University of Louisiana System President Randy Moffett Announces Retirement

BATON ROUGE – After more than 40 years in higher education, including four years as President of the University of Louisiana System and seven years as President of Southeastern Louisiana University, Dr. Randy Moffett will retire in early fall.

“It has been a privilege to serve the people of Louisiana and higher education.  Over the course of my career I have had opportunities to take positions out of this state, but my heart has always kept me in Louisiana.  While I will miss working with a tremendous board, tenacious university presidents, and talented staff, I am looking forward to spending more time with my family,” said Moffett.

“Dr. Randy Moffett is one of the most esteemed leaders I know who provided great leadership during some very challenging times for higher education.  A hard worker with a remarkable career, Randy earned the respect of every single member of the Board.  While I am certainly happy for him and wish him the best in retirement, his absence will be felt,” said UL System Board Chair Wayne Parker.

Parker plans to call a meeting of the Board’s executive committee to discuss next steps for finding Moffett’s successor.  “We will move as quickly as possible to get the process started.  I have asked Dr. Moffett to stay and assist in the search,” said Parker.

A native of Jonesboro, Moffett became the seventh UL System president in July 2008.  During his first year at the helm, the UL System completed a comprehensive economic and community impact study, partnered with the Louisiana Department of Education to establish mentoring programs at all universities, and established a cost containment and efficiencies committee to streamline operations.

Over the past four years, President Moffett guided the search and selection of five university presidents, shepherded the movement of the University of New Orleans into the UL System, and guided the System’s universities through a series of budget reductions while improving operational efficiency, accountability and performance.  Under his leadership, the UL System increased admission standards, enhanced access to community college students, expanded online degree offerings, implemented a 120-hour degree standard, increased retention rates, reduced time to degree, increased the number of degrees awarded, and raised graduation rates.

Dr. Moffett previously served seven years as President of Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, one of the nine universities that make up the University of Louisiana System. Prior to his campus presidency, he worked at Southeastern in various staff, faculty and administrative positions for more than 25 years. Dr. Moffett oversaw Southeastern’s transition from being an open-admissions institution to one that embraced admission standards ahead of the state’s time schedule. In spite of this move, the university maintained a strong enrollment of approximately 15,000 students, making it the third largest university in the state of Louisiana.

He began his career as a high school classroom teacher in the Jackson Parish School System and worked at Northwestern State University as both Director of High School Relations and Assistant Director of External Affairs.

Moffett’s wife, Dr. Barbara Moffett, retired earlier this year from Southeastern Louisiana University where she served as head of the department of nursing.  They have three children and five grandchildren.

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ABOUT THE UL SYSTEM: The University of Louisiana System is the largest higher education system in Louisiana enrolling about 94,000 students at Grambling State University, Louisiana Tech University, McNeese State University, Nicholls State University, Northwestern State University, Southeastern Louisiana University, the University of Louisiana  at Lafayette, the University of Louisiana at Monroe, and the University of New Orleans.