Jack Lord “stepped down” last week as the No. 2 executive at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine, but is he really leaving UM? That’s unclear a week after the announcement.

On the evening of Jan. 2, Dean Pascal Goldschmidt wrote a letter to faculty that Lord would no longer be chief operating officer, but gave no indication what Lord’s future would be.

At 4:59 a.m. the next morning, Richard Cote, chair of the pathology department, wrote an email to departmental colleagues that Lord, a pathologist by training, would join the department. “We are very proud to have Jack as a member of our faculty and are fortunate that Jack will remain a vital member of our department to help move our efforts forward. His expertise in health care delivery and management will continue to benefit the department and school.”

The following day, Jan. 4, The Herald asked Lord and UM public affairs department whether he was going to pathology. Spokeswoman Christine Morris emailed: “Responding on behalf of the institution and Dr. Lord, we have nothing else to say.”

On Wednesday, spokeswoman Lisa Worley said the email about Lord moving to pathology was “inaccurate. We are working on a transition with Dr. Lord, and it will be resolved in the near future.”

Meanwhile, a petition continues to circulate among faculty that decries “the failed leadership of Pascal Goldschmidt and Jack Lord. ... We want to make clear that the faculty has lost confidence in the ability of these men to lead the school.”

Many faculty are angry about the medical school laying off 900 full- and part-time employees -- cuts that were devised shortly after Lord took over as COO in the spring of 2012.

His salary is not public record, but his COO predecessor, William Donelan, had a base salary in 2011 of $735,250, plus bonuses and other compensation for a total of $1.05 million, according to UM’s Form 990 filings with the Internal Revenue Service.

Before taking a job at UM, Lord and his wife pledged to give $5 million to the university.