Last month, on Saturday, Feb. 3, Fordham University President Tania Tetlow was elected to serve as the next chair of the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities (AJCU) by their Board of Directors. The AJCU’s announcement states that her term will begin on July 1, 2024.
The announcement includes a comment from Tetlow, saying, “I have been very fortunate to have the guidance of the AJCU’s board since 2018, when I was a new president at Loyola University New Orleans. It is an extraordinary group of leaders and I am humbled to be one of them, much less to chair our board.”
Tetlow is both the first woman and first layperson to serve as chair of the AJCU. This experience is not new to Tetlow, as she is also the first woman and layperson to hold the role of President of Fordham University, as well as her previous university, Loyola University New Orleans. When Tetlow entered her role at Fordham, she represented the board of trustees’ desire for change and a fresh outlook, ending the university’s 182-year history of a male priest president. Earlier this year, The New York Times published a profile on Tetlow, speaking to her accomplishments and feats as a non-priest in the Jesuit university community.
Tetlow stated that “although her father chose family over clergy, he always held fast to Jesuit values,” and that he instilled those values in her and her sisters. She spoke to the Times about her career in law, having been a federal prosecutor for five years. However, Tetlow decided that if and when she became too comfortable putting people away, she would leave her prosecutor job. She left her prosecutor role to become a professor at Tulane University Law School before moving to the administrative side of things, serving as chief of staff to Tulane’s president.
After three years in this role, Tetlow began breaking precedents. She became the first woman and layperson to serve as Loyola New Orleans’ president, then Fordham’s president, and now chair for the AJCU.
The Vice President of Communications for the AJCU Deanna Howes Spiro commented on how Tetlow’s new role came to be, stating, “President Tetlow has been a member of the AJCU’s Executive Committee since July 2022. With the current chair of the Executive Committee reaching his term limit in June 2024, at the February 2024 AJCU Board Meeting, the presidents of the AJCU member institutions voted for President Tetlow to be the new chair effective July 1, 2024.”
She went on to explain a bit about what the responsibilities of Tetlow’s role are: “The chair works closely with the AJCU’s president on the direction of the organization, the agenda for meetings, and chairs Board Meetings and Executive Committee meetings.” The AJCU articles of association and by-laws explain that the term for the chair is three years and chairs may be re-elected one time before becoming ineligible for office. However, after three years out of office they become eligible again.
The AJCU’s membership is made up of the 28 Jesuits colleges and universities that existed in the United States in September 1970. The Board of Directors is composed of the presidents of the institutions in the AJCU, and they elect the officers that serve as chair, vice chair, treasurer and secretary. When asked about being elected by the board of her fellow Jesuit institution presidents, Tetlow commented, “It’s humbling to be asked to chair a group of such talented and accomplished leaders. I hope to continue my predecessors’ work in championing Jesuit higher education—which benefits all of our institutions, including Fordham.”
