BURLINGTON, Vt. (AP) - The University of Vermont’s new president started the job on Monday, telling reporters that his focus will be on student success while also making higher education more affordable and accessible to a diversity of students.
Suresh Garimella, UVM’s 27th president, came from Purdue University in Indiana where he was executive vice president for research and partnerships and a professor of mechanical engineering. He replaces Thomas Sullivan who has stepped down to finish a book.
Garimella acknowledged that colleges and universities across the country are facing a host of challenges to which UVM is not immune. Overall they include high costs, fewer high school graduates, opportunities for alternative trainings, lower state funding and financial difficulties.
But Garimella said he thinks UVM can meet the challenges it faces.
“I also think our assets, UVM’s assets, are strong and that we will be able to weather these challenges and thrive through them, you know, with a focus on our student success,” he said.
UVM’s enrollment is strong, he said.
He said he’s anxious to get to know the students and would like them to feel like they have access to him.
The students must be the center of what UVM does, including their safety, security, mental well-being and educational experiences, he said.
“I think we have to continually be looking at how to improve the offerings that we have and keep up with new areas and new experiences that we need to give them,” he said.
Among a number of strategies to make higher education more affordable will be to rely more on alumni donations, he said.
Garimella was at Purdue for 20 years, and at University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee for 10 years before that. He was appointed a science fellow by the U.S. Department of State in 2010 to serve as a science advisor in the International Energy Office in 2010. He also served as a science fellow in the State Department’s Energy and Climate Partnership of Americas, UVM said.
He earned his bachelor’s degree in India from Indian Institute of Technology Madras. He has a Ph.D. from University of California at Berkeley and a Masters from Ohio State University.
Being a land-grant university, in which states were granted land to create colleges, was a big plus for him, he said.
He said he was the product of public schooling and wasn’t wealthy and is now a university president. Everyone should have that opportunity, he said.
“What I think of as being a land grant mission is that at least my version for what it would mean to UVM is that all of our access should be brought to bear on the well-being of the community,” he said.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.