The attorney for the LSU Board of Supervisors has released the names of three candidates the board considered during its 2012 search for a president that culminated with the hiring of F. King Alexander in March 2013.
The candidates were: Malcolm Portera, then-chancellor of the University of Alabama System, who has since retired; Richard Loftin, who at that time was president of Texas A&M University and has since become chancellor of the University of Missouri; and Steven Ballard, chancellor of East Carolina University.
Today’s release comes as a result of a compromise between the LSU board and two newspapers that had filed suit over the search process. On Friday last week, the Louisiana Supreme Court let stand a lower court ruling that LSU must make public only the names and résumés of four of the 35 candidates considered during the presidential search. Attorneys for the newspapers had asked the state’s highest court to order the release of information on all 35 candidates, arguing the documents are public records. The justices rejected their request.
LSU Vice President for Strategic Communications Linda Bonnin has issued a statement saying: “The most effective search process for a university president is one that ensures confidentiality during the recruitment phase, since to do otherwise would limit the number of qualified candidates. LSU conducted a national search to fill its president and chancellor position in 2012-2013, before hiring F. King Alexander. This confidential search produced a strong pool of finalists, as evidenced by the list we released today. Our goal was to find the best president for LSU, and we are confident our search process produced the right leader for the job.”
