He was meant to steady the ship.

Professor Karl Kramer became the second American to run Australia's most important and most prestigious music academy, the Sydney Conservatorium. This week he also became the second to leave with his tenure there under a cloud of controversy.

The Herald revealed that Dean Kramer was forced to resign following a University of Sydney investigation into concerns that he'd misspent thousands of dollars on his corporate credit card.

University of Sydney administrators began investigating the professor's expenses after a staff member said they weren't even in the country despite being listed as having helped rack up a $1000 dinner bill on an official trip to Europe.

Dr Kramer declined to comment about the matter and it is understood he is contesting some of the charges.

The story brings fresh upheaval upon the Conservatorium, after seven sometimes tumultuous years under the woman Kramer replaced in 2012, fellow American Professor Kim Walker.

Kramer arrived at the gothic, castle-like headquarters in the Botanic Gardens carrying hopes of a new start. The tuba player cum university administrator styled himself as a "therapist-in-chief" who had come to the aid of an institution "that needed to leave its baggage behind".

But three years later, at a conspicuously late hour one Friday in April, en email left staff and the Con's 2500 students once again asking questions about their future.

"For personal and family reasons […] I will be returning to the United States," he said.

Only rarely does a dean not see out a full five-year term.

When his predecessor Kim Walker was negotiating with the vice-chancellor about her position's future she was told it would be "unusual" for the university not to renew her contract. In the end, her contract as dean was not extended. But nor was it cut short. This was despite a number of allegations of plagiarism, negative media coverage - which supporters say resulted from leaks against her - and an independent inquiry that recommended she be sacked. (She left voluntarily in 2013 after staying on as Professor and with a glowing reference from the University).

Staff are now wondering exactly what was on Kramer's receipts that forced him out so quickly. (The university referred the matter to the Independent Commission Against Corruption, which is not believed to be pursuing the matter further).

The timing could not have been worse. The conservatorium's big centenary year celebrations were scheduled to begin only about two weeks after Kramer's announcement.

When asked to review his time in the job, Kramer's colleagues all say the same thing: he brought calm.

"The greatest feature of his tenure was the fact that the tension that was in the institution was greatly reduced," says Michael Smetanin​, a composition lecturer, speaking before Friday's story.

That may sound like a slight achievement.

But it's difficult to overstate the dissension during Kim Walker's seven years.

Even Walker's supporters acknowledge the Conservatorium became a deeply divided place.

"It had been a very vibrant, very troubled institution," Professor Anne Boyd said. "I thought she did wonderful things. [But] it was troubled. One couldn't pretend otherwise.

"There was a great deal of bitterness".

Detractors painted her as a brash and boastful American with more style than substance. Supporters said she was a visionary with manic energy.

Less than three years into her tenure, she was mysteriously stood aside while an academic inquiry into her conducted was launched. Then she was reinstated only to be repeatedly dogged by accusations of plagiarism.

The Herald  revealed in 2008 that Walker's February report to the conservatorium's college board contained a number of passages identical to documents from high-ranking officials at Indiana University over recent years.

In a later law suit against the university for damaging her professional reputation, Walker named a group of academics as key players in her downfall, something her statement of claim depicted as a saga of secrecy and duplicity. (That matter never proceeded through the courts, suggesting a settlement was reached).

Kramer, by contrast, was a former jobbing musician who appeared set to modernise and popularise Australia's most elite public institution.

He brought in a contemporary music program. This year music with mass commercial appeal will be taught inside the Con's walls.

That change raised eyebrows. So too did the choice of Leonard Bernstein's MASS for a major centennial concert; an all-in piece of contemporary American religious music, commissioned by Jacqui Kennedy, and with lyrics by Paul Simon it was a choice some considered naff, particularly for the centenary curtain-raiser. (Walker had planned to commission 101 new works by Australian and international composers).

Changes to the program weren't the only respects in which the new administrator met with opposition. Kramer was revealed to have been hard-nosed in negotiating staff redundancies.

Fairfax revealed last year emails he'd exchanged with an HR manager about a language teacher, Nicole Dorigo, who was later made redundant.

"Duct tape can't fix stupid, but can muzzle it," one read. "[W]ho died and left her queen?"

(Kramer later apologised for the remarks).

Like his predecessor, Kramer also shipped in big overseas names.

Mexican-American Eduardo Diazmunoz became the new head of conducting.

American John Lynch was brought in to oversee a new emphasis on Wind Symphony, a genre that has never had much relevance to Australian classical music.

Now that attention is turning to Kramer's successor, some are saying it's time for an Australian to lead the institution out of trouble.

Barry Walmsley, the director of Music at the Kings School, and former Con student, says that music educators have been discouraged by these recent imports.

"Why are we always selecting Americans [they ask]," he said. "They're disappointed in the leadership under the past two deans and maybe that has shaped opinion.

"[But] they would prefer somebody from Australia or the European tradition."

The name of Richard Gill, perhaps Australia's most famous music director, is perennially invoked in any discussion of the conservatorium's next leader.

But since the Con's adoption into the university in 1990, its leaders must be performers of music but also have academic credentials. (Kramer has a doctorate from Yale). Gill is a conductor who has become one of Australia's most celebrated music educators.

Although Kramer steps down only later this month, the search for his replacement has already begun.

This week's reports raised the stakes for the university. Another problematic appointment could paralyse an institution that depends on credibility with big donors to expand its program in the absence of new federal funding.

That may mean the university's search committee will have to take even longer than the year it took to find  Walker's replacement.

It seems likely then that one of the nation's great cultural institutions will remain headless for the rest of its centenary, its most important anniversary but also the end of its most turbulent decade.