Aondover Tarhule, Ph.D.

Dr. Aondover Tarhule was appointed the 21st president of Illinois State University on March 18, 2024, after serving as interim president for a year and vice president and provost for Academic Affairs for three years. He is an approachable, values-driven leader who combines strategic vision and strong analytical skills with a dedication to student success and community engagement.

Guided by that spirit, Dr. Tarhule has led significant academic innovation. He championed the creation of Illinois State’s new College of Engineering—the University’s first new college since 1970—along with new degree programs in data science, physics, and sports communication. He reorganized related programs into a forward-looking School of Creative Technologies. Under his leadership, the University completed a successful Higher Learning Commission accreditation, launched the ambitious strategic plan, Excellence by Design, and celebrated sustained gains in retention and graduation rates. Illinois State also achieved four consecutive years of enrollment growth, bucking statewide and regional trends.

To secure the University’s financial future, Dr. Tarhule launched RISE—Illinois State’s path to Resilience, Innovation, Sustainability, and Excellence—and introduced a hybrid, performance-based budget model to replace a decades-old incremental approach. The result: a projected $9 million budget shortfall was eliminated, and the budget was balanced. He also energized philanthropy, guiding Illinois State to the largest single-year fundraising total in its 168-year history and laying the groundwork for the University’s next capital campaign.

Before joining Illinois State, Dr. Tarhule served as vice provost and dean of the Graduate School at Binghamton University (SUNY) and, previously, as executive associate dean and department chair in the College of Atmospheric and Geographic Sciences at the University of Oklahoma. As a broadly trained physical geographer, he has received competitive support from the National Science Foundation, the United States Agency for International Development, the National Institutes of Health, and the United States Geological Survey. He has served as a consultant to the World Bank and is active in the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities.

Dr. Tarhule’s path to leadership in higher education began in Nigeria as a first- generation college student. He earned a bachelor’s degree in geography and a master’s in environmental resources planning from the University of Jos (Plateau State), followed by a second master’s and a Ph.D. in geography from McMaster University in Hamilton, Ontario. He later completed a postdoctoral fellowship from the Canadian Science Advisory Council for research at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. These experiences shape his global outlook and steadfast belief in education as a gateway to opportunity and change.

Dr. Tarhule is married to Dr. Roosmarijn Tarhule-Lips, a CPA with a Master of Accountancy and a Ph.D. in geography. They are proud parents of two adult children.