The LSU Presidential Search Committee met via Zoom Friday afternoon and discussed incorporating a search firm, a description of the position of University president and including University constituents in the discussions surrounding the search process.
Committee Chair and former LSU Board of Supervisors Chair James Williams said he would like to pick a search firm at the committee’s next meeting, Nov. 13. He said he would also like to have a draft of the presidential job description approved at the next meeting.
At the previous meeting on Oct. 22, the committee unanimously moved to recommend to the Board of Supervisors that the search be for a unified president-chancellor position. The committee plans to begin looking at applicants in January.
Board of Supervisors Immediate Past-Chair Mary Werner is leading the subcommittee tasked with finding a search firm. 
“We hope to have this list complete by Monday, and the committee will then meet to go through the different organizations and work through the system to contact each for more in-depth conversation to bring back a shorter list for consideration,” Werner said.
LSU Dean of Human Sciences and Education and committee member Roland Mitchell emphasized that the firm should bring a “diverse slate of candidates,” and Werner agreed.
According to Werner, past search firms include the Association of Governing Boards and R. William Funk and Associates.
Search Committee Vice Chair and LSU Department of Physics and Astronomy Professor Gabriela Gonzalez is a member of the subcommittee that is producing a draft of the job description of University president.
Gonzalez said the subcommittee would like to circulate a draft to the different campuses within the LSU system, as well as other LSU constituents, to receive feedback about the job description.
Williams said he hopes to have a draft approved at the next committee meeting so that the draft can begin to be circulated.
LSU Executive Deputy Director of Athletics and Executive Director External Relations and Committee member Verge Ausberry discussed the conversations that his “buy-in” subcommittee is having with various LSU constituents and publics about the search for president. His committee breaks down legislative buy-in, academic buy-in and philanthropic buy-in for this search and new president.
Ausberry said the University Lab School, LSU Athletics, the LSU Faculty Senate and Pennington Biomedical Center are among some of the internal publics that the subcommittee is speaking with. LSU Alumni, Tiger Athletic Foundation, members of the Louisiana House of Representatives and Senate, the Governor’s Office and the Secretary of Agriculture are among the external contacts Ausberry said his subcommittee will conduct conversations with.
Ausberry said Student Government Vice President and Committee member Hannah Barrios has mentioned some LSU student groups that the incoming president would need to talk to and work with that should be included in these conversations as well.