NEW ORLEANS – Hundreds of students, faculty and alumni of Southern University at New Orleans rallied Wednesday to protest a proposed merger of the predominantly Black school with the neighboring University of New Orleans.
Gov. Bobby Jindal last week asked the state’s top higher education board, the Board of Regents, to do a study of a possible merger ahead of the spring legislative session. Lawmakers’ approval would be needed for a merger, and opponents at Wednesday’s meeting made clear they will lobby against it.
“If we allow the state to take this institution, then as a community and as a people, we have failed our children,” Faculty Senate President Joseph Bouie said.
SUNO and UNO are a short distance from each other. Both campuses were flooded when levees failed during Hurricane Katrina in August 2005. SUNO shows lingering physical effects from the storm, with many classes still held in trailers.
Jindal’s proposal, which would need two-thirds approval by the state House and Senate, would remove SUNO from the historically Black Southern University System and UNO from the Louisiana State University System, merging them into one institution that would be run by the University of Louisiana System.
Low post-Katrina enrollment and low graduation rates at both schools were among reasons Jindal gave for considering the merger.
SUNO Chancellor Victor Ukpolo said neither was a legitimate reason for a move that he said would damage SUNO’s mission to provide higher education opportunities to the economically disadvantaged.
