Mike Fitts

Welcome from President Fitts

President Michael A. Fitts

At Tulane University, learning is freed from siloed disciplines or majors. We are cross-disciplinary to the core.

Finance students study Shakespeare, music majors explore neuroscience, student-athletes become physicians, and everyone reaches beyond campus, beyond themselves and beyond what they dreamed possible to bring positive change to the community and the world.

We educate the whole person – intellectually, emotionally and socially – teaching the love of knowledge for its own sake and how to use that knowledge to tackle the pressing issues of our time.

We are both a major research enterprise and a tight-knit community of small classes and one-on-one mentor relationships.

Our students travel farther to attend school than students anywhere in the country. They are drawn by a thriving, welcoming community of nearly 14,000 students located in one of the world’s most culturally diverse and environmentally significant regions.

We are a microcosm of the greatest global challenges and treasures and our boundary-crossing learning and research engages with it all – infectious diseases, coastal erosion, music, art and language.

Below are key initiatives to prepare the next generation of leaders and ensure the continued growth of Tulane’s cross-disciplinary, global-impacting discovery and creativity.

 

Key Initiatives

Fitts with students at Homecoming
Enhancing the Student Experience

President Fitts is creating a campus that will fuel learning, collaboration and community.
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A diverse group of students sits on the lawn looking up at the camera
Honoring and Advancing Diversity

The Presidential Commission on Race and Tulane Values is committed to fostering a racially diverse, inclusive community for all Tulanians.
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A researcher poses with a 3d model of a kidney
Promoting Pioneering Research

President Fitts believes working across disciplines to pursue groundbreaking discoveries has the most significant global impact.
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Fitts reveals Only the Audacious campign
Ensuring Financial Stability

Under President Fitts’s leadership, Tulane has shattered fundraising records year after year since launching Only the Audacious: The Campaign for an ever bolder Tulane.
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Communications

To Kill a Mockingbird

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President Fitts was inspired to pursue law partly by the iconic novel To Kill a Mockingbird and its themes of justice and virtue.

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President of Costa Rica

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Soon after becoming president of Tulane, President Fitts met the only Tulane alumnus who served as the leader of a country, Luis Guillermo Solís, who was then president of Costa Rica.

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Legal Counsel to White House

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President Fitts served as a legal counsel to the White House, President and Cabinet during parts of the administrations of both Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan.

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Prison Uprising

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When President Fitts was in college, he joined a volunteer team of independent observers who helped calm a prison uprising.

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Hank Aaron

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President Fitts’ favorite sports hero is the baseball legend Hank Aaron. President Fitts once had the thrill of meeting Hank Aaron and hearing him tell stories about his career over lunch.

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Undergraduate Curriculum

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Although his job today puts him in a position where he might convene committees to examine different topics, one of President Fitts’ formative experiences as a student was serving on a committee to rethink the undergraduate curriculum. That involvement influenced his future career in higher education and leadership.

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