Nicholls State University will hold its first ever Presidential Inauguration next week in honor of its fifth University President Bruce T. Murphy.
Starting Sunday, March 30, and lasting until Saturday, April 5, the University will celebrate “Moving Forward” with musical performances, art fundraisers, athletic events, guest speakers, a day of service and the inauguration ceremony that will be open to the public.
Coordinated by a committee lead by Monique Crochet, director of alumni affairs, and Brenda Haskins, executive director of auxiliary services, the inauguration ceremony is filled with many events throughout the week, leading up to the official ceremony on Thursday, April 3, at 3:30 p.m. in Peltier Auditorium, where Murphy will be formally installed as Nicholls’ fifth president by University of Louisiana System President Sandra Woodley.
The idea of the inauguration came from Murphy himself, who has attended many of the celebrations for other universities over his long academic and military careers.
“Dr. Murphy said several times, ‘The inauguration is not about Dr. Bruce Murphy’,” Crochet said. “It is more about Nicholls State University showcasing its students and really putting us out there.”
While this is the first time that Nicholls hosts such an occasion, presidential inaugurations are actually common among colleges and universities.
“We have had some little introduction parties and different things for some of our presidents, the last two particularly, but there were no formal inaugurations,” Haskins said. “It is more common than not to have an inauguration for a new president.”
Most universities have about a year to plan and coordinate inauguration events for their presidents, with the ceremony coming after one year in office. But when the decision was made to hold Nicholls’ this semester, the committee only had about two months. The result was the sharing of some events already scheduled for this year’s Jubilee festival.
“[An inauguration] is a group of events that surround the beginning of a president’s start,” Haskins said. “What we did was we just picked a week that we thought had all kinds of events on it. […] It’s a whole combination of our athletic events and our academic events.”
Some of the events are an alumni brunch with the president on Sunday, conversation and coffee with the Murphys on Monday, the fourth annual soccer game fundraiser between the women’s soccer team and the Nicholls faculty on Tuesday, a Nicholls symphonic winds and wind ensemble performance on Wednesday, the inauguration ceremony on Thursday, a Nicholls jazz ensemble performance on Friday and finally the Nicholls softball game vs. Texas A&M Corpus Christi on Saturday, where first lady Jeanne Murphy will throw the first pitch.
Thursday’s formal ceremony will include several speakers, who will give their greetings to Murphy before Woodley presents him with a golden medallion, officially installing him as President of Nicholls. The ceremony is open to all students, faculty, staff and members of the community, as is the cake and punch reception in the quadrangle immediately following the event. The Nicholls jazz band will be performing for the reception.
Funding for the events not already covered by Jubilee, as well as the printing for the formal invitations to various guests, came from the campus activity budget along with outside funds.
“We are very aware of the state of the University, and one of our requests was not to get too carried away with money,” Haskins said. “We’re doing our best. We’re not having a big reception, but we are going to have cake and punch, and everyone is invited.”
Also part of inauguration week will be the Nicholls Day of Service, where the University will highlight its endeavors in giving back to the community.
“The Day of Service is something Dr. Murphy had in mind that would involve the faculty, the staff and the students to kind of give back to the Thibodaux community,” Melissa Cloutet, president of the student government association, said. “This is something for the students to become involved in, whether it be big service projects or something small that they can contribute to the community.”
Student Government Association is working with the student organizations on campus, having them record service hours to submit for the day of service, which is scheduled for Saturday, April 5, from 9 a.m. to noon.
Service hours do not have to be done only on this day, however. The day is for recognizing those efforts done throughout the year. One idea for the day of service is to produce a banner listing the service hours donated by the organizations.
“It will be really beneficial to Nicholls, just to put our name out there and get out in the community and network with the individuals in our community,” Cloutet said.
With this being the first inauguration in Nicholls history, Crochet, Haskins and Cloutet all believe that this could become a tradition for future University presidents.
“This is something very unique that’s never happened,” Cloutet said. “This is our fifth president, and this is just a week-long celebration of Nicholls that I think can be carried on throughout the years to come. I think it’s wonderful, and I think we should have it again.”
Haskins and Crochet will continue to work with their planning committee to ensure the first ever Nicholls inauguration week promotes the motto “Moving Forward” with its new president.
“Dr. Murphy told Monique and I not to get good at it because he plans on staying for a while,” Haskins said.