LSU’s Memorial Tower pictured on March 20, 2023. (Matthew Perschall/Louisiana Illuminator)
The LSU Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to name McNeese State leader Wade Rousse its next system president, and it has picked the University of Alabama Provost Jim Dalton as both chancellor and provost of its Baton Rouge campus.
The dual hires mark the first time the university will have separate system and main campus leaders since the roles were merged in 2012.
Rousse has been in charge at McNeese, a small regional university in Lake Charles, since last year. He previously held other administrative jobs at the school since 2019.
The Lake Charles native earned his undergraduate degree from McNeese, an MBA from the University of New Orleans and his doctorate in economics from the University of Illinois Chicago.
Rousse was favored for the LSU presidency by board Vice Chairman Lee Mallett, also a Lake Charles native and a major political donor to Gov. Jeff Landry.
One of Rousse’s key tasks as president will be to win the support of the faculty, some of whom have expressed skepticism throughout the search process because he lacks several of the key qualifications the presidential search committee established for presidential applicants.
Unlike LSU, where total enrollment tops 42,000, McNeese ,with about 6,500 students, does not hold any research designation. In 2023, the most recent year data is available from the National Science Foundation, which tracks research spending, McNeese spent less than $500,000 on research, while LSU spent nearly $400 million.
Rousse also did not ascend to his administrative rank though the traditional academic promotion path. He also hasn’t published a significant amount of research. In his first interview, Rousse questioned LSU’s research aspirations, but walked back his initial skepticism in his campus visit Monday.
Throughout his public interviews, Rousse noted that he does have some research and teaching experience and argued his non-traditional background could be a boon to LSU.
Dalton has been Alabama’s provost, the highest academic administrative role on campus, since 2020. His background is in pharmacy and developing prescription drugs. He worked at Michigan, Ohio State and the University of Tennessee Health Science Center. He received a bachelor of science from the University of Cincinnati and his Ph.D. in pharmacology from Ohio State University.
LSU should become a student-centric university, with smaller class sizes, Dalton said during his interviews. One of his priorities would be to improve LSU’s retention rate for students after two years.
Dalton leaves Alabama as a defendant in a First Amendment lawsuit from a former instructor who was fired over comments she made following far-right activist Charlie Kirk’s shooting death. Candice Hale, the instructor, earned her Ph.D. from LSU.
It’s unclear which of the two men will reside in the president’s house. Before the positions were merged, the University House, as it’s known, was typically for the chancellor.
The hirings mark the end of a dramatic search that began in August to little fanfare. But at a presidential search committee meeting on Oct. 1, seven LSU students were arrested after they were ordered out of the room for exceeding their allotted time for public comment.
Search committee members were later required to sign non-disclosure agreements in order to maintain their positions on the committee. The NDAs prohibited them from discussing the committee’s work with the public or reporters, a practice which could violate their free speech rights, a First Amendment attorney said. The committee later required semifinalists for the president’s job to make their names public.
Once three finalists were selected last Wednesday, LSU held a series of public forums over the next three business days for the candidates to interact with students, faculty and staff. Attendance was sparse at the forums, with no advance notice being provided on campus about who the finalists were or when each candidate would meet with the public.
LSU’s presidency has been filled on an interim basis by Matt Lee, its vice president for agriculture, since June after William Tate left the university to take the same job at Rutgers University in New Jersey. It was anticipated Lee would receive a spot among the three finalists, but he was left off the list in what some faculty saw as a snub of their input.
Also among Rousse’s first tasks is to fill the many upper-level vacancies at the university.
LSU has interim officeholders at provost, chief financial officer, chancellor of its Shreveport medical school, vice president for enrollment management and multiple deans. There is also no one in charge of data and strategic analysis at the university.
LSU is also searching for a new athletics director and football coach after Landry intervened in both of their firings.
Rousse is expected to play an active role in finding the next coach and athletics director.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
