The Landry president

James Genovese will be the next president of Northwestern State University (Chris Reich/Courtesy of Northwestern State University)

NATCHITOCHES — With no higher education experience to speak of, state Associate Supreme Court Justice James Genovese sold himself as the next president of Northwestern State University, painting himself a political insider, well-skilled in extracting money from the Legislature.

But the lawmaker who leads the powerful House Appropriations Committee that crafts the state budget said he has never spoken to Genovese about money matters. Nor had the previous chairman.

Despite his academic inexperience and questions about his budget expertise, the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors met Thursday and named Genovese the next campus leader in Natchitoches.

Genovese’s greenness coupled with his lofty goals — he wants to build a veterinary school at Northwestern — make him an unusual pick for the job. But he has the support of Republican Gov. Jeff Landry, who Genovese name-dropped throughout his series of job interviews.

“We have a governor who’s behind Northwestern,” Genovese said during an interview with Faculty. “He’s powerful and when he gives you his word, he means it.”

The Northwestern presidential search committee — which included the Landry administration’s top lawyer, Angelique Freel — recommended Genovese unanimously, and the University of Louisiana System Board confirmed him without opposition. Despite hours of public interviews in front of skeptical students and faculty, the decisive conversations about Genovese happened behind closed doors, and the public knows little about how he attained such consensus.

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Concerns persist

Northwestern faculty members aren’t shying away from their concerns about their new 74-year-old president. In nearly a dozen interviews with professors, staff and students, even those who liked the sound of Genovese’s political connections told the Illuminator they are worried about his lack of higher education knowledge.

Despite their issues, Faculty Senate President Frank Serio, the only faculty representative to the search committee, reversed his own position on Genovese after the search committee’s closed-door meeting with the justice.

Two weeks before Genovese was named the sole finalist for the president’s job, Serio said in an interview he believed the search was designed to favor Genovese.

Six hours before Genovese became the sole presidential candidate Tuesday, Serio described the justice’s plans for increasing enrollment as outdated. He also lamented that Genovese did not seem to understand questions faculty put to him.

Ninety minutes before the search committee backed Genovese as president, Serio raised his voice at the justice in a public interview. He demanded an answer to a faculty question he had dodged: What did Genovese mean when he said professors should focus on “basic education” rather than “special interests?”

But after emerging from the closed-door interview with Genovese that was twice as long as the committee’s closed-door chat with the other candidate, Serio, now calm, personally made the motion for the committee to recommend Genovese for the president’s job.

When Serio was asked about his change of heart, he said he truly believed Genovese’s political connections made him the better fit.

Students in attendance at Tuesday’s interviews strongly preferred the other candidate, Jose Cantu, an experienced administrator with expertise in enrollment management. Cantu, who recently left a position at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs, appeared confident in his interviews and deftly answered questions from faculty, staff and students.

A group of students in attendance at the interviews gave Cantu a standing ovation — and later vented about Genovese.

Lyla Monroe, an online student who serves as an orientation leader on campus, took issue with Genovese’s comments regarding online students. Throughout his interviews, Genovese complained about the proportion of the university’s enrollment that was remote. He argued he doesn’t want to see the school become “another University of Phoenix,” referring to the for-profit school that offers online degrees.

Other students agreed they didn’t like Genovese’s tone.

“There’s an open-door policy everywhere at Northwestern,” Monroe added. “I could never ask [Genovese] something comfortably.”

For many, Genovese’s answers left much to be desired.

Before the search committee, he fumbled a question about his view of the role of shared governance, having to ask Serio what the term meant.

The shared governance model of higher education delegates certain powers, primarily those dealing with academics, to faculty. In the view of many professors, shared governance is as important to the functioning of a university as democracy is to the functioning of a nation.

And no matter what he was asked in the public faculty and staff interview, Genovese steered it back to the school’s marketing.

“Who knows that we have the finest nurse anesthetist program here, next to LSU?” Genovese asked. “I didn’t know that. Nobody knows that.”

“We have recruiting that is weak. We have marketing that is weak,” Genovese added.

Northwestern staff members, who aren’t provided tenure protection like faculty, spoke in half-whispers about the candidates between interview sessions and declined to say anything on the record to a reporter.

Condensed summer timeline unusual

In Natchitoches, Genovese’s name began circulating in May the day after President Marcus Jones announced he was leaving his job to become senior adviser to University of Louisiana System President Rick Gallot. Jones, the first Black president of the university, served in the role for three years and was well-liked.

