closed the door completely on staying. At a school where nothing is settled, her future demands resolution.

Suffolk’s misfortunes have not been all bad for the school. Ugly as it has been, it also offers the promise of a fresh start — with an energized board more reflective of Boston, and new leadership. But to take advantage, Suffolk will have to defy its recent history.

Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @Adrian_Walker.