Elizabeth Cantwell to serve as 17th university president

By Jake Ellis STAFF WRITER

Elizabeth “Betsy” R. Cantwell will be the 17th President of Utah State University. She was selected by a unanimous vote of the Utah Board of Higher Education on Friday afternoon. Cantwell addressed a crowd inside the Taggart Student Center ballroom after the announcement.

“Thank you all for your faith in me. I will do everything to make good on my capacity to serve,” Cantwell said. “I am so pleased to be able to take everything that I’ve done and bring it here and really offer it to all of you as service because I think that is the best way to enable you all to move forward.”

Cantwell was selected from a pool of three finalists after a national search was conducted by a 19-member search committee. She will succeed President Noelle Cockett who will step down in June.

“I am enormously grateful to the board for their faith in me,” Cantwell said.

“I will do everything in my power to step into a place that has been basically made beautiful by President Cockett and move us all forward into what is truly an incredible future for Utah State University and for the state of Utah.”

Abe Rodriguez, student body president of the Utah State University Student Association, said it will take some time for students to adjust to Cantwell, but they will come to see her “genuine interest in wanting students to succeed.”

“What I am really excited about her is how she is going to bring real change,” Rodriguez said.

Some of that “real change” includes plans to simplify university policies into “plain English” as well as elevate the community and focus on research that will “improve our communities across the state,” according to Rodriguez.

Rodriguez believes Cantwell will be open to student input. Rodriguez added that he’s “humbled and honored” to be the first student body president to serve with Cantwell. He said he will strive to

“establish good working relationships with Cantwell and her administration.”

“I want students to know your voices will be heard,” Rodriguez said. “I understand that there can be a lot of uncertainties when there’s change but I do believe that it is time to change so I’m really excited to see the ways that she will bring change that will put our university in a better position to be successful.”

Cantwell comes to Utah State from the University of Arizona where she has been serving as the institution’s senior vice president for research & innovation. Before that, Cantwell was the vice president for research development and CEO of the ASU Research Enterprise at Arizona State University.

Cantwell’s background before academia was in science and research as she previously worked as director for both economic development and engineering mission strategy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. Cantwell serves on several boards including NASEM Committee on NASA Critical Workforce, Technology & Infrastructure and the ISS National Laboratory. She is also the chair