Former University of Vermont President Lattie Coor died on July 16, 2026, at the age of 89. He served as president of UVM from 1976 to 1989 and returned to his home state of Arizona after UVM to serve as president of Arizona State University from 1990 to 2002. At both institutions, he served with great distinction and left an impressive legacy of accomplishments.

When he stepped out of the presidency at ASU at age 64, he founded the Center for the Future of Arizona, a nonprofit educational research-based think tank. He is remembered at ASU by his successor, Michael Crow, who noted that ASU would not be the university that it is today “without Lattie’s vision, leadership, and commitment to the community.”

I first met Lattie in 1989 when he became president of ASU, while I was law school dean at the University of Arizona. During a contro-versial law school admissions decision at ASU, he asked me to advise him and the ASU law school dean Richard Morgan on the chal-lenging public discussions under way in Phoenix, including in the legislature, which threatened the University’s and the law school’s funding. With great diplomacy and grace, both leaders were able to calm the controversy and move forward without financial loss of support.

Lattie and I continued our relationship as we met often at the regularly scheduled Arizona Board of Regents meetings. After I left Ari-zona to go to the University of Minnesota as its law school dean, Lattie and I kept in touch. When I joined UVM as president in 2012, Lattie visited when he was back in Burlington seeing family, friends, and UVM alums with whom he stayed in close contact, especially Ray and Pam Allen from South Hero, who had served as trustees on the UVM Board of Trustees.

I recall two very special occasions in Burlington that brought special joy to Lattie. In my first year as president, I had the distinct pleas-ure of dedicating a building on campus in honor of Lattie, which then and now is the home of the College of Arts and Sciences.

Before the dedication, Leslie and I invited Lattie, his wife Elva, and their family to Englesby for a welcome back to campus. When they arrived, the grandchildren immediately ran up the steps to the second floor announcing with great joy and enthusiasm that they wanted to see their parents’ bedrooms. The thrill of the moment brought tears to Lattie.

The second occasion, shortly thereafter in that same year, was when UVM announced the successful recruitment of Lattie’s daughter, Farryl Bertmann, a nutritional scientist, as a member of the UVM faculty in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. During a call from Lattie, he expressed his overwhelming joy that his daughter would be joining his beloved UVM as a faculty member. The emotion in his voice was palpable.

Lattie was a highly consequential leader at both UVM and ASU. His successful leadership style was one of authentic “relational leader-ship,” working closely with and caring for UVM’s community, advancing its “scholar-teacher” values, and promoting an impactful teaching, learning, and scholarship culture and environment.

His legacy continues.

(Tom Sullivan served as UVM's 26th president, from 2012 to 2019.)