University of Tampa President Teresa Abi-Nader Dahlberg to Step Down at End of Fall Term

University of Tampa President Teresa Abi-Nader Dahlberg, the school's first female president, will step down at the end of the fall 2026 term for personal reasons, the university announced Friday, Oct. 16. Her departure will end a presidency of about two and a half years and leaves one of Tampa Bay's largest private universities looking for new leadership as it builds its largest-ever academic building and prepares for its 100th anniversary in 2031.

The university said all other leadership positions will remain unchanged and that current senior executives will continue to oversee day-to-day operations during the transition. A search for a permanent successor has already begun, and the university has hired AGB, an executive search firm that specializes in higher education, according to FOX 13 Tampa Bay.

What the university and Dahlberg said

The announcement offered no further detail about the personal reasons behind the decision. In a statement, the Board of Trustees thanked Dahlberg for her leadership, service and dedication, saying she brought "energy, vision" and a commitment to student success to the presidency. The board credited her with strengthening the university's strategic and financial foundation and with engaging the community in planning the school's future, and it wished her and her family well.

In her own statement, Dahlberg said serving as president "has been an honor," according to WUSF. She thanked the university's stakeholders, especially its administration and staff, and said the school has built a strong foundation for its next chapter. She said she looks forward to celebrating its continued success as it approaches its centennial.

A short tenure after a long one

The brevity of Dahlberg's time in office stands out against the presidency she followed. The board named her the university's 11th president in December 2023, and she took office on June 1, 2024. She succeeded Ronald L. Vaughn, who led the university from January 1995 until May 2024, nearly three decades in which UT transformed from a struggling campus of roughly 1,400 students into a school of about 11,000 undergraduate and graduate students.

Dahlberg was formally inaugurated on March 31, 2025, as the university's first new president in nearly 30 years and its first woman in the job, Bay News 9 reported. In her inaugural address, she laid out three priorities: impact, reputation and the endowment, according to the university. She emphasized building endowed scholarships and endowed faculty and staff positions, including scholarships aimed at graduates of Tampa Bay-area high schools, ahead of the university's 100th birthday in 2031.

She told Bay News 9 at the time that her strength was listening and connecting people, programs and viewpoints. "I ask a lot of questions," she said.

Growth on her watch

Enrollment kept climbing during her presidency. The university reported a record total enrollment of 11,500 graduate and undergraduate students for the 2025-26 academic year, with an entering class of 3,400 full-time undergraduates selected from a record 43,000 applications. That compares with 11,054 students in 2023-24, the last full year under Vaughn.

The growth paid off in the bond market. In February 2026, Fitch Ratings upgraded the university's issuer rating and about $187 million in revenue bonds issued by the City of Tampa on its behalf to A+ from A, with a positive outlook, citing successive years of record enrollment through fall 2025, according to a summary of the rating action.

Construction is the most visible part of her legacy. In April 2026, the university broke ground on the Dickey Science Innovation Center, a five-story, 153,000-square-foot building along the Hillsborough River that will house its science departments. FOX 13 reported the building is the university's most expensive to date and its largest investment in its 94-year history. Most science classes now meet in Plant Hall, the former Tampa Bay Hotel that serves as the campus landmark. The building carries the names of donors Stephen and Marsha Dickey, whose gift helps fund construction, according to the university. Dahlberg said at the groundbreaking that the sciences and health care are "a huge area in workforce need" in the Tampa Bay region. Construction is expected to finish in fall 2028, and the building is scheduled to open to students in spring 2029.

The university also announced plans for its largest residence hall, an 833-bed building one block south of campus to be financed and built by the student housing developer RISE and owned and operated by the university, with a target opening of fall 2028, according to UT.

Her path to Tampa

Dahlberg is an engineer by training. She earned a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from the University of Pittsburgh and a master's and doctorate in computer engineering from North Carolina State University. Before coming to Tampa, she was provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas, where she was also a professor of computer science and engineering. She became TCU's first female provost in 2019.

Earlier, she was dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science at Syracuse University, dean of the Albert Nerken School of Engineering at Cooper Union in New York City and an associate dean at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. She began her academic career at Winthrop University in South Carolina.

What the leadership change means for UT

The University of Tampa is a private, nonprofit university on a campus along the Hillsborough River across from downtown Tampa. Its students come from across the country and around the world, and its rapid growth over three decades has made it a major presence in the city's urban core.

The timing puts the university's next president in charge of carrying out projects Dahlberg helped launch. The science center and new residence hall are both scheduled to open in 2028 and 2029, and the 2031 centennial, a natural focus for fundraising and endowment growth, falls within the likely first term of whoever is hired.

What's next

Dahlberg will remain president through the end of the fall semester, which ends in December. The university has not said whether it will name an interim president if the search is not complete by then. AGB's search is just beginning, and the university has not released a timeline for naming a successor, who would become the University of Tampa's 12th president.

The university has not announced Dahlberg's plans after she leaves the post.