From rising to leading
USF President Moez Limayem returns to help shape the university’s next era through accountability, partnerships and shared vision
By LORIE BRIGGS, ’88 and MA ’13 // President’s Office and TOM WOOLF // University Communications and Marketing
Since arriving as president, USF’s ninth leader has spent far less time behind a desk than he has traversing campuses — listening to students, meeting faculty and asking questions about where the university goes next. From his first days in the role, Moez Limayem’s goal has been clear: Understand the institution as it exists today so he can help shape its next chapter.
He has hosted town hall meetings that drew more than 1,000 faculty and staff. He has spent time in all 14 colleges, participated in alumni events and met with an array of community partners.
Limayem hit the ground running. But as he has emphasized since his first day on the job, he also hit the ground listening.
His approach is rooted in a lesson he learned early in life from his father about the power of education to change lives.
In rural Tunisia, his father, a teacher and school principal, often spent nights tutoring 11- and 12-year-old students preparing for a national exam that could determine their futures. Without a passing grade, they could not move on to high school.
“Passing that exam would change their lives and the lives of their families,” he says. “What my father was teaching me was the value of education, that education changes lives. That lesson shaped who I am and probably had the biggest impact on my personal life and my career as an educator.”
Limayem was the first of the eight children in his family to attend college, earning a scholarship that took him from Tunisia to the United States to pursue advanced degrees. Early in his career, he worked at Laval University in Canada, where he met his wife, Alya, a fellow scholar whose research career has earned significant recognition.
She has received multiple patents and was named a 2024 Rising Star of the Academy of Science, Engineering and Medicine of Florida for her groundbreaking work in nanotherapeutics and renewable resources. She also is a senior member of the National Academy of Inventors.
Together, they built careers that spanned North America, Europe and Asia while raising two children and balancing academic life with family responsibilities in multiple countries and cultures.
In 2012, he arrived at USF, serving as dean of the Muma College of Business until 2022, when he left to become president of the University of North Florida. During his 3½ years in Jacksonville, he developed a deeper understanding of the Florida Board of Governors’ regulations and performance-based funding system, as well as strong working relationships with elected officials in Tallahassee and Washington, D.C.
He wasn’t looking for another opportunity — unless it was USF.
While his previous tenure at USF gives him valuable insight, Limayem recognizes that times are different. He says USF has changed, its aspirations have changed and the challenges that it faced a few years ago are not the same ones it faces now.
“Many people have asked me, ‘What is your vision for USF?’” he says. “The biggest mistake I could make would be to come to USF with a prepared vision that I ask everyone to follow.”
“It needs to be our collective vision,” he adds, referring to alumni, faculty, staff, students, donors and community partners.
Limayem returns to USF at a moment of unusual pressure and scrutiny. Across the country, questions are growing about the value of a college degree. Families are weighing the cost of college more carefully, even though USF, like all public universities in Florida, hasn’t raised in-state tuition in more than a decade.
Additionally, employers are demanding workforce-ready graduates and the job market is particularly challenging for new graduates. Artificial intelligence is reshaping the market as rapidly changing technologies also change how students learn, communicate and prepare for careers.
Together, these pressures point to what Limayem sees as the defining issue in higher education: accountability.
“Higher education institutions are more accountable than ever before to parents, to taxpayers, to legislators, to employers, to students, to faculty, staff, alumni, donors,” he says.
Limayem believes that being efficient and effective is part of accountability, pointing out that it means more than being good stewards of funds and evaluating and improving processes.
Limayem, his wife, Alya, and their son, Karim, celebrate becoming U.S. citizens in 2015. Daughter Sara was born when the family lived in Arkansas.
During the first men’s basketball home game of Limayem’s presidency, Board of Trustees Vice Chair Mike Griffin, center, Foundation CEO Jay Stroman, left, and Athletics CEO Rob Higgins, present him with a personalized jersey.
“We must be focused, disciplined and willing to make difficult choices,” he says, pointing out that, historically, universities are really good at starting programs but they are not always willing to end those that no longer work.
“We need to take a close look at all our programs and look for things we should stop doing, to end programs that aren’t working well, or are no longer in demand. That is part of accountability,” he says.
“Being accountable means delivering an excellent education and a direct path to further studies, a career or starting a business.” It’s a standard he believes universities must be willing to measure.
“That’s what we should be accountable for — and how institutions move from rising to leading,” he says. Another important change is that the university can no longer rely on traditional funding sources for research. “Funding from federal and state agencies is not as abundant as we were used to, so we really need to emphasize strategic partnerships,” he says. “We have to be more entrepreneurial to maintain our incredible trajectory for research.”
I want USF to become the model for other institutions in this era of AI and intelligent systems.”
– President Moez Limayem
Limayem jokes that WWW once stood for the World Wide Web. Today, he uses it differently: win-win-win.
“We need to create more strategic partnerships that are a win for our students, helping them gain relevant experience and meaningful internships,” he says.
“They should also be a win for the partner organizations and a win for the community,” he adds, such as helping partners identify future talent early or team up with the university to address problems.
The landscape for college athletics also has shifted dramatically, and Limayem believes USF’s decision last fall to move from an athletics director position to a CEO of Athletics — and name alumnus Rob Higgins to the post — was “an act of genius.”
“It’s not just a change in title,” Limayem says. “College athletics is evolving into a true business organization.”
Athletics plays a meaningful role in student retention and on-time graduation and is “the front porch” for engagement with alumni, donors and the community. USF’s on-campus stadium, scheduled to open in fall 2027, will be transformational for the university and the community, he says.
USF is investing in athletics in ways it never has before, which Limayem fully supports.
He says he has heard some people say that this investment must be happening at the expense of academics.
