Utah Valley University President Astrid S. Tuminez has announced she will step down from her role on May 1, following more than seven years of service.
“I will be forever grateful to the students, staff, and faculty at Utah Valley University and the friends who support UVU’s noble mission to transform the lives of our students,” said President Tuminez. “UVU has been a labor of love for me. The university’s call to ‘come as you are’ recognizes and cultivates human potential in bold ways that traditional institutions may overlook. Education transformed my life from the slums of the Philippines to a global adventure, and I brought that conviction to UVU. My heart will always be green. Given the academic calendar and hiring process, this is the ideal transition point for [the Utah System of Higher Education] to identify and onboard a new president who will lead the next chapter of UVU’s inspiring story.”
Dr. Tuminez became the seventh president of Utah Valley University during the fall 2018 semester. She is the first woman to lead the university on a full-time basis. Under Dr. Tuminez’s leadership, the university increased its student enrollment by over 20 percent, made significant infrastructure upgrades, and completed its first-ever comprehensive fundraising campaign.
Prior to her presidency, Dr. Tuminez was an executive at Microsoft, where she led corporate, external, and legal affairs in Southeast Asia. She also served as vice dean of research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. In addition to many other publications, Dr. Tumniez is the author of Russian Nationalism Since 1856: Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy (Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, 2000).
After beginning her education at the University of the Philippines, Dr. Tuminez transferred to Brigham Young University in Utah, where she graduated summa cum laude with her bachelor’s degree in international relations and Russian literature. She received her master’s degree in Soviet studies from Harvard University and her Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.