E-mail a friendDr. Norman Francis
airdate October 28, 2005
Dr. Norman Francis, president of Xavier—the nation's only historically Black Catholic university—is the longest-sitting university president in the U.S. He's guided the school's growth in size and dimension. Francis has been at Xavier for more than four decades, as both student and administrator. He's also served in an advisory role to five presidential administrations. He was board chair of the Louisiana Disaster Recovery Foundation, and, in December '06, Francis was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
Dr. Norman Francis
Tavis: Dr. Norman Francis is the President of Xavier University in New Orleans. Having taken over Xavier in 1968, Dr. Francis is the longest-serving university president in the entire United States. In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, he now heads an advisory board shaping priorities in the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans trying to get back to normal. He joins us tonight from his temporary headquarters in Grand Coteau, Louisiana. Doc, nice to talk to you as always, sir.
Dr. Norman Francis: Always good to be with you, Tavis.
Tavis: Glad to have you on the program. Let me start with your personal safety and how things have gone with you personally. I know you and your wife, your house, like so many others, under water. Have you seen your house?
Francis: I've seen my house twice now and the last time I saw it was about a day ago and it's completely gutted on the first floor. Nothing but the studs and the walls and we'll be finishing those, hopefully, in the next three months.
Tavis: So you and your wife are going to go back into that house?
Francis: We're going to go back in and we'll spend some time in it, but it's going to take a while to redo it, Tavis. Well, we're looking forward to doing that. The good thing about it is that we know we have our lives. There's a lot of people around this state, but we'll be back.
Tavis: Tell me about the university. That's your house. What kind of situation is the university in, the campus?
Francis: Well, the same thing. The university got about six or seven feet of water and every building was touched. You know, water seeks its level and we had more than we wanted. We're trying to rebuild it now. We will be back in January. January 12 we'll be opening back again and we'll try to get as many youngsters who can come back. We owe them that dream of getting themselves back to be professionals. We've had a good record of doing it well over the last eighty years and we'll be prepared again. We're fixing almost every building that was touched by the water and it's taking some time. We don't have lights yet or electricity yet, but that should be coming in pretty soon. It's been a challenge, but we have faith that we'll come back stronger than before.
Tavis: Let me ask you how the students are doing and how those students got out of there when the hurricane was approaching.
Francis: Well, two things. The young people are all over the country taking their courses in universities. I want to say how grateful we are that the universities opened their doors and to many of them who did not charge tuition and our youngsters are happy about that. We're pleased they're getting an education.
Of course, there were a number of students who did not get a chance to evacuate. There were no opportunities to put them on the road, not knowing which way that storm was going, so we hunkered down and actually we were all right after the storm. The storm hit about four or five o'clock that evening until about two in the morning and everything was just fine. Then the levees broke, the water started and, for the next two days, we had about five or six feet of water.
Now most of those youngsters were in very safe places. They were in dormitories that were four or five stories high. They were having hot meals until the day they got in the boats and got to the expressway. I'm ever grateful to Grambling and Southern for having them come by there when they left New Orleans and, more particularly, to Grambling's staff with my staff who really provided all of the planning and picked up those youngsters on that Thursday. So we were able to get everybody out and everybody got home safely.
Tavis: Tell me how it is that you expect to be back in business on January 12, number one. And number two, there was a story earlier this week in the Los Angeles Times that read "New Orleans College Recruiting Runs Dry After Katrina." So, one, tell me how you plan to get back online by January 12 and tell me how many students you expect to return of the number you had before the hurricane hit.
Francis: That was a good question. In August of 2005 before the hurricane, we had our largest enrollment, about 4,000-plus students. After that, of course, they spread from all over the place mandatory evacuation. We expect we will not have that number by no means when we start back in January. But we've already done our surveys of students and we'll be having online registration in about three weeks.
Our surveys show that, in the College of Arts and Sciences, we'll have as many as perhaps 2000-plus students and we hope that holds. Then in the College of Pharmacy -- we have the only College of Pharmacy in the City of New Orleans -- that number is going to be almost ninety percent of that enrollment. We'll have a graduation in May because the seniors in Pharmacy are out doing their rotations now and that will fulfill all of their requirements for their degree. So we'll hold a graduation for the Pharmacy people and we expect in August to hold a graduation for the seniors.
We are preparing our courses so that all the seniors who need the courses to graduate on time will have that opportunity and we're looking forward to having them come back. All that we're hearing from them is that they want to come back and the only question that's going to challenge us is housing. New Orleans is just devastated in the housing stock. It's just not there, but we will have at least 1,600 dormitory rooms available to us and then a couple of parishes around us that have housing because they were not hit by Hurricane Katrina as most of New Orleans was. So we'll be ready. We won't have everybody that we had in August, but we'll have a substantial number and we're waiting to have them back.
Tavis: I like your spirit, but you're way too modest, Dr. Francis. Dr. Francis is not just the longest-serving university president in the country, but Xavier in New Orleans graduates more pharmacists every year, more science majors every year, than any school, black or white, in the entire country. They are putting out -- you go to a pharmacy anywhere in the country and you're likely to run into somebody who's serving you who graduated from Xavier in New Orleans.
