Shortly after video of Alton Sterling’s fatal shooting by police went viral on July 5, LSU President F. King Alexander picked up the phone and called Monturios Howard. The LSU senior is president of the university’s NAACP chapter. Alexander is the chapter’s faculty adviser. The two talk regularly, and Alexander’s gut instinct in the wake of the incident was to reach out to Howard before almost anyone else.
“What can we do for you?” Alexander asked Howard. “What do you need?”
As Business Report details in its new cover story on Alexander and his performance as the first chancellor and president of LSU, Alexander met with Howard and other student leaders in the days that would follow. At their request, he made space available on campus so students could paint signs for an upcoming protest. He attended a student-led rally. He provided dinner for student volunteers painting signs. He donated cases of water for the protest. His actions, in short, were unprecedented for a university president—at least at LSU. It was not lost on students like Howard.
“He is always there for us,” Howard says. “He really cares about the students. Whatever he can do for us, he tries his hardest. He wants to be inclusive. He wants to be fair. Is he going to be perfect? No. But he tries to see all sides of an issue.”
Plenty of people who have worked alongside Alexander and gotten to know him during his three years at LSU agree with Howard’s assessment. As the first LSU administrator to serve in the dual roles of president and chancellor, Alexander has been forced to blaze his own trail without the benefit of a road map to guide him. He has overseen consolidation of the university system even as his own position was merged. He has implemented fundamental changes to the organizational structure of LSU, even though he wasn’t the architect of those changes.
It hasn’t been easy, particularly against a backdrop of chronic funding challenges and state budget cuts. Alexander inherited a budget that had been cut every year for the previous six years. It would be cut still more during his first two years at the helm by Gov. Bobby Jindal’s administration. As a result, LSU lost hundreds of faculty members, including some of its most prominent researchers.
Alexander has weathered it all with skill and diplomacy, though he isn’t without his critics. Some dislike the way he has threatened doomsday scenarios for the university when state lawmakers can’t find money for higher education. Some believe he cares more about national higher education policy issues—which he, admittedly, spends a lot of time working on—than he does LSU. Some will always hold it against him for squashing efforts last November to buy out Tigers football coach Les Miles’ pricey contract.
But those who admire Alexander far outweigh his detractors. Even among his critics, he consistently gets high marks for being evenhanded and even tempered, for collaborating with a variety of constituent groups to break down institutional silos, and for remaining steadfast in his determination to put LSU’s 45,000 students first.
“He is passionate about the kids,” says Ann Duplessis, a member and former chair of the LSU Board of Supervisors. “All the decisions he makes are based on the benefit of the students and their families.”
Read the full cover story. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
