Blu Bengal
Well-Known Member
Lanny Keller: Without support, Southern University’s future is uncertain
Lanny Keller
Aug. 01, 2015
Ray Belton entered the doors of Southern University in Shreveport without much plan other than taking a few classes with his GI Bill benefits. He found there not only a degree but a lifelong affection for Southern’s campuses and long service to them.
Now, he’s the first person in decades to combine the roles of president and chancellor of the Southern main campus and its system — and thus its spokesman on the influential panel of system presidents who advise the Board of Regents, the top college board.
What Belton needs to be, though, is less ambassador for Southern than agent of change there. And tough changes are needed in a time of generally declining enrollment and cuts in state aid that sank the Southern careers of former Chancellor Jim Llorens and President Ron Mason.
Llorens continues to work locally in education, and Mason took a campus job out of state. But that two such capable men ran afoul of the internal politics of the famously factionalized system and campus should signal to their successor that he can’t afford to live with business as usual.
Very soon, there might be buyers’ remorse from the Southern board and its larger community over Belton’s elevation over White House official Ivory Toldson, a younger and more dynamic choice.
For the moment, Belton told the Press Club of Baton Rouge that he is doing the requisite outreach to alumni groups and the business community here, and that he is seeking to push down to the campus level some of the system jobs. Mason had earlier pushed for consolidation of “back office” services at the system, so perhaps that is a reversal of policy.
Yet as the Baton Rouge main campus faces tough questions about its future, even the best-intentioned rearranging of the deck chairs isn’t going to do much about the holes below the waterline. Fewer than 7,000 students, a diminished profile in higher education — hardly alone among historically black campuses — and a failure to capitalize on its HBCU status in terms of grants and other external funding mean that Southern is one of the state’s low-performing assets.
http://theadvocate.com/news/12965672-123/lanny-keller-without-support-southern
Lanny Keller
Aug. 01, 2015
Ray Belton entered the doors of Southern University in Shreveport without much plan other than taking a few classes with his GI Bill benefits. He found there not only a degree but a lifelong affection for Southern’s campuses and long service to them.
Now, he’s the first person in decades to combine the roles of president and chancellor of the Southern main campus and its system — and thus its spokesman on the influential panel of system presidents who advise the Board of Regents, the top college board.
What Belton needs to be, though, is less ambassador for Southern than agent of change there. And tough changes are needed in a time of generally declining enrollment and cuts in state aid that sank the Southern careers of former Chancellor Jim Llorens and President Ron Mason.
Llorens continues to work locally in education, and Mason took a campus job out of state. But that two such capable men ran afoul of the internal politics of the famously factionalized system and campus should signal to their successor that he can’t afford to live with business as usual.
Very soon, there might be buyers’ remorse from the Southern board and its larger community over Belton’s elevation over White House official Ivory Toldson, a younger and more dynamic choice.
For the moment, Belton told the Press Club of Baton Rouge that he is doing the requisite outreach to alumni groups and the business community here, and that he is seeking to push down to the campus level some of the system jobs. Mason had earlier pushed for consolidation of “back office” services at the system, so perhaps that is a reversal of policy.
Yet as the Baton Rouge main campus faces tough questions about its future, even the best-intentioned rearranging of the deck chairs isn’t going to do much about the holes below the waterline. Fewer than 7,000 students, a diminished profile in higher education — hardly alone among historically black campuses — and a failure to capitalize on its HBCU status in terms of grants and other external funding mean that Southern is one of the state’s low-performing assets.
http://theadvocate.com/news/12965672-123/lanny-keller-without-support-southern