Louisiana’s top higher education board is about to get a report on a proposal to merge historically black Southern University at New Orleans with the neighboring University of New Orleans. Gov. Bobby Jindal asked the Board of Regents to study a possible merger in January. The Regents then commissioned a study by Dennis Jones, president of the National Center for Higher Education Management Systems in Boulder, Colo. The Regents are scheduled to be briefed on Jones’ report this afternoon. The Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus, among others, opposes the merger idea. Jindal has said he wants the merger idea explored as a way of possibly improving education and has downplayed talk of any resulting cost savings at a time when the state is facing major budget cuts. But critics say it’s an attempt to balance the budget by attacking a historically black college; they say it won’t cut costs or improve offerings to students.
This merger debate is being heard well beyond state lines. “We’re very concerned about this issue,” says John S. Wilson Jr., director of the White House Initiative on HBCUs. Wilson isn’t taking a position on Jindal’s proposal but does say that if saving money is the object, there is no evidence that a merger would be the answer. Nor, he said, would a merger necessarily address the problem of SUNO’s graduation rate of around 7%—a rate that SUNO leaders attribute to the disruption after Hurricane Katrina floods inundated the campus in 2005.
