UIndy appoints new president

Presidential Search Committee, Board of Trustees name Tanuja Singh president-elect for UIndy

By Kassandra Darnell EDITOR-IN-CHIEF

It was announced on March 21 that the Board of Trustees unanimously chose Tanuja Singh as the University of Indianapolis’ 10th president after a global search, according to a press release from Associate Vice President for Communications Garrison Carr. Singh, who will assume the role on July 1, made public appearances on campus the day her presidency was announced. This included a live-streamed event that featured an armchair conversation with Chair of the Board of Trustees David Resnick and meet-and-greet receptions in the Schwitzer Student Center.

Singh is currently the Provost and Senior Vice President of Academic Affairs at Loyola University New Orleans, according to the press release. She has also held positions at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, Texas, and Northern Illinois University in DeKalb, Illinois. While working at Loyola University New Orleans, Singh implemented strategic plans within academic affairs, worked to improve curriculum for the relevance of today’s students and strengthened the Office of the Provost to better benefit the campus community, according to the press release. She has worked in higher education and academics for almost 30 years.

“A hallmark of Dr. Singh’s career is aligning talent and priority,” Resnick said in the press release. “She has been forward-looking in ensuring that her institutions are meeting the expectations of today’s learners and employers. As higher education is rapidly changing, and with it the demands of our students and community partners, this makes her the right leader at the right time for UIndy, and we are so excited to welcome her to Indianapolis.”

Singh is a self-proclaimed believer in higher education and said it is the one thing that changes people’s lives. She thinks there is quite possibly no other profession that impacts lives as much as higher education does. This led her to leadership positions, keeping in mind how she could help students with their accomplishments.

“It [leadership] has involved working very closely with faculty, with industry, with government organizations, to create those kinds of opportunities for our students so that when they graduate, or even when they are going to school, they are doing experiential learning…, they're doing international [things], they're doing high impact practices,” Singh said. “And when I was a provost, I was doing similar things, but a little more of creating more alliances with industry, starting new programs, creating opportunities for us to engage much more intentionally with, say, hospital systems, etc. And then, of course, this opportunity came along and I said, ‘Well, this is a perfect fit.’”

There are many characteristics that Singh said she brings to the table, including what she calls boundary spanning, where she can convey the serious concepts of academia to people in industry and the government and establish links between academia and the real world. To Singh, she said academia is the real world, so it is important to establish these connections.

Additionally, Singh considers herself a “future of work” expert. She said she looks not only at the world today but where it will be years from now and what talents and skill sets students will need to thrive in the future, allowing her

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