UVM President Garimella Is Finalist to Lead University of Arizona

UVM president Suresh Garimella Credit: James Buck

Updated 3:15 p.m.

Suresh Garimella, the president of the University of Vermont, is a candidate for the president’s job at the University of Arizona, that school’s board of regents announced Thursday. The U of A, which has 53,000 students, said in a press release that its board is planning to interview Garimella on Friday. The board could vote afterward on whether to offer Garimella the position, said Megan Gilbertson, the board’s associate vice president of public affairs. “I’m so pleased Dr. Garimella has accepted an interview with ABOR,” said Joellen Russell, a presidential search committee member on University of Arizona’s Board of Regents.

“As a sitting president of a fellow land-grant university and eminent scholar, his interest in this job means that he sees the potential and strength of this multicultural powerhouse in the desert that is the University of Arizona.”

Garimella was hired in 2019 to be UVM’s 27th president, and immediately set about working to raise UVM’s profile as a major research institution. He’s stated that his goal is to see UVM attain R1 status, a classification based on the amount of money that universities spend on R&D.

If he’s hired at the University of Arizona, he’ll be leading an institution that already boasts that classification, with nearly $1 billion in annual research expenditures — about four times the amount at UVM.

UVM trustee Stephanie Jerome said she learned about Garimella’s plans around the time the University of Arizona announced them.

“I think he’s done a fantastic job for the university through a very difficult time,” she said. “He brought the university through COVID and towards achieving R1 status.”