Not that he\u2019s counting, but the President of the University of South Florida knows exactly when he began his important new job.<\/p>\n
\u201cToday will be a week and four days \u2026 and two hours and three minutes,\u201d Moez Limayem laughed during a Zoom interview with the Catalyst Friday morning. \u201cAnd I\u2019m enjoying every second.\u201d<\/p>\n
From 2012 to \u201922, Limayem served as Dean of USF\u2019s Muma College of Business. He left to assume the presidency of the University of North Florida.<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody knew there, I was there to stay,\u201d he said. \u201cWith only one condition: If USF called, I just could not say no. And that\u2019s what really happened.\u201d<\/p>\n
And so he is now the university\u2019s ninth-ever president, replacing Rhea Law, who announced her retirement last year. Limayem, who\u2019s been in academia for 34 years, and has an MBA and a PhD in Information Systems from the University of Minnesota, raised his children in Tampa. Which makes this an even bigger homecoming.<\/p>\n
The challenges, he knows, are many. USF joined the Association of American Universities four years ago, and Limayem has designs on ways he can help make it \u201cthe model AAU.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among the pressing items discussed in this interview:<\/p>\n
The State of Florida\u2019s announced intention to turn USF\u2019s Sarasota-Manatee campus into a branch of the conservative New College;<\/p>\n
The ongoing emphasis on athletics, with construction of a $348.5 million on-campus stadium underway;<\/p>\n
USF\u2019s future as a key science, technology and health research institution;<\/p>\n
The future Bellini College of Artificial Intelligence, Cybersecurity and Computing, established with a $40 million gift from tech entrepreneur Arnie Bellini.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think it would have been a mistake for me to come, with a very articulated vision in my briefcase, with specific goals and ways to measure the progress,\u201d he said. \u201cAnd ask people to take it or leave it. That\u2019s not who I am.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am very, more collaborative \u2013 and the vision has to be our vision. Within USF, but also outside USF.\u201d<\/p>\n
Civil discourse \u2013 freedom of speech \u2013 is a hot-button issue for Limayem. \u201cOne of my dreams is to make USF as a model for a university where people actually know how to disagree with each other. Respectfully, professionally.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere people listen to others who don\u2019t agree with them. They listen not to attack. Not to reply. They listen to understand. Where USF is that safe place where people can express their ideas, regardless of where they come from, regardless of how different those ideas.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch the video interview:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Not that he\u2019s counting, but the President of the University of South Florida knows exactly when he began…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":171940,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[202,204,203,199,201,200],"class_list":["post-171939","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-st-petersburg","tag-st-pete","tag-st-pete-headlines","tag-st-pete-news","tag-st-petersburg","tag-st-petersburg-headlines","tag-st-petersburg-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171939","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=171939"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/171939\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/171940"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=171939"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=171939"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=171939"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}