Taking over: Effective July 1, the LSU Paul M. Hebert Law Center will have a new dean. Louisiana’s flagship university announced Thursday that it has hired Thomas C. Galligan Jr., who is currently president of Colby-Sawyer College, for the position. The announcement comes about seven months after LSU began its search for the school’s next dean. As dean, Galligan will have administrative oversight of academic life and be in charge of community outreach and development, the university says in a news release. He also will serve as the Law Center’s chief academic and administrative officer. Galligan is no stranger to LSU. He previously taught at the Law Center, where he was named Dr. Dale E. Bennett Professor of Law and honored as an outstanding professor six times, the university says.
Low five: Louisiana’s count of rigs actively exploring or oil or gas fell by five this week, according to Houston-based oilfield services firm Baker Hughes. The state had a total of 46 total rigs this week, down from 51 reported last week, after three rigs on land and two in the Gulf of Mexico ceased operations. Meanwhile, the U.S. count declined by 48 rigs this week to 571. Of those, 467 rigs sought oil and 104 explored for natural gas amid depressed energy prices. A year ago, 1,456 rigs were active. Among major oil- and gas-producing states, Texas declined by 19 rigs, Oklahoma dropped eight, Pennsylvania lost three, North Dakota, Utah and Wyoming each declined by two and Ohio dropped by one. The U.S. rig count peaked at 4,530 in 1981 and bottomed at 488 in 1999.
Motion denied: A state judge ruled today against an effort by preservationists to stop the removal of prominent Confederate monuments in New Orleans. The Associated Press reports Civil District Court Judge Piper D. Griffin ruled the city did not act improperly in deciding to take down four monuments tied to Confederate history, including a towering column and statue of Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee. Griffin denied a request to stop the city from moving forward with its plans. The plaintiffs say they will appeal. The state suit deals with three of the four monuments: statues of Jefferson Davis, the Confederate president, P.G.T. Beauregard, a Louisiana-born Confederate general, and Lee. A fourth monument, an obelisk to the White League’s attempt to overthrow a biracial government after the Civil War, is under a federal consent decree. A similar challenge by McGraw’s group and others was shot down in federal court in January. That ruling is being appealed, too. Read the full story.
