His final years were dogged by controversy, but outgoing UL Lafayette President Ray Authement's pending retirement will mark the end of 50 years of service that leaves an indelible mark on the community.

Pat Rickels remembers Ray Authement’s 1974 appointment as USL president well. The university had recently gone through some turbulent years with ongoing financial struggles, student integration and a raft of NCAA violations that shut down its basketball program for two years. Looking for new direction, the Board of Supervisors turned to a young Authement, a former math professor and rising star among school administrators who had a reputation for being by the book and above suspicion.

“We all thought very highly of him,” says Rickels, a UL English professor and longtime director of the university’s Honors Program. “He had a Ph.D. in mathematics, the queen of the sciences. He had really distinguished himself academically — which is not something you can say about all of USL’s presidents.”

At his first faculty address as president in 1974, Authement set the tone for the remainder of his administration. He stressed a focus on community relations in order for the university to be able to meet its long-term growth needs. Making clear where the fruit from this labor would be going, Authement noted that of the $796,000 in new monies the university was acquiring that year, he was putting $767,500 directly into faculty salaries. Authement also set the lofty goal of reaching a level where 60 percent of the university’s faculty held doctorate degrees and made it known that USL would continue to be a trailblazer with its newly established computer science program.

“Those of you who have been at USL for a while know,” Authement told the faculty crowd, “that we were never really part of the great affluence that came to universities and colleges after World War II. But even though we were not, we continued to grow to be innovative, to be a major university in many areas and to remain the leading university under the state board of education in spite of having to operate under austere budgets. We have the dedication and cooperation of the members of this faculty to thank for this.”

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By Nathan Stubbs
The Inddpendent