It's close to 4:30 p.m. Friday. Joseph Savoie takes a seat in his board room in the Board of Regents' sixth floor offices in Baton Rouge. The room, and his office next door, both offer views of the neighboring state buildings, including the Capitol. Bookcases line one wall holding awards from national organizations and souvenir hard hats from groundbreakings at universities across the state.

Less than 24 hours before, Savoie had been selected as the sixth president of UL. On July 1, he'll assume his role. He walks into a position that hasn't been vacant for 34 years. He also walks into a community where he lives, but a community that wasn't unanimous in its hopes that he would become the university's next leader.

Savoie discussed what the community can expect from him as the university's new president, some of the challenges he sees the university faces, and speaks to some critics who believe he wasn't selected for his experience or merit, but because of his political connections.

On the transition
Q: What can the public and campus community expect from Joe Savoie when you start in July?

A: Respect for their opinion and input. Partnerships. Focus on the region's economic and social vitality and I think that the university needs to be directly connected with the needs and the dreams of the community it serves. Universities have tremendous assets and large caches of intellectual ability that need to be applied to the benefit of the community.

That's a philosophical approach but it will play itself out in practical action.

People want to know what's your vision? What's your vision? Well, you can't impose a vision. People have to believe in the same thing and you have to develop that through collaborative work and consensus and that means allowing voices to be heard and encouraging engagement and participation and ownership in success.

To me partnerships and collaboration and common vision and ownership is the only way that you can bring about real and sustained progress and then it begins to build on itself after you do that.

But you can't order people to think or to believe. They have to believe because they understand and they agree on what you're trying to do.

It may have frustrated some board members, but there is no Joe Savoie vision. The result will be the participation of the whole community and we will come to consensus and work together to accomplish that.

Q: You don't take office until July 1, so what happens in the meantime?

A: I'm the commissioner of higher education until that time. I'll continue to perform my responsibilities until the board makes a decision on a replacement. I'll be discussing with Dr. Authement about the things that I need to get in touch with initially.

This is a sensitive time for education with the transition of one governor to the next with the agenda being developed for colleges and universities, with the budget being developed, so the (Board of Regents) wanted some stability and they wanted me to continue to do my work in regards to those things, which I think is appropriate. They will simultaneously start a replacement process and somewhere those two lines will cross.

The review of the university recommended that the new president fill vacant vice presidency positions in finance and university advancement. Is that a priority for you?

I think the finance position is critical. Everything is driven by resources and if you want to determine any organization's priorities you just need to look at where they spend their money. Having a good handle on that is very important, so we can move the agenda forward. That's one of the issues I need to speak to Dr. Authement about.

Do you plan on asking any of your current Board of Regents staffers to help you fill those positions?

I haven't even thought about staff here moving. We have an excellent staff here at the Board of Regents, one of the blessings of my career has been wherever I have been I've had outstanding people surrounding me.

My job is to make sure that they have the resources to succeed, otherwise stay out of their way. I would be proud if any of them would want to move. I haven't had any of those conversations.

Some in the community haven't kept it a secret how they felt about your candidacy or your appointment. How do you plan to build consensus in the community?

I've got a stack of about 75 congratulatory e-mails in just the last 12 hours. I think there's some community support there.

I think there was a misread on identifying me as a local candidate. I am from Lafayette.

I did work at the university for a long period of time. For nearly 12 years, I worked statewide with every institution in Louisiana. I've served on the Board of Control for the Southern Regional Education Board for nearly 10 years now, which has given me an opportunity to work with campuses and systems throughout the south. Gov. (Sonny) Perdue of Georgia recently asked me to serve on a special SREB commission to redesign the relationship between high schools and colleges in the South. It's about a 20-member commission and I'm the only higher ed person on that.

I currently serve on chairman of the board of State Higher Education Executive Officers, these are people who serve higher education systems who asked me to chair the board; I've served on Council for Advancement and Support of Education.

I think it's a misread to suggest that I don't have broader than one institution perspectives on things.

I went to school at the largest graduate school in education, the number one graduate school in America.

I didn't react to that because I know different. People are going to have their opinions.

