About Tania Tetlow

Tania Tetlow

Tania Tetlow was named the 33rd president of Fordham University on February 10, 2022, and took office on July 1. She is the first layperson, and the first woman, to hold the office at Fordham.

President Tetlow was the 17th president of Loyola University New Orleans. She was the first woman and the first layperson to lead Loyola since the Society of Jesus founded the university in 1912. President Tetlow was also the fourth, as well as the youngest, woman to lead one of the 27 colleges and universities in the U.S. that make up the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities. She joined Loyola in August 2018 and during her tenure ushered in a new and exciting era at the Jesuit, Catholic university.

Under her leadership, Loyola successfully completed a turnaround after the most challenging period in its financial history, improving its bond rating and repositioning university finances through careful budgeting, increased retention, continued enrollment growth, and expansion of online, graduate, and professional programs.

A dynamic leader, President Tetlow also set a clear and attainable vision for the future at Loyola. The university’s Strategic Plan for Inclusive Excellence and Strategic Plan 2020: Courage and Creativity were created to capitalize on the university’s strength in diversity, equity, and inclusion, while encouraging sustainable and meaningful improvements to programs and enrollment growth. New academic programs created in response to local and regional needs placed increased emphasis on health care. A new undergraduate nursing program established in partnership with national industry leader Ochsner Health System has created clinical placement opportunities for students and helped fill a critical gap for the system.

President Tetlow oversaw the completion of Loyola’s $100 million Faith in the Future campaign, the most ambitious fundraising campaign in its history. Funds raised went primarily toward scholarships, endowed professorships, improvements to academic programs, and construction of the new Chapel of St. Ignatius and the Gayle and Tom Benson Jesuit Center. Newly created student hardship and digital equity funds have helped ensure that students are able to complete their Loyola education.

When the COVID-19 pandemic took root in New Orleans in March 2020, President Tetlow ensured the general safety of the Loyola community and a smooth transition to online and hybrid operations with minimal impact to finances. Consistent, clear communication and new virtual marketing and recruitment tools ensured that Loyola not only survived but, in many ways, thrived, taking advantage of new technology and bringing lessons learned into future operations.

Prior to joining Loyola, President Tetlow served as senior vice president and chief of staff as well as the Felder-Fayard Professor of Law at Tulane University, where she was a key strategic adviser to President Michael Fitts. As a law professor, President Tetlow’s research helped persuade the Department of Justice to reimagine its regulation of constitutional policing. She also directed Tulane’s Domestic Violence Law Clinic for which she raised millions of dollars in federal grant funds.

Before her career in academia, President Tetlow was an associate at Phelps Dunbar, litigating complex commercial transactions. She also served as an assistant United States attorney, prosecuting everything from violent crime to fraud cases.

President Tetlow graduated cum laude from Tulane University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in American studies and is a magna cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School, where she earned a Juris Doctor degree and was a Harry S. Truman Fellow. A Catholic who was born in New York and grew up in New Orleans, President Tetlow has deep family ties to the Jesuits and to Fordham, where her parents met as graduate students in the late 1960s.