Cronies in the Quad

From LSU to McNeese, Gov. Jeff Landry has turned higher education into a patronage system.

How far has higher education in Louisiana fallen under Gov. Jeff Landry? A long way.

How little respect do Landry and his university governing boards have for the institutions they oversee? Very little.

That’s because Landry doesn’t see them as true educational institutions where serious research and learning take place.

He sees them as political plums to reward his cronies and expand his power.

Landry handed the LSU presidency to McNeese State President Wade Rousse after a phony “national search” that conveniently ended with the person everyone knew was favored from the start.

Rousse was, at best, a mediocre leader of a regional state school that ranked somewhere in the middle among its peers. No legitimate national search by a Research 1 university would have ended with his hiring. It was a purely political decision.

As a proud graduate of one of McNeese’s sister universities, I have nothing against the institutions in the University of Louisiana System. But a university with aspirations for greatness wouldn’t be plucking a crony of the governor out of the SEED Center at McNeese.

And if you think Rousse is underqualified to lead LSU, just look at who Landry muscled in to replace him.

Here’s how Piper Hutchinson of the Louisiana Illuminator reported it:

A Republican state senator from Leesville has been named the next president of McNeese State University despite having no prior professional experience in higher education.

The hiring of Sen. Mike Reese was made official Tuesday at a special University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors meeting, with all board members present voting in favor. He is slated to begin the job July 1.

Reese, a logistics and real estate business owner, has served in the Louisiana Senate since 2020. His only experience in higher education leadership came during his time as student body president at the University of Louisiana at Monroe for the 1997-98 school year, when was also a student member on the Louisiana Board of Regents. . . .

Reese is the second state senator in less than a year to leave the legislature and become a university leader. Former Sen. Joe Bouie, D-New Orleans, resigned to become the chancellor of Southern University at New Orleans last fall.

He is also the latest in a string of politically influenced presidential hires. LSU President Wade Rousse was hired away from McNeese last year with the support of Gov. Jeff Landry. UL Lafayette President Ramesh Kolluru and UL Monroe President Carrie Castille were also hired with Landry’s backing, The Times-Picayune reported.

Also at Landry’s direction, Northwestern State University hired former state Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Genovese in 2024. Cade Cole was elected to replace Genovese on the high court with financial support from the governor’s political action committee. . . .

Reese, who holds a bachelor’s degree from UL Monroe, was given the McNeese job over Dee Dee Anderson, vice chancellor for student life at the University of Nebraska, who has worked in higher education for more than 30 years, and Wayne Brumfield, interim vice president for student affairs at the State University of New York in Buffalo, a semifinalist who did not advance to the final round of interviews.

Let’s be clear: Mike Reese has no experience leading a higher education institution—none whatsoever. In fact, he may be the least qualified person ever appointed to lead a university in the state’s history.

Kudos to Public Service Commissioner Davante Lewis, a McNeese alumnus, for speaking the truth about this appointment: “These presidencies should not be treated like lollipops for the governor’s office, and I think that’s what we’re seeing in higher ed now, where Gov. Landry is calling these boards and giving out positions to unqualified people.”

Reese’s only qualification appears to be that he is a Landry crony.

Any self-respecting scholar or alumna at McNeese should be insulted that someone so unqualified will be running their university. The same goes for LSU, Northwestern State, and the other schools that now have political appointees.

No matter what other qualifications these leaders might have, they were appointed by Landry’s boards because they are politically acceptable to the governor. Whatever academic credentials they may have had were secondary to their willingness to do Landry’s bidding.

It all adds up to a governor who has politicized our institutions of higher education more than any governor since Huey Long.

And don’t get me started on Landry’s drive to force all our state-funded colleges and universities to leave their longtime accrediting body—the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges (SACSCOC)—and join a newly created, far-right accrediting body for schools in the South.

That will only further diminish the national standing of all our schools and make it even harder to attract senior, top-flight scholars and leaders from elsewhere, who tend to avoid highly politicized jobs.

Hiring good people through a non-politicized process is how you raise the bar at LSU, McNeese, and other schools.

Firing or driving off professors—as has happened at LSU and at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond—because they have offended the governor only lowers the bar further.

But Landry doesn’t want to raise the bar. He wants it brought down to his level. He doesn’t want our schools to be respected nationally. He doesn’t want faculty members to pursue their research free from political influence.

He wants the state’s universities to serve as cogs in his political machine.

This latest scandalous appointment at McNeese makes that very clear.

---