After the camera lights shut off, the microphones lowered and the press dispersed, a woman approached William Tate with her six-year-old son. She asked the new president of LSU for a photo.
In his first morning on the job, Tate met with the Faculty Senate in the Faculty Club, then walked to the Student Union to field questions from reporters. His third task of his presidency was to take a photo with the family and the young Black child, who peered up at the first Black university president in SEC history.
His mother said her son will come to LSU one day, hopefully to play football or basketball. Tate smiled and offered some advice.
“For every football you catch,” he said, “read a book.”
That was the theme of Tate’s introductory press conference: “scholarship first,” he reiterated, in every facet of university life — from Title IX, to athletics, to campus infrastructure and virus protocols.
“This isn’t a legitimate institution until we seek truth first,” he said.
Time will tell if Tate’s scholarly credentials will hold up to a mighty athletic department and his new football-obsessed world. The last man to hold permanent status in Tate’s new office, F. King Alexander, oblivious to the cries of a fan and donor base, was reportedly forced to replace an athletic director in a backroom at Juban’s. The interim president, Tom Galligan, had to clean up athletics’ Title IX mess and answer for their wrongdoing, while Les Miles, Joe Alleva, Verge Ausberry and Miriam Segar stayed quiet.
Like Alexander, Tate is an outsider academic from a small school. He spent 18 years of his accomplished career as the dean of the graduate school at Washington University in St. Louis, a private school of 15,000. After a year as provost and executive vice president of academic affairs at the University of South Carolina, Tate moved down to Baton Rouge, where he was asked if he thinks he can rebuild the flagship school’s national reputation.
“Yes,” he said flatly.
Tate said Title IX will be priority No. 1 in his first weeks in office. If Galligan’s job was demolition, Tate’s will be construction. So he’ll pick up a hard hat and get to work, building up his vision of a Title IX office: a transparent, consistent system based in science and public health, he said.
“You have to create processes that people trust,” Tate said. “Consistency builds trust.”
Establishing that trust will be key, Tate said, as he stressed the importance of reporting sexual misconduct. He said a proper Title IX office views campus through a “trauma-informed” lens. Survivors, who too often are treated like the problems, have physical and emotional needs that the institution must meet, as it tries to levy justice.
Tate, answering questions after only two hours on the job, said he has not met with any athletic department officials. LSU General Counsel has not yet briefed him on the two lawsuits the athletic department faces, he said, but he said he’s thankful for the litigation because “everything will be exposed.” The truth will surface.
Like church and state, athletics and academics will remain separate under Tate. If an entity is successful, he said, you shouldn’t de-invest in it and reallocate resources. Instead, you should develop the area that needs it. Tate promised infrastructure and resources to a faculty that deserves it, but said that that money should not come from athletics. Tate will not push to resurrect the fund-transfer policy that current AD Scott Woodward ended.
“No one has ever cut their way to excellence,” he said.
Tate said he’ll soon meet with student government leaders and greek life representatives. He values relationships with students, he said — undergraduates, graduate students and doctoral candidates. He closed his remarks with a little homework for his new students.
First, he told them to get vaccinated for COVID-19. Only 26% of students have received their shots so far, a number that Tate, master of epidemiology, called “not good.” He said that the rate must increase.
Then, as he told the six-year-old boy, he asked the students to read a book. He promised to hold up his end of the bargain — in Title IX, academics and campus infrastructure.
“We can help people if we do this right,” Tate said.