Tania Tetlow, senior vice president and chief of staff, will not have to move far for her next job. Loyola announced in an email to students yesterday that Tetlow will be taking over as the school’s 17th president.

The Tulane administrator will become Loyola’s first female and lay-person president, starting next academic year. She will be breaking the 106-year tradition of male Jesuit priest presidents since the school’s 1912 founding.

Chair of Loyola’s Board of Trustees Robert Savoie, in his message to students, wrote: “We are honored to have Ms. Tania Tetlow join us as Loyola University’s first lay president. She combines the academic rigor, business acumen, and Jesuit values that we try to live each day at Loyola University New Orleans and expect from our president. We welcome her to Loyola and look forward to her leadership.”

.@Loyola_NOLA announces Tania Tetlow as next president, the university's first lay and woman president. https://t.co/7mUzWmsP0y pic.twitter.com/8LWLHxnOQB

— Jesuit News (@jesuitnews) May 19, 2018

Loyola’s current president, Rev. Kevin Wildes, is retiring after a 14-year tenure. Loyola faculty issued a vote of “no confidence” for him in 2016. This was the second time Wildes received this rebuke, the first following his controversial 2006 financial restructuring plan.

Tetlow, though not a Jesuit priest, has deep connections to the school and Society of Jesus. Her grandfather attended Loyola, her parents both taught at the school and she has belonged to Loyola’s Saint Ignatius Chapel since she was a child.

She also has a long history with the city of New Orleans. Post-Katrina, she lobbied Congress through the organization Women of the Storm for money to aid the city and chaired the New Orleans Library Board and the Library Foundation, bringing in millions of dollars to rebuild the library system.

Tetlow graduated Tulane in 1992 and Harvard Law School in 1995, receiving high honors at both schools. She joined the Tulane law faculty in 2005, became the Associate Provost for International Affairs in 2015 and was appointed senior vice president and chief of staff later that same year.

Before beginning her academic career, Tetlow worked as an assistant U.S. attorney and directed the Domestic Violence Clinic. She has played a large role in sexual violence prevention work at Tulane, co-directing the Wave of Change initiative.

A statement from Tulane will follow.