Louisiana Supreme Court Justice Jimmy Genovese and two out-of-state university officials were chosen Monday as the semifinalists to be the next president of Northwestern State University in Natchitoches.
Genovese, a 74-year-old Northwestern State grad and member of its Alumni Hall of Distinction, has no experience in academia or running a large institution.
But he is the heavy favorite because he has the support of Gov. Jeff Landry, and Landry’s recent pick to chair the board that will choose the president has truncated the search process, a move that higher education insiders said would freeze out some potential applicants.
As it is, three applicants dropped out in the past several days, said Rick Gallot, who heads the presidential search committee, leaving him and his colleagues to choose among only five people.
The three semifinalists chosen by the committee are Genovese; Jose Cantu, a vice chancellor at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs; and Richard Riccardi, the deputy commissioner for academic affairs and student success at the Massachusetts Department of Education.
The three are being invited to meet with the search committee, students, faculty and staff and alumni on July 16 at Northwestern State. The University of Louisiana System board will choose the next president two days later at a special meeting.
That person will replace Marcus Jones, who has been the president since 2021 and will now move to a senior position within the University of Louisiana System, which oversees Northwestern State and eight other universities.
In an interview last week, Landry said he is supporting Genovese because he’s a long-time friend and will do a great job.
Genovese, who is from Opelousas, has served on the state Supreme Court since winning a seat there in 2016. He had been on various levels of state courts since 1975.
While Genovese lacks higher education experience, he speaks French and knows how to work a crowd, friends say, and that would help at a university where enrollment has dropped sharply over the past four years and where the football team lost its first five games last year and then had the university cancel the rest of the season after one of its players was murdered.
Nearly all of the 90-minute search committee meeting Monday took place behind closed doors in executive session, which Gallot, who chairs the search committee and serves as president of the University of Louisiana System, said was the norm.
In an interview, he would not say whether any search committee members expressed concern about Genovese’s lack of an academic background.
Gallot himself was a state senator and lawyer before he spent seven years as president of Grambling State University and then became president of the University of Louisiana System.
Ralitsa Akins and Darryl Scriven were the two applicants not chosen as semifinalists, while Jennifer Miles, Henry Mack and Jose da Silva dropped out.
If Genovese gets the job, Landry will have an opportunity to help elect a more conservative justice onto the Supreme Court.
Editor's Note, 7/16/24: An earlier version of this story misidentified Jose Cantu.