Chancellor Sean O’Keefe resigned Wednesday as the University’s leading administrator, after almost two weeks of speculation that his job was in jeopardy. LSU System President John Lombardi announced William Jenkins, current System president emeritus, will serve as acting chancellor until a replacement is hired. “It may appear that this was something quick,” Lombardi said. “But in fact, the conversation had been going on for a long time. What we have here is that the chancellor has determined after conversations with lots of people that he wanted to take another direction in his career.” O’Keefe will relinquish his duties as chancellor at the end of the month, allowing Jenkins to assume the duties Feb. 1. O’Keefe said he will remain at the University for the remainder of the spring semester as a professor of public administration in the E.J. Ourso College of Business. He said he does not intend to remain at the University after the semester and did not answer repeated questions concerning his subsequent plans. “It is evident to me that LSU needs a campus leader who enjoys the full confidence of the Board and the president,” O’Keefe said in a prepared statement. Lombardi, who accepted O’Keefe’s resignation, said the System president is ultimately responsible for managing chancellors, although consulting with the Board is important. Jenkins, who stepped down as System president this past year, will now return to the office he held from 1996 and 1999. He also served as interim chancellor in 2004 before O’Keefe took the post in 2005. Jenkins said he supports Lombardi’s decision to accept the resignation. Jenkins said he initiated the review and evaluation process of O’Keefe in the summer of 2006, and the evaluation of O’Keefe continued after Jenkins’ departure.
“There was absolutely no political element associated with those procedures,” Jenkins said. Jenkins said he does not believe the details of O’Keefe’s evaluation should be discussed publicly. “The public should not doubt, however, that such actions are taken with appropriate care and paramount concern for the institutional well-being of LSU as well as for the individuals involved,” he said. The Board unanimously hired Lombardi, Board chairman Jerry Shea said in a statement. Shea said he supports the evaluations of O’Keefe’s performance started by Jenkins and confirmed by Lombardi. “This was a lengthy, careful, non-political and fair process,” Shea said. The Daily Reveille has learned some of the Board members agreed to hire Lombardi under the condition he remove O’Keefe as chancellor. Lombardi maintains he was hired to serve the System in the best possible manner and to evaluate the heads of each entity within the System. “Sometimes in a situation like this, it’s called a resignation,” said Lenny Lemoine, president of The Lemoine Company and one of nine statewide business leaders to sign an open letter supporting O’Keefe published in Tuesday’s edition of The Advocate. “But I don’t know that it really was.” Lemoine said he believes O’Keefe was pressured into resignation from Board members and System leaders. “I have seen correspondence and e-mails, and I know of people who have talked directly with Board members who have made it clear they wanted [O’Keefe] out,” he said. Former Board chairman Stewart Slack also signed the letter supporting O’Keefe. “I would guess he was pressured into resignations,” Slack said. “How could this happen so fast after Lombardi got in otherwise? How do you have time to evaluate anybody – much less the entire System you’re being asked to run – and make a decision about the most important guy in the whole program in three months? It certainly is suspicious.” Lombardi said he could not speculate if the Board intended to discuss O’Keefe’s job as chancellor at today’s Board meeting had O’Keefe not resigned Wednesday. He said a national search will be conducted to secure a replacement for O’Keefe and a search committee will be formed. The committee’s chairs could be identified as early as next week, he said. Lombardi said he hopes to talk with a finalized list of candidates by the end of the semester and complete the transition by the end of the summer. “There is no simple profile [of an ideal candidate for chancellor], except that it’s a profile of accomplishment in complex environments where there is a high level on competition of resources, and there is that intense focus on quality,” Lombardi said. In a broadcast e-mail sent to members of the University community Wednesday, Jenkins said he plans to spend his first month as acting chancellor visiting all the University’s academic, research, service and support units to establish their needs and goals. Lombardi thanked O’Keefe for his service to the University and recognized several of O’Keefe’s accomplishments. “[O’Keefe’s] service at LSU will be marked by his energetic enthusiasm for pursuing LSU’s National Flagship Agenda and for his heartening leadership of the Forever LSU campaign,” he said.
—-Contact Nicholas Persac at [email protected]