The Louisiana State University System rests on the precipice of a potentially exciting new era now that Pres. William Tate IV will fly the coop, if some basic issues can be resolved.

Tate took the Rutgers University system job, which is in a bigger state, has more money and students, and caters more to his leftist sentiments. In the scheme of things, it is a step up from the LSU gig, and an inevitable move by him.

Understand that there’s only a limited amount of destination jobs in higher education. Perhaps maybe three dozen prominent private schools and a dozen or so state systems qualify, and those who aim for that churn as quickly as they can through the ranks of all other schools and systems. Anybody who stays in one place for more than a few years has some kind of attachment to the school and area, which, if a quality administrator, is a blessing for that institution.

That wasn’t Tate’s plan for his stay at LSU, but now in moving on, he may have fulfilled his ambition wish. LSU is not a destination school/system for most, but Tate actually left it as good as he got it, if not better, which is atypical in recent years in academia. With a history of woke scholarship, he knew when to park these sentiments first at South Carolina, then at LSU, and read the tea leaves well enough to make minor efforts to shore against the falling tide of quality that has evacuated higher education beginning even prior to this century. Still, for beneficial change to occur someone whose heart isn’t in it wouldn’t get the job done.

How to take that to the next level is the paramount question. It is a good thing to witness, if not outright panic, the wailing and moaning emanating from hidebound higher education and those who ally themselves to it over defunding, job insecurity, and guardrails placed to ensure quality programs and instruction–good because it shows that wading out of the morass has become possible for the first time since I entered the profession four decades ago. It’s an exciting time to be a young scholar – if you have a full-time tenure-track job, which has become increasingly difficult to obtain with the delivery and demographic changes buffeting the environment.

And that must be the lodestar of the next LSU leader search. Except that to pursue someone who can lead from out of the higher education swamp in this specific incidence requires answers to two progenitor questions in their necessary order.

First, a move is afoot to return the University of New Orleans to the LSU System, where it had been nearly 15 years ago. At the time, the argument was that UNO didn’t quite fit. It wasn’t a regional institution like LSU Shreveport or LSU Alexandria, nor was it a flagship like LSU Baton Rouge. Instead, it occupied a middle ground—one that left it overlooked, as most of the system’s focus and resources flowed to the Baton Rouge campus. Meanwhile, other campuses—including the oddly placed community college LSU Eunice—functioned more like satellites than independent institutions.

Indeed, at that time there was an ethos known as “One LSU,” which promoted closer integration across institutions—but in practice, it favored treating everything outside Baton Rouge as little more than a satellite. There was much talk about expanding LSU programs into Shreveport and Alexandria, along with promises of back-end cost savings by consolidating operations in Baton Rouge. This worldview ultimately led to merging the leadership of the LSU System and the Baton Rouge campus into a single position.

That leads to the next question needing an answer: will the two jobs stay together or be parceled back into a system president and an LSU chancellor? Back then, it made some sense to combine the two if the One LSU idea in some form – cross-delivery of programs even if dominated by LSU to the periphery – gained currency. It did not. After some half-hearted attempts – mainly as a response to the threat that LSUS would be gulped up by Louisiana Tech in what was perceived as another win for the University of Louisiana System – to achieve this, within a few years the effort was abandoned on the academic side, although the back offices of the various institutions were integrated to some degree, with cost savings.

As time has passed, the current arrangement has made even less sense. LSUS and LSUA have further carved out their own identities—LSUA emerging as a leader in undergraduate online education, and LSUS doing the same at the graduate level, now enrolling and graduating more graduate students, and conferring more graduate degrees, than LSU itself. And their in-resident student bodies still have a regional focus.

If UNO is brought back into the fold—a move that revives the original problem of being too large to function as a satellite—this dynamic becomes even more problematic. While its enrollment now trails LSUS and is roughly equal to LSUA, UNO’s academic mission remains distinct, unless an ill-advised effort is made to throw in the towel on it. That reality only strengthens the case for separating the jobs.

If such a split occurs, the best candidate to lead the system would likely come from outside academia—someone with minor ties to higher education but strong political and organizational experience. This role wouldn’t involve academic micromanagement so much as steering large institutions and managing external relations. Consider the outgoing and incoming system chancellors at the Texas A&M University System—hardly a failing model.

Two qualities in particular are essential. First, exceptional fundraising ability is a must, given that LSU’s academic endowment badly lags behind its peers. A larger endowment would ease financial pressures significantly. Second, a firm commitment to ending holistic admissions—in contravention of Board of Regents policy—is needed to raise academic standards and ensure better use of taxpayer funds.

A more traditional academic could then be appointed as LSU’s chancellor—ideally someone who resists intellectual fads, values real education over ideological conformity, and is willing to make that vision the campus standard. Such individuals rarely seek the spotlight, given the self-congratulatory and virtue-signaling culture that dominates much of academic administration today. But they do exist—quietly working behind the scenes, heads down, ready to lead a true restoration if given the chance to emerge.

With nearly half the Board of Supervisors now appointed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry—and others likely seeking his favor for future reappointment—there’s reason to believe this restorative vision could find support. Splitting the roles and hiring a system president along these lines would be a major step toward reclaiming true academic excellence at LSU.