LSU President F. King Alexander is creating a new position in his administration—a vice president for institutional advancement, who will also serve as CEO of the LSU Foundation and oversee all fundraising efforts at the university, including those of the foundation, LSU Alumni Association and Tiger Athletic Foundation.
Alexander says the move has been in the works for several months, and is based on the need to better coordinate fundraising among the three private, nonprofit organizations, which he says have not worked together closely enough over the years to produce results.
“There is no reason in the world why Michigan State should have a $2 billion endowment and Indiana and Wisconsin, too, when our graduates are doing better than theirs and we have an endowment of less than $400 million,” Alexander tells Daily Report. “We need to set our sights higher … We’re just 20 years behind in what we’ve done with our foundations and fundraising.”
Alexander’s actions also come in the wake of a recent lawsuit and sex scandal at the alumni association involving former employee Kay Heath and longtime president Charlie Roberts, who resigned last month but denied any wrongdoing.
Alexander told the LSU Board of Supervisors this afternoon that an accounting firm is conducting an independent audit of the alumni association records and that attorneys are conducting a separate investigation.
“We will make any findings available to the public,” Alexander says.
In the meantime, Alexander says he is conducting a national search for his new vice president of institutional advancement. Under the structure Alexander envisions, the leadership of TAF and the alumni association would report to the new vice president, though the organizations would retain their private, nonprofit status.
“Instead of having three equal entities in competition with each other, we will have one primary university foundation,” he says. “Then we will have the other foundations working with [the vice president] in a close capacity.”
Alexander hopes to have the position filled by December. He says leaders of university foundations at four of the nation’s Big 10 universities are advising him in his search and helping him find “someone who sees the great potential of what LSU can do in the future.”
