Foundation News

Three professorships established (9/7/2004)

Dr. E. Joseph Savoie, Louisiana commissioner of higher education, presented three checks to LSUS totaling $120,000 representing the state Board of Regents’ matching funds for three endowed professorships in the LSUS College of Business Administration. The checks were presented in a news conference at the LSU Health Sciences Center on Tuesday, August 31.

The Regents provided $40,000 funding matches for the Joe and Abby Averett Professorship in Business, the BellSouth Corporation Professorship in Business Administration and the Bank One Jerry D. Boughton Professorship in Business. The professorships are now fully endowed at $100,000 each.

Joe and Abby Averett have been among of the university’s most influential supporters and fundraisers. As president of the LSUS Foundation, Joe Averett spearheaded the LSUS 30th Anniversary Campaign, which was the first major fundraising campaign in the university’s history. He was also personally responsible for the largest donation in LSUS history when he arranged for El Paso Energy to donate the Crystal Oil Building, valued at more than $3 million. In 2002, the Averetts agreed to help raise funds for RiverBend Revue, the LSUS Foundation’s major annual fundraiser. With their help, the 2002 RiverBend Revue raised more than $100,000. This year’s RiverBend Revue will be held at the Horseshoe Casino and Hotel’s Riverdome on Thursday, Sept. 9.

BellSouth’s corporate generosity is expansive, impacting more than 100 area organizations with financial and volunteer support. In addition to its support of LSUS through the BellSouth Professorship, BellSouth awarded the campus two significant grants totaling $136,000 to prepare K-12 classroom teachers from five parishes to successfully use the Internet as a teaching tool.

Bank One has a long history of working to improve the communities it serves. In 2003, Bank One donated more than $42 million to communities across its 15-state market area, making it one of the largest corporate givers in those markets. Bank One has supported LSUS students with scholarships through the Bank One Scholarship as well as sponsoring events and activities on campus.

Under the Regents’ Endowed Chairs for Eminent Scholars program, LSUS has two fully endowed chairs. Another chair has received full private funding and is awaiting the state’s match. With the three new professorships, LSUS has two super professorships, 12 fully endowed professorships and three partially funded professorships.

A major purpose of the endowed chair and professorship program is to create stronger economic development ties between the private sector and higher education. To create endowed chairs and professorships, colleges and universities must raise 60 percent of the cost from private sources. Including the matching funds from the state, professorships are endowed at $100,000, super professorships at $200,000 and chairs at $1 million. There are also $2 million super chairs.

Funding for the Louisiana Education Quality Trust Fund, from which the Board of Regents draws the match for chairs and professorships, is generated through a permanent trust fund approved by voters in a 1986 constitutional amendment. The trust fund was established with about $540 million received from settlement of disputed oil and gas revenues generated in the so-called 8(g) stipulation of the Federal Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act. A quarter of the interest earned from investment of 8(g) oil and gas revenues will continue to be returned to the trust fund until it reaches a cap of $2 billion. By 2004, the trust fund had risen to about $953 million. Each year, the Legislature appropriates half of the interest earnings to the Board of Regents, the policy-making and coordinating agency for all public higher education in Louisiana, and the other half to the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education for grades K-12.