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Suresh Garimella, current president of the University of Vermont, will be the University of Arizona’s new president. He was the only finalist to emerge from a months-long search process to replace UA President Robert Robbins, who announced his resignation earlier this year amid the university’s ongoing financial crisis.
The Arizona Board of Regents Friday voted unanimously to approve Garimella’s appointment, which will likely begin “later this fall,” according to a news release from the board.
Garimella is “student-focused and considers himself first and foremost a faculty member. With a 35-year career in higher education, Suresh is engaging, a great listener and a collaborative leader," said Cecilia Mata, board chair. "Wildcats are part of our state’s DNA, and [Garimella] has shown he is the right leader at the right time to heal and grow Arizona’s land-grant university."
It’s not yet clear what how much Garimella will earn as UA’s next president (he reportedly made $509,331 at Vermont). Robbins’s base salary is $734,407, after he took a 10 percent pay cut in March, according to UA.
While Garimella still has to negotiate his exit from the Vermont and his new contract with UA, once he arrives in Tucson, he’ll replace Robbins, who has served as president of UA since 2017. Robbins, a former hospital CEO and cardiothoracic surgeon, said last spring he would step down, and that he would not renew his contract in 2026 or he would leave after an 18-member search committee selected a new president, whichever came first.
Although Robbins’s tenure was marked by some successes—he grew UA’s research expenditures to nearly $955 million and got its endowment over the $1 billion threshold—he also made a series of controversial leadership decisions.
The University of Arizona’s purchase and rebrand of a troubled, once-for-profit university into the University of Arizona Global Campus fueled national scrutiny, as did the university’s reported handling of events surrounding the fatal on-campus shooting of a professor in 2022. As a result of the latter, the UA Faculty Senate, which regularly brushed up against Robbins’s leadership choices, passed a vote of no confidence in Robbins and other top UA officials in 2023.
Last fall, it was also revealed that the university’s financial mismanagement resulted in a $177 million budget deficit, though U=A predicts it will be reduced to $53 million by next year, according to The Arizona Daily Star.
Robbins said in a statement that he’d assist Garimella “with the transition in any way possible,” and that “the U of A will be in good hands for years to come.” Garimella, who is a mechanical engineer by trade, has served as president of the University of Vermont since 2019. Before that, he was executive vice president for research and partnerships at Purdue University, where he was founding director of the National Science Foundation’s Cooling Technologies Research Center.
Joellen Russell, University Distinguished Professor of biogeochemical dynamics and Thomas R. Brown Distinguished Chair of Integrative Science at UA, who served on the presidential search committee, told The Daily Star that Garimella emerged as the best candidate, and that the committee unanimously recommended him.
“How can you beat a sitting president at another land-grant university who is also in the National Academy,” Russell reportedly said. “ I am thrilled that the board listened to our recommendations and did such a great job of landing a fantastic president.”
Garimella’s leadership of Vermont has not been without controversy, however, as he faced criticism from students and faculty after cutting numerous liberal arts majors and minors in 2020.
His tenure also included freezing tuition for in-state students, expanding access to a need-based scholarship and growing the university’s research budget. He plans to apply his interest in research at UA, which has a much larger research portfolio than Vermont.
"I have long admired the U of A and its stature in the state of Arizona and far beyond,” he said in the university’s announcement. “The institution demonstrates the best qualities of a land-grant university with exceptional leadership in research and health sciences, highly acclaimed faculty and staff and a diverse student population comprised of the best and brightest from around the world.”