That said, back to this Los Angeles Times article. So you have a decent number of students when you get back in January of 2006, Dr. Francis, but tell me what you think this does long-term for the recruiting at Xavier when kids may want to go to that school because they know they got the best chance at getting a great job as a pharmacist or getting a science degree and going on to be a doctor or whatever they might choose to be, but they got to go to school in this bowl called New Orleans?
Francis: Well, you know, I think in time that's not going to be a problem, Tavis. I think for the year or maybe the next two years, there'll be some hesitancy, but our recruiting is going strong. We've got students asking for more information and we'll stay the course. I think, in any disaster, the reminders of what happened are certainly fresh at least for the first year or two. But I think, in time, as we make our way and other students are there, we'll have students coming.
I am not that pessimistic at all. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that we'll have all the buildings we need, but even if we don't have all the buildings, we have enough to teach the ones who will come back in January. But I'm optimistic. I have great faith.
Tavis: Let me switch somewhat slightly, although these things are clearly connected. Governor Blanco, who we all have come to know as the governor of your state in Louisiana, recently announced a committee that she asked you to head, the Louisiana Recovery Authority. You are the chairman of that board. Tell me what this board is going to do, how this board intersects or interacts with what the Mayor's committee in the city is going to do and what you expect to accomplish as its chairman.
Francis: Well, first of all, that committee was designed at first for Katrina and, of course, Rita hit. So now that board has expanded its responsibilities to cover everything from Lake Charles to New Orleans and we will be working together with parishes and cities in those areas and particularly with the City of New Orleans. Mayor Ray Nagin has done a good job in putting together a committee and I know almost all of the people who are on that and our Louisiana Recovery Authority will be meeting with them. We'll be talking about how we can work together.
Our concerns and our interests are very much the same and we're going to try to choose both the short and the long-range concerns that are facing the state and try to address those. That comes to everything from business development to education to health care, everything that involves the quality of life for individuals. It's hard to tell people what happened in both of those hurricanes. It's unimaginable, but one thing that you can't kill is the spirit and the dedication that people have and we got a lot of people who are dedicated to making this a different state and every city a different place. We hope to use this opportunity to make this state and our cities better than what they once were. It's not going to be easy.
Tavis: Speaking of New Orleans, Dr. Francis, and Louisiana being different, let me ask you a very impolitic question, but I want to get your thoughts about this or on this. There are a lot of folks, certainly African-Americans, who are concerned about the issue of gentrification. A lot of folks are concerned that New Orleans is not going to be built. Even the Secretary of the HUD Department, Alphonso Jackson -- I don't mean to read anything into this, but let me tell you what he said.
Secretary Jackson said that people just need to accept the fact that New Orleans might not be as black as it once was. That's a black guy who runs the HUD Department having made that statement on the record in the Houston Chronicle just days ago. Tell me what your concerns are, if there are any, as a long-term resident. Never mind being the president. This is your city. Are you at all concerned that the city might not be the city that it once was?
Francis: Well, I think the city can be better than it once was and that is having all African-Americans who were once there come back. You know, everybody ought to be able to come back home. I think most of the people who are displaced consider New Orleans home and they'd like to come back and I think what our job will be both in New Orleans and the Louisiana Recovery Authority is to make it possible for anyone who wants to come back to come back, to welcome them, to have the opportunity for jobs, to having the opportunity for a decent home, health care and education.
That really is our major responsibility in the LRA and the city's commission. We have got to allow everybody an opportunity to come back home; and that's particularly true of African Americans who really built the city, lived in the city and have every right to come back. I'm, again, optimistic. We're going to work to bring back everybody who left and those who are particularly African-Americans and we'll welcome them back and hopefully have a better place to come than the place they left.
Tavis: Let me close with this question as an exit question. I know this is unfair to ask you to do in such a short period of time because you could write an entire book about this, given your career, and I hope that one day you will write that book, again, as the longest-serving university president in the country, period. Here's the exit question. Of all these years of your service as president, all these years in your field of education, what is perhaps -- I don't want to say the -- give me one of the most important lessons you've learned about education, about children, given your experience.
Francis: Well, the one thing I've learned and I think is the message that should go to every teacher, you know, a youngster can look in the eyes of a teacher and tell whether that teacher believes he or she can learn. If you have faith and encouragement that that youngster can learn to the fullest of their potential, that will happen. If we were, as teachers and administrators, building our new responsibilities on believing that everyone can learn and everybody is somebody, and we proved that at Xavier, I think we'll make a better America, we'll make a better state and hopefully we'll promote that to the highest degree possible.
Tavis: He is the president of Xavier University in New Orleans and now the chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority as appointed by the Governor of Louisiana, Kathleen Blanco. Dr. Francis, always nice to have you on. My best to you and Miss Blanche. Good to talk to you.
Francis: I thank you very much, Tavis. Good evening.
Tavis: Up next on this program, writer Christopher Kennedy Lawford. Stay with us.
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