LSU’s new President Wade Rousse emphasized organizational structure in each of his interviews during the presidential search process.
One of his repeated core ideas was to lessen the president’s duties by bringing back a chancellor position that oversees the Baton Rouge campus, a job which was merged into the presidential role in 2012.
Rousse said Thursday he thought the Board of Supervisors, the group that governs LSU and selected the president, would be split on the idea. But he said he was adamant that would be a beneficial part of the enhanced structure he wanted to implement as president.
Turns out his chancellor was one of the other finalists.
Rousse met Jim Dalton Friday morning, after Dalton’s public meetings with faculty, students and other shareholders Thursday.
“I’m thinking the search, the structure we’re looking for is right here if we can get the Board to kind of think creatively here and maybe expedite the plan,” Rousse said Tuesday. “We talked it over in a very quick fashion, come to find out we really liked each other in a very short time and said, ‘well, we’re not going to pass up on this opportunity.’”
They then worked through the weekend on their pitch for separate president and chancellor positions, Rousse said, including how the responsibilities would be split.
Scott Ballard, the chair of the Board of Supervisors, said the candidates brought the idea to the Board during the almost two-and-a-half hour private executive session Thursday where the Board deliberated about the presidential candidates.
The Board knew the candidates were discussing the idea prior to this, but Ballard said the idea wasn’t fully presented until the executive session.
Rousse said the third finalist, Robert Robbins from the University of Arizona, was not a part of discussions they had.
As executive vice president and chancellor, Dalton will oversee the operations of the Baton Rouge campus as well as the research initiatives at the Baton Rouge campus, Pennington Biomedical Research Center, the LSU AgCenter and the health science centers in Shreveport and New Orleans.
Rousse said adding the position would help him navigate his transition, financial restructuring and the university absorbing the University of New Orleans into the LSU system, all while trying to admit the university into the Association of American Universities, a prestigious higher education research organization.
“When you talk about what these jobs look like, I don’t know how one person could do all of that,” Rousse said.
The new president said he was grateful to the Board for adding the position and naming Dalton as chancellor, saying it accelerated his plan for the university.
“It’s an opportunity to truly advance where we thought we would be, a week earlier,” Rousse said.
