Dr. Julieta V. García served as president of The University of Texas at Brownsville for twenty-two years.

Named the first Mexican American woman to become a president of a college or university in the U.S., Dr. García’s presidency spanned 28 years and was marked by her innovation in conceiving and implementing new higher education models in response to a rapidly changing higher education ecosystem including the establishment of the The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. 

Dr. Garcia has previously served as a member of the board of the Ford Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Association of Governing Boards in DC.  Dr. García has been awarded honorary degrees from The University of Notre Dame, Brown University, Smith College and Princeton. Dr. Garcia was named a Distinguished Alumnae of UT Austin. In 2009, Time magazine named her one of the Top 10 College Presidents in the U.S. and in 2014 she was recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the World’s 50 Greatest Leaders. Currently, she is a professor at UT Rio Grande Valley.