7 questions for UNF's seventh president, President Moez Limayem

Moez Limayem sits inside his new office, inside the University of North Florida's J.J. Daniel Hall on a recent afternoon. He's only been in the position for weeks. But he's already thinking about the university's last 50 years — and its next 50.

"This is what I call the right moment for us to really build on the strong foundations and the great work done by all my predecessors and the current incredible team of faculty and staff," Limayem says. "Now, we earned that right to dream and to actually be one of the best, if not the best."

Limayem was selected as UNF's seventh president this summer after being recruited from the University of South Florida where he served as dean of the school's business college.

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We caught up with Limayem to find out more about the school's newest president, his goals and his time in Jacksonville so far.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity. 

Jacksonville has a unique culture that can catch newcomers off guard. What has your reaction been so far since moving? 

Limayem: What do they say? It's the smallest big city or the biggest small city? One of those two — which is really true. What I noticed is everyone knows everyone here, which I think is great. And also everyone is so passionate about UNF and they want to get involved. They want to see UNF do well. The Jacksonville region has its unique culture that I honestly really like. I like welcoming people, I like people who value education. I like people who are interested in knowing other people and making connections.

Do you have a favorite area on or off campus so far? 

Limayem: This is the beauty of moving to a new place that you don't know. With my family, I've been very lucky and very privileged to have lived, worked or gone to school in four different continents. So I've had that hunger to always go to a place and explore and make new friends. It's a bit like a kid in a candy store. On campus, I love our bamboo garden (which is below the administration building). It's like a paradise. I've never seen anything like that on any campus. And I've been to many campuses in different continents.

I absolutely love our campus, I love downtown. We live downtown and I take the walk around the river, it's just one of the most beautiful ones. I love the water. I grew up in a Mediterranean country. So the water is, for me and my family, it's about peace. I think, with a little bit more planning, the riverfront could be one of the best in the entire region. I also love the beaches.

You mentioned growing up in a Mediterranean country. Can you speak more about growing up, your life experiences and family? 

Limayem: I left Tunisia in 1985. So I lived there, but I lived more outside Tunisia than in Tunisia. I came here for graduate school. I got my MBA PhD from Minnesota University, then went to Canada, Quebec. A few years later, I met my wife and we moved to Hong Kong. We had our son, then moved to Switzerland for a few years and then — don't laugh — but from Switzerland, we moved to Arkansas. It was a good experience. It was a different continent. And for the last 10 years or so we lived in Tampa Bay. That was the city I lived in the longest. I never lived in a city for 10 years. But I want to break that record now.

[As for family,] I jokingly say I have 17,000 children. I really believe that. Every time I see them [UNF students], it gives me energy. I feel like we have a responsibility toward them, just like our own kids. Going back to my family, we have two kids. My son is a junior at the University of Florida now. Our daughter, she's in 10th grade at Wolfson High School. And the smartest person in the house is, of course, my wife. She has a PhD in nanotechnology and biotechnology. She's very, very smart.

You mentioned downtown. Can you talk more about what you would like to see regarding school-city partnerships, growth and development down the line? 

Limayem: If you look at all the vibrant cities in the country, each one of them has, in its backyard, a very vibrant public university. So we realize this. We realize that the Jacksonville region is growing, it's really growing. And it requires and it earns the right for a very vibrant university.

That's what UNF has been and we will strengthen that by providing talent. But also, we can do a little bit more, we can work with different leaders like the JAX Chamber and many other organizations to make sure that we keep businesses here, but also attract more businesses to be a resource for our community.

We are telling different organizations and different businesses that, if you have an opportunity or challenge but you just don't have the bandwidth, come to us. We have incredible faculty and amazing students, and they will help you address these opportunities and these challenges. So this is how I think UNF can help make this community even better and even stronger.

Where do you see UNF in its next 50 years? 

What I'm hoping, in much shorter than 50 years, is that kids will grow up dreaming of coming to UNF. I want couples when they get married and they have a baby — or they adopt a baby — to say 'our dream is for our child to go to UNF.'

If you become that type of university, everything else will follow. I think in terms of placing our students, in terms of support from the state, support from private donors. So that's really my dream. But I can also share with you my nightmare.

My nightmare is one day, I wake up and I find that the school has found ourselves as the Kodak or Blockbuster. Becoming irrelevant. They kept investing in things that did not matter to their stakeholders. So that's my nightmare, becoming disengaged. If you're irrelevant, you're not useful for your stakeholders. And I can assure you, we will do everything possible to make sure we will never live that moment.

So we're putting everything in place. We're building upon the great foundations so that we will never become irrelevant.

On that note, what safeguards or infrastructure do you put in place to prevent your nightmare from becoming a reality? 

I think that a culture of innovation, the culture that at UNF, failure is an option, as long as you fail fast and forward, is part of it. Because I grew up to learn that if you're not failing, it means that you are not pushing very hard, and actually, that failure is not the opposite of success. Failure is part of success.

So that's it. If you empower your people — and we have incredible people here — to innovate and try things and be entrepreneurs, of course, within the framework of ethics, integrity, and the rules of the laws, you will really get a lot from your people.

In addition, we will try to always be engaged with our communities and with the employers of our students, because if we're not engaged with them, we're not involving them. If we do not revamp our curriculum and the new programs that we launch, our students cannot hit the ground running by the time they're hired and then we become irrelevant. More than a dialogue, it is a collaboration between us and our business community and the employees and our students. That will hopefully keep us honest.

For the general public that hasn't had the chance to meet you, what would be your elevator pitch to them about you? 

First of all, I really want people to know how honored I am, how excited and privileged I am to be in this position. As I always said, I've been training for this position for the last 10 years at another great institution right here in Florida. I would tell people that they will find in their new president, someone who would listen, someone who's not afraid of making changes, but who will never change things for the sake of changes.

I'm one who believes a lot in relationships and partnerships as the secret to success. I'm someone who really cares about people internally and externally, and someone who is extremely passionate about students. And as we always say, if you find something that you're very passionate about, you will never work one day in your life. I don't feel that I'm working.

Find more of our UNF 50th Anniversary coverage at Jacksonville.com. 

Emily Bloch is a youth culture and education reporter for The Florida Times-Union. Follow her on Twitter here.

This article originally appeared on Florida Times-Union: Meet Moez Limayem, the University of North Florida's newest president