MICHAEL A. FITTS SIXTH YEAR | UNIVERSITY PRESIDENT HARVARD, 1975 Michael A. Fitts is the 15th president of In his first year at Tulane, President Fitts Tulane University. launched task forces to lead the university in deepening its unique strengths for Under his leadership, Tulane has recruited interdisciplinary collaboration. the most qualified and diverse classes in its history, balanced its budget and broken He sees powerful advantages in the fundraising records. university’s manageable size, its wide selection of professional schools, the unified President Fitts arrived at Tulane in July 2014, undergraduate college and multiple crossbringing with him a strong emphasis on disciplinary projects already in place. heightening cross-disciplinary education and research. President Fitts aims to create the most engaged undergraduate experience in the One of his guiding principles is a belief that country through this rethinking of academic students and higher education institutions options, residential living, extracurricular can set themselves apart in a fast-changing activities and more. world and ever-shifting economy through the combining of different fields and skills. In graduate education and research, he hopes to foster intellectual cross-pollination
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that can produce solutions to some of the world’s most fundamental problems. Previously, President Fitts served 14 years as dean of the law school at the University of Pennsylvania, where he was recognized for greatly boosting that school’s offerings in interdisciplinary education. He also presided over a quadrupling of Penn Law’s endowment, a more than 40 percent increase in the size of the law school faculty and a doubling of all forms of student financial aid. President Fitts and his wife, Renée J. Sobel, Esq., have two adult children.