The notable dark moment of his tenure came last October, when Ronnie Caldwell, a Northwestern State football player, was shot and killed. In the following weeks, Northwestern’s football season was canceled, the team’s coach resigned and a wrongful death lawsuit was filed by Caldwell’s family against the university.

Jones declined to answer questions about why he left his post.

His departure left a hole to be filled, a task University of Louisiana System Board of Supervisors chair Mark Romero wanted to complete quickly.

Days after Landry appointed Romero to the job last month, taking advantage of a new law that allowed him to replace former chair Jimmy Clarke with his preference , Romero announced an unusually condensed presidential search timeline.

The University of Louisiana System assembled the search committee on June 10 with the goal of hiring a president by July 18. It’s unusual for a presidential search committee to make a decision on such a short schedule. It is also rare for presidential hiring to take place over the summer, when many professors and students have their attention elsewhere.

When Clarke was UL board chair, the plan was for a longer process, with Jones’ replacement hired sometime during the fall semester.

In an interview, Romero said he thought it was best to install a new president at the start of the fall semester, denying allegations he set up the timeline to favor Genovese.

Regardless of the intention, the timeline seems to have dissuaded some potential presidential candidates. The UL board received an undisclosed number of applicants and selected eight for review before the search committee. Three of these candidates withdrew before the committee could meet to name semifinalists. Days prior to the meeting, The Advocate|Times-Picayune reported Landry’s support of Genovese.

Of the five remaining candidates, three were advanced for on-campus interviews, but one withdrew due to the proposed schedule. That left just Genovese and Cantu.

Lawmakers refute connections

Some faculty said they like Genovese’s budget connections with the Legislature, but lawmakers painted a different picture of their relationship.

Genovese said he plays a key role in getting money from the Legislature for the Supreme Court, skills he says are transferable to Northwestern. During his interviews, the justice repeatedly mentioned the name of Rep. Jack McFarland, R-Jonesboro, current House Appropriations Committee chair.

“I never spoke to him, I only spoke to Chief Justice (John) Weimer and their CFO,” McFarland said in an interview with the Illuminator when asked if Genovese played an active role in getting money for the state’s judicial system.

Rep. Jerome “Zee” Zeringue, R-Houma, also said he had never spoken to Genovese about the budget in the four years he was appropriations chair before McFarland.

When asked to clarify his role in the appropriations process in light of McFarland and Zeringue’s comments, Genovese said in an interview he had not been involved in the process in “the last year or so.”

McFarland said he has hardly ever seen Genovese around the Capitol and that the justice has never reached out to him, even though McFarland represents part of Natchitoches Parish in the Legislature.

Traditionally, campus presidents play a minor role in the appropriations process, with the system president being the primary actor at the Legislature. Campus presidents do not address the budget committee during appropriations hearings, instead playing a behind-the-scenes role forming connections with lawmakers who represent their region to lobby for campus-specific construction projects or small-dollar amounts for research or the arts.

Though Genovese said legislative leaders and the governor would get behind his plan for a veterinary school, McFarland indicated it would be a hard sell.

The Board of Regents, which oversees higher education in Louisiana, has been advised by the Landry administration to prepare for $250 million in budget cuts. Higher education, along with health care, is bracing for cuts ahead of a major tax revenue loss next year.

In an interview, Genovese said he didn’t believe the so-called fiscal cliff would be a problem for his plans, arguing a veterinary school would pay dividends for the entire state.

McFarland said he didn’t believe the Legislature would be prepared to put up the hundreds of millions of dollars needed to start a veterinary school with the pending budget shortfall.

“The (House) speaker told us to focus on the things the universities are currently doing and expand them,” McFarland said. “Northwestern has a great nursing program. I would rather see us continue investing in those types of programs.”

A veterinary school at a small regional state university would be unprecedented. The vast majority of veterinary programs that offer medical degrees are at top research universities such as LSU. Only four are at schools without the top research designation — one at Tuskegee University, the only veterinary medicine school at a historically Black campus, and three at private universities, Lincoln Memorial University in Tennessee, Midwestern University in Arizona and Western University of Health Sciences in California.

Genovese will begin his new job next month. His departure from the Louisiana Supreme Court will leave a vacancy that will be filled in an election next March. His new job is expected to come with a pay raise as well as an on-campus residency.

He currently makes more than $212,000 a year, according to financial disclosure records, and is in line for a $15,000 stipend that would factor into the retirement pay he will receive from his time in the judiciary.

Northwestern’s new president will get his first shot of fulfilling his budgetary goals when the Legislature convenes in April.

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