OREM — After nearly seven years at the helm of Utah’s largest university, Astrid Tuminez on Wednesday announced she will be stepping down from her role as president at Utah Valley University after the end of the semester.
“I cried a lot last night, so I’m not crying today. I am leaving UVU,” Tuminez said. “The flow of life always goes on and I hope everybody here remembers what this university is about — that the momentum is tremendous and it goes on without me.”
The announcement came during Tuminez’s annual “State of the University” address. The move will be effective May 1.
As UVU’s seventh president, Tuminez made history as the first woman to serve in the position on a full-time basis.
Beyond being the first woman to lead the university, Tuminez’s rise to her position was seemingly improbable. Born in a farming village in the Philippine province of Iloilo, Tuminez moved with her parents and siblings to the slums of Iloilo City when she was 2 years old, her parents seeking better educational opportunities for their children.
Her pursuit of education led her to the University of the Philippines and eventually to the United States, where she graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in international relations and Russian literature from Brigham Young University in 1996.
She later earned a master’s degree in Soviet Studies from Harvard University and a Ph.D. in political science from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
Before taking the reins at UVU, Tuminez was an executive at Microsoft, where she led corporate, external, and legal affairs in Southeast Asia. She also served as vice dean of research at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy at the National University of Singapore. Tuminez has worked in philanthropy and venture capital in New York City.
In addition to being a permanent member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Tuminez serves on the boards of Carnegie Corporation of New York and Cambia Health Solutions, and on the advisory board of Zions Bank.
She is the author of “Russian Nationalism Since 1856: Ideology and the Making of Foreign Policy” and many other publications.
An open-admissions institution, UVU doesn’t require a GPA or standard test scores for admission. In 2025, the school’s enrollment reached 48,670 students, up from 39,931 when Tuminez arrived at the university.
“She’s been a real catalyst, a little ‘energizer bunny’ person to make things go. She’s always enthusiastic, always happy, and motivates other people to do the same,” former Utah Gov. Gary Herbert told KSL. “So, as you look at the numbers from when she came and where we’re at today, it’s nothing short of remarkable.”
For Tuminez personally and the UVU community as a whole, 2025 didn’t come without its road bumps — some garnering global attention.
She said as much herself, too, telling KSL there “isn’t one specific thing” that led to her departure.
“I mean, the last year has been very difficult for me personally,” Tuminez said.
Tuminez’s husband, Jeffrey Tolk — Utah Valley University’s “first gentleman” — died in February. Tuminez took a brief sabbatical after.
“We will miss him more than words can express,” UVU noted in a press release.
Tuminez, meanwhile, called her husband of 37 years her “soulmate, my pillar and partner … who will have my heart, my laughter, and my tears forever.”
Tolk, 61, died after suffering a pulmonary embolism and complications caused by high altitude while climbing Ecuador’s Mount Cotopaxi, according to his obituary.
Seven months later, on Sept. 10, the campus community was again struck by another tragedy to navigate when conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed while speaking at an event at Utah Valley University last year.
“It’s a tragedy that’s really hard to even comprehend, having lived through it myself, just wondering how did that happen?” Herbert said. “She’s handled it with dignity and grace. It’s been a hard thing for her, I think, more personal than people realize, having lost her husband just a few months before. But she’s done a good job of making sure people understand that’s not the culture of Utah Valley University, it’s not the culture of Utah, it’s a one-off situation.”
Still, 2025 didn’t come without its positives for the university, which Tuminez reflected on during her departure speech.
First announced publicly in 2022, EverGREEN — UVU’s comprehensive funding campaign — reached $250 million before closing on Dec. 31.
“All of that money has gone into building, programs (and) scholarships. It is game-changing,” Tuminez said.
UVU in March signed a three-year agreement with NVIDIA, a global leader in technology and AI, to provide extensive resources to train UVU students, faculty and staff in applied AI.
In December, UVU signed a memorandum of understanding with Salt Lake Community College to establish a pathway towards bachelor’s degrees for more Utah students by allowing students who graduate from SLCC to automatically be admitted to UVU to finish their degree, often carrying over scholarships.
“The story of UVU is going to continue — a story of love, excellence and resilience, and I hope we all remember these words,” Tuminez said.
As for her next steps, those are still unclear.
“Time is finite, so that’s been on my mind. How do I carve out more time for me, my children, and a lot of creative pursuits that I actually want to do? So there’s a lot of conversation, and at some point, I will announce what is next for me,” Tuminez said.
The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.