tangi Education
Written by Betsy O'Leary | Photos by Johnny Chauvin
The new president of Southeastern Louisiana University, Dr. William Wainwright, is no stranger to higher education on the Northshore. Before being appointed Southeastern’s 15th president by the Board of Supervisors of the University of Louisiana System, he spent nearly a quarter century as a higher education administrator. His most recent stint prior to this appointment was as Chancellor at Northshore Technical Community College (NTCC).
Staying True to the Mission When Southeastern was first established in 1925, its mission was to serve the educational, economic and cultural development of the region. Those tenets remain vital, and when Wainwright assumed the SLU presidency, he brought longstanding ties he’d developed with people all over the Northshore communities. He believes in casting a wide net into the small rural communities dotting the landscape of southeast Louisiana. He’s talked to alumni from the Bogalusa area who told him that back in the 70s, they were only able to attend the university because of the bus that ferried students daily back and forth from St. Tammany and Washington Parishes. To Wainwright, stories like that stress the importance of the institution to many residents in Louisiana’s rural communities. Both the current superintendent of the St. Helena Parish School District and the superintendent of the Bogalusa City School District are Southeastern alumni, which is indicative of the university’s connectivity to the surrounding parishes.
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