SU System Board votes for leadership merger

In the February 20 Southern University System Board Meeting, the decision to merge the positions of the Baton Rouge campus Chancellor and the System President was confirmed, with an almost unanimous vote of 14-1.
Alumni Federation President Preston Castille was among those in attendance, and presented his beliefs on the topic of the leadership merge.
“I think the idea of merging the positions of President and Chancellor is long overdue.” Castille stated. He also spoke of battles that take place on the third and fourth floor of the administrative building, the third floor being home to campus administrative offices, the fourth floor for system offices.
“If we were to continue along this path, it would continue to hurt us.” said Castille. Others weren’t too inclined to the same beliefs however. Tom Miller, Faculty Senate President at SUBR, claimed to speak for the entire faculty when he said,
“The bottom line for our faculty, is that individual campuses… maintain a certain degree of individual autonomy. It allows us to be nimble, it allows us to move a little quicker on things.”
Another topic Miller spoke on was the necessity for a search for a System President or President/Chancellor. The board has been debating on this topic since December 2014, and the project has since been put on hold twice. The consideration discussed at the meeting was to hire a national search firm to assist in the process.
“I’m not sure that we need to hire a national search firm,” said Miller. “I think it is extremely important, particularly since we have five new members of the board, that we be able to compare the record of our current president with what other potential candidates would have to offer the position.” Miller finished.
Ultimately, the decision was made to authorize the search once again, but not to hire a national firm to conduct the search.
The sudden and drastic decisions come as Louisiana state colleges and universities face steep budget cuts that will begin in the new fiscal year starting on July 1. Funding for post-secondary education is estimated at 400 million dollars, across all systems.
The merging of the System President and SUBR Chancellor is said to take effect on July 1 as well.