Profiles of the American Dream.
Like many Grand Canyon State residents, the small group of people who’ve served as president of the University of Arizona have come from places far and wide. We’ve had a few from Ohio, New York and Illinois. Others hailed from Maine, Michigan and a handful of other states.
Among the immigrants who’ve presided over our state’s first university, one was born in Canada and another in Austria. Suresh Garimella is the first from Asia. President Garimella became UA’s 23rd president on October 1 and his journey to Old Main exemplifies the American Dream.
He was born in southeastern India, in a village so tiny that its Wikipedia page entry consists of a single sentence. His humble origins are proof that it’s not where you start, it’s where you end up that matters.
President Garimella comes to Tucson from the University of Vermont, where he served as that institution’s 27th president since 2019. Neither of his parents had college degrees but he grew up in a home that stressed the importance of education.
“At the time I was growing up in India, education was the ticket,” he once told an interviewer. “We don’t come from a family with means. A way to succeed was to study hard.”
And that he certainly did. He is a mechanical engineer by training and a highly regarded researcher. He has a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley, an M.S. from The Ohio State University, and a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology. From 1999 to 2019, he was a faculty member at Purdue.
“I was happy to be a researcher and an educator," he said. “I didn’t apply for most things I have done, and I’ve not regretted any of them. I’ve had experience in government, I’ve had experience in university administration and research. I also serve on a private sector board. I serve on the board of Sandia National Labs. I feel blessed about the broad range of opportunities that I’ve had, because each informs the other and enriches the other. “
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