n July 1, Tania Tetlow, a former law professor and president of Loyola University New Orleans, started her tenure as the 33rd president of Fordham University. She is the first layperson, first woman, and the first attorney to lead the institution in its 181-year history.

Tetlow received her law degree from Harvard Law School and a bachelor’s degree from Tulane University. Prior to being named president of Loyola in 2018, she was senior vice president and chief of staff at Tulane, where she previously served as associate provost for international affairs, the Felder-Fayard Professor of Law, and director of the university’s domestic violence clinic. From 2000 to 2005, she was a federal prosecutor in the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Louisiana, where she specialized in general crimes, violent crimes, and major narcotics cases.

While Tetlow grew up and spent most of her early career in New Orleans, she has deep connections to Fordham. “Fordham is the reason that I exist; my parents met there as graduate students and got married, and I was born in New York,” said Tetlow in a video message to the Fordham community. “Fordham loomed large in my family. It is an institution of breathtaking excellence in the most exciting city in the world.”

Joseph M. McShane, S.J., who leaves an extraordinary legacy from two decades of leadership as president of the University, said he is confident he leaves Fordham in good hands.

“Tania Tetlow has in abundance the qualities of leadership one needs to run a major university, among them discernment, patience, decisiveness, self-awareness, and magnanimity,” said Father McShane.

“I shall rest easy with her in the office.