LSU officials say they will conduct a national search to replace outgoing Chief Financial Officer and Executive Vice President Dan Layzell, who is stepping down in October to accept a position as CFO and COO at Cornell College, a small liberal arts college in Iowa.
In a statement, LSU interim president Tom Galligan says there’s no word yet on who will fill Layzell’s position on a temporary basis or what shape a national search for a permanent replacement will take.
But he applauds Layzell, who came to LSU under former President F. King Alexander, for his six years of service to the university.
“Dan is an outstanding colleague and a great friend,” Galligan says in the statement. “While we are sad to lose his tremendous talents and leadership, we’re very grateful for the many contributions he has made to LSU.”
There’s also no word on the status of the search for a permanent replacement for Alexander, who stepped down at the end of 2019 to prepare for his new position as president of Oregon State University.
Early this year, some board members began pushing to split the president’s position into two, as it was until Alexander’s hiring in 2013, with a president to oversee systemwide affairs and a separate chancellor to lead the flagship A&M campus in Baton Rouge—a move Gov. John Bel Edwards said he supported.
But in May, consultants presented a report to the board that, while stopping short of making a recommendation, suggested the consolidated position was working well and should remain in place at least until the board more clearly defines whether it wants to position LSU as a single university or as a system of eight institutions that share a common name.
With the disruptions of the pandemic, those discussions never materialized and the board has not publicly brought up the issue since.
Multiple sources familiar with the situation, however, say the board—which has several new members appointed by Edwards since May—remains divided over whether to split the position and also over whether to launch a national search.
At least some board members are also pushing to offer the position to Galligan, who is also chancellor of the LSU Law Center, for a year or two, until questions about the future course of the pandemic and the state budget become more clear.
Board chair Robert Dampf did not return a call seeking comment.