Do you think that you need to work to build consensus and how do you go about doing it?

There's no question about that. I would rather people judge me by results and not rumor, not rumors.

The Faculty Senate's choice for this position was your fellow finalist, UL's vice president of academic affairs, Steve Landry. Some board members expressed their hope that Dr. Landry would stay in his current position. Have you spoken to him about that? Would you like that to happen?

I saw him (Friday) morning at the UL System meeting and had a chance to talk to him for just a couple of minutes, and we agreed to talk again soon.

I have the utmost respect for Steve Landry. He's an outstanding academic administrator and I consider him a personal friend. I tried to lure him to the Board of Regents on a couple of occasions before. There's no one who respects him more than I do.

So, is it your hope that he continues at the university?

Yes, it is.

What are your plans for your executive team? Do you foresee any shifts or changes?

No, I don't have any specific plans but with every transition there are changes. It's not just a matter of my evaluation of individuals, but individuals' evaluation of me.

I think it's much too soon to have any pronouncements or predetermined decisions in that regard.

I depend a lot on Dr. Authement's input.

How do you plan on addressing the job differently than Dr. Authement?

I don't know if it's fair to do any sort of comparison. Dr. Authement does his job very well and very effectively and I hope to be as effective as he. Our personalities are different, thus our styles are going to be different, but our goals will be the same.

How do you describe your leadership style?

I'm very respectful of talent. I am inclusive. I like to build consensus and my preference is to surround myself with capable, talented and committed people and give them the resources they need to succeed and stay out of their way.

That's how you have sustained improvement. It has to be cultural. People have to have a stake in it and believe in it and understand why it's important and they will sustain the improvement. That's how you make sustainable change.


On land acquisitions and building improvements
What are your plans to address the university's property issues?
I think it's important that the university always have the opportunity to continue to grow and expand and it needs the land resources in order to do that. Here at the Regents about seven or eight years ago, we established somewhat of a revolving land acquisition fund. The whole purpose was when property contiguous or important to the university came on the market, we'd have some money to purchase it and not have to wait a year to go through the whole legislative process. We've done that on several campuses statewide. ... I think taking advantage of that fund for important property will help the university.

The University of Louisiana at Monroe established a property foundation and seeded it with some money. Part of foundation's job was to do much of the land acquisition fund's job - purchase property near or contiguous to the campus. They've been doing that for about 10 years now.

That kind of steady methodical master planning view of things is necessary. Land is an endowment. It has the same value to the university as a cash endowment because it is an asset that can be used either for expansion or to generate resources for expansion.

I would think that, and I don't want to create any land speculation in Lafayette, that the university needs to be prepared to acquire land around the campus whenever it becomes available.

Dr. Fletcher when he was president was highly criticized for purchasing all of that useless farmland down the Abbeville Highway. Well, now that useless farmland is where Cajundome Boulevard is , where the research park, Cajundome, athletic facilities, university hospital, and the community college and the technical college are.

Part of the president's responsibility is to think about the next 50 years, not just the next year and think about what the university may need in the following generation not just this generation.

I think that's an important responsibility and the university is quickly filling up its available land space on the main campus.

There's lots of property still available on south campus but not conducive to the academic side of the house. The separation there makes it impractical.

The review also addressed the dire need for the next president to address deferred maintenance issues on the campus. What are your plans to respond to that issue?

Deferred maintenance is a huge problem. Huge problem. Statewide it's about a $1.5 billion in deferred maintenance that's a natural result of the years of underfunding that occurred in the decades of the mid 80s to the early 90s. Universities suffering from the budget cuts were trying to protect their primary and most important assets, which were their faculty and staff, their personnel, which about 75 percent of your total expenditures is people. So if you've got to make cuts, you've got to cut what's left over and the first thing to go is maintenance.

As funding has improved, first time in quarter of a century we're at the recommended funding level. That funding level includes a reasonable amount of resources to take care of those regular maintenance issues, but only that of the past year. It doesn't help you with accumulated, deferred maintenance. ...

It's a continuing struggle. We have proposed in our budget requests for next year some allocation from the surplus to address deferred maintenance on the campus.


