Two to go: The Southern University System’s president-chancellor search is down to two finalists after a third finalist pulled his name from the running. The system’s board of supervisors announced today in a news release that listening sessions with the final candidates would be hosted Thursday on Southern’s Baton Rouge campus with faculty, staff, students, alumni and stakeholders invited. In the news release, the system broke the news that Barrett Hatches, president and CEO of the Chicago Family Health Center, had withdrawn his application. When and why is not clear. The remaining finalists are Ray Belton, the chancellor of Southern’s Shreveport campus, and Ivory Toldson, deputy director of the White House Initiative on Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The board will interview the final two candidates during its regular meeting Friday, when it will make a selection.
Free for all: With thousands of college baseball fans expected to travel to Omaha in the next week, Cox Communications announced today it will open its nearly 550 WiFi hotspots throughout the Omaha community, free of charge, during the College World Series. The WiFi hotspots, usually available only to Cox customers, will now be useable by the public from June 12-24, the duration of the entire series, Cox says in a news release. “This is great news for Louisiana’s college baseball fans who are planning to travel to Omaha for the College World Series,” says Jacqui Vines, senior vice president and Cox’s Southeast Region manager, in a prepared statement.
Recipe for success: The LSU AgCenter Food Incubator has received a three-year, $2.5 million grant from the Louisiana Office of Community Development’s Disaster Recovery Unit to ramp up production, serve more clients and hire more personnel. The AgCenter announced today in a news release that the grant comes from federal Community Development Block Grant Funds provided to the state by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development to stimulate economic development in areas of the state affected by hurricanes Gustav and Ike in 2008. The Food Incubator, which currently serves 25 tenants, provides food entrepreneurs tools and expertise to test, produce, package and market foods. With the grant, the incubator will be able to purchase new, larger-capacity equipment, enabling it to eventually serve about 200 clients in some capacity and do pilot plant studies for larger companies, the AgCenter says.
