Le Moyne president-elect LeMura discusses high tuition costs

SYRACUSE — The president-elect of Le Moyne College is “deeply concerned” about the “escalating” cost of higher education.

Linda LeMura recognizes that if colleges and universities continue raising tuition, they’re “closing out” the students they desire to serve.

“So we’ll see great efforts on my part and on the part of other leaders of higher-education institutions, looking for ways to collaborate in order to keep those costs as affordable as possible,” LeMura says.

She spoke in response to a reporter’s question following her introduction to the Le Moyne College community in the school’s Panasci Family Chapel on April 4.

The Le Moyne College board of trustees on April 3 elected LeMura as the school’s 14th president.

LeMura, who currently serves as Le Moyne’s provost and vice president for academic affairs, will succeed Frederick Pestello as president of the college on July 1.

Le Moyne on March 21 announced Pestello will leave the school on June 30 to assume the same position at Saint Louis University in St. Louis, Mo.

With the appointment, LeMura becomes “the first lay female leader at a Jesuit institution in the world,” Le Moyne said in a news release.

“Jesuit institutions have been led by, in addition to Jesuits, vowed religious women. I would be the first non-vowed religious woman [to lead] a Jesuit institution in the country and in the world,” LeMura said in her remarks to the media.

She used prepared remarks to address the gathering in the Panasci Family Chapel.

 “It is a tremendous honor, but it’s simultaneously a deeply humbling moment for me to be selected as president of this extraordinary college,” LeMura said to begin her remarks.

Besides discussing higher-education tuition costs, LeMura also commented for the media on her vision for the school once she assumes the president’s role on July 1.

“You’ll see an increased emphasis on internationalization and globalization as the world economy becomes more complex and interconnected,” she said.

LeMura also wants to focus on partnerships with Jesuit institutions of higher learning around the nation and with neighboring colleges and universities in Central New York, she added.

LeMura was also involved in two of the most recent additions to the Le Moyne campus community.

“I’ve been actively engaged in the naming opportunity of the Madden School of Business, but also in the development of our science programs, which have been burgeoning on our campus and that really is what necessitated increasing the space,” LeMura told members of the media.

LeMura has served in her current role at Le Moyne since 2007 and also as the school’s dean of arts and sciences when she joined Le Moyne in 2003.

Prior to her arrival at Le Moyne, LeMura worked in several roles at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania between 1992 and 2003, Le Moyne said.

Her field of research and expertise is pediatric obesity, pediatric applied physiology, lipid metabolism, and energy metabolism, according to Le Moyne. She has taught applied physiology, anatomy and physiology, bioethics, and the biology of aging.

LeMura is married to Lawrence Tanner, a professor of natural-systems science at Le Moyne. The couple has a daughter, Emily, who is a sophomore at Fordham University, according to Le Moyne.

LeMura, a Syracuse native, is a graduate of Bishop Grimes High School. From there, she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology and education from Niagara University, and a master’s and doctoral degree in applied physiology from Syracuse University, according to Le Moyne.

She also noted her parents came to the U.S. from Sicily in 1950.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com