While names are already circulating in conversations about who will succeed F. King Alexander as president of LSU, the former senate president says the first priority of the Board of Supervisors should be to ensure the selection process is more transparent and collaborative than the process in 2013 that resulted in Alexander’s hiring.
The board was widely criticized then for vetting and interviewing the candidates in secret and for refusing to disclose the names of even the four finalists for the position, which prompted The Advocate and The Daily Reveille to file a lawsuit that was ultimately decided in their favor.
“Last time there was almost no input, outside of the Board of Supervisors, and there was a surprise unveiling at the end, like a Christmas epiphany,” says former faculty senate president Kevin Cope. “There is a deep inconsistency between the nature of LSU as an institution of higher learning that promotes academic freedom and transparency, and the extreme and reclusive secrecy that was implemented in 2013.”
This time around, Cope says the university needs to do what other institutions do, namely create a search committee with representatives from various stakeholder groups on the LSU campus as well as from other institutions in the LSU system.
“Given the inbred nature of LSU, it might help if they hired an outside search firm,” he says.
In the wake of Alexander’s announcement Friday that he is leaving LSU to head Oregon State University, LSU Board of Supervisors Chair Mary Werner reportedly said she plans to launch a more collaborative and transparent search process.
Still, some local names have been mentioned for months as potential successors to Alexander. They include Louisiana’s Commissioner of Administration Jay Dardenne, former Louisiana Economic Development Secretary Stephen Moret, now Virginia’s top economic development official, and University of Louisiana System President Jim Henderson.
Cope says he doesn’t have anything against any of those three names but is disappointed that locals were among the first names floated.
“The instant this came onto the radar screen, the attention turned to what local candidate might be a good successor,” he says. “It’s very parochial to assume that a good candidate couldn’t be found among the other 49 states and 137 other countries in the world.”
Alexander came to LSU from the outside, having previously headed Cal State Long Beach for eight years, and got mixed reviews during his tenure here. Cope says he gives Alexander high marks for being an “accomplished technocrat” and an able administrator, who fought for funding and kept the lights on during lean years.
“But he didn’t have a clear research agenda,” Cope says. “And was not very good at connecting with the people who comprise LSU.”
(Editor’s Note: This story has been updated from an earlier version to note that Kevin Cope is no longer faculty senate president. Daily Report regrets the error.)