On UL's role in the community, state
In the interview process, you were asked about the role of the university in terms of economic development, workforce training and funding of academics, research, athletics. What is the university's role in the community?
You can tell a university's priorities by the way it spends its money.

The university's priorities should be those that build upon its assets, so excellence ought to be rewarded and encouraged. Frivolity ought to be eliminated and there needs to be focus. ...

The university has to have a comprehensive breadth of programs, but they all need to be contributing pieces of the university's offering.

Depending upon the institution, there may be some unique features that need to be emphasized because of the economic or workforce needs of the community it serves.

UL has a tremendous history and a tremendous value in the computer sciences and those need to be constantly invested in so they can maintain excellence. The more excellent you are the more competitive you are for outside research dollars.

You need to constantly be surveying the horizon for potential programs that contribute to the excellence of the university and make investments to build those things.

I said this to Dr. Meriwether (UL physics professor, John Meriwether, who also served on the presidential search committee), universities are not training schools. While we certify people in various professions, we also want them to have a broad view of the world and a broad understanding of the world. Liberal arts and exposure to general curriculum is important because that's the difference between being well-trained and well-educated.


Looking at UL's spending where do you think the priorities are?

I haven't had the opportunity to review the budget, but the university is clearly well managed. It has established priorities. It has built excellence in select areas and that needs to not only be maintained and strengthened. Other possibilities need to be reviewed.

How do you plan to address the recommendations made in the review?

I think the review itself, even if nothing changed - which would be a shame - but the process of getting people around the table and talking about making the university better and stop for a moment focusing on their individual areas of responsibility and think larger, that is a very helpful process.

There are some in the community who believe that UL is under the constant shadow of the flagship, LSU - not just in athletics, but academics, research and ultimately funding. What do you think a new president can do to change that perception?

Every university in the state has an assigned role, scope and mission. The Board of Regents does that. It should focus on excellence and high levels of performance within its assigned mission.

When I first took this job in '96, the universities had several years of underfunding and less than stellar performance, I had a meeting with all the college presidents and chancellors and I said it's time to stop whining and start winning. I put a little formula on the blackboard: Relevance + Accountability = Confidence.

Relevance: Are we doing things that matter to people in their daily lives. Are we improving their circumstance? Is our research focused on things that will make their lives easier or better?

Accountability: Is our teaching focused on making sure that their children are having better, well prepared teachers in the classroom? Are we engaged with local economic development authorities? Are we having an open and honest discussion with the public about how well we're using their resources?

If we do those things, things that are important to people in their lives and that we're open and honest about how we perform, that will equal confidence.

Confidence translates into resources. So we've tried to do that statewide on building in performance expectations, by requiring national accreditation of all of our degree programs and a myriad of other things. Well, our funding has gone up.

In 1996 when we began, state appropriations to colleges and universities was about $640 million dollars. This year, it's $1.65 billion. That was a steady climb. Those new investments didn't come about because people felt sorry for us. They came about because people saw the value in what we did so those investments have continued.

The university needs to compete against its own deficiencies and become better at what it's supposed to do.

It doesn't need a bugbear to get better.

But competition in higher education is natural and it's normal and in many respects it can be healthy, but when it becomes an excuse for lack of performance, then it's not.


On diversity and reaching out to the local black community
The university restructured its office of minority affairs to the office of campus diversity and now has a task force of university and community members to address recruitment of black high school students. What do you think needs to be done for the university to continue to improve its minority enrollment and retention efforts?
It is important that a university reflects the community it serves.

It's also morally wrong and economically foolish to ignore the needs of the growing portion of our population. If you look at Louisiana's population and projections for the next 20 years, the white population is declining at every age group and the black population is increasing at every age group. Our public schools statewide are nearing minority-majority status.

Individuals will become our future leaders, teachers, politicians, ministers and doctors, and we have an obligation to make sure that everyone is prepared to assume those responsibilities.

The other side of that is, efforts at diversity have to be more than just words, it has to be intentional and it has to be consistent.

You have to be intentional, you have to be consistent and you have to put your resources toward the programs that will give you what you're looking for.