There are many new faces in the University administration, along with some new and improved job titles.
Vice President of University Advancement and Chief of Staff are two of the new positions that have been revamped.

According to President Murphy, the VP of University Advancement was a position at Nicholls at one time, but had been done away with after restructuring a while back. Reinstalling the advancement function was one of his top priorities.

“In tough financial times when the state is giving you less money, you have to get money from other places to do what you want to do,” Murphy said. “So it’s really important to have a good advancement development function, and we had shut that down.”

After putting together a new job description, conducting a national search, conducting Skype interviews and an open forum within the community, Neal Weaver was selected as the Vice President for University Advancement.

Weaver has worked at multiple regional universities, and said that Nicholls is not that much different from the other places he’s worked at in terms of its size and goals. He said that he is most excited about the quality of people here at Nicholls.

“There’s tremendous talent here,” Weaver said, “and I think that will help us get where we want to go faster than I anticipated.”

“Right now I’m doing my best to meet as many people as possible to try to understand and focus on those things that the institution believes are either necessary or important to the direction we want to go,” Weaver said. “It’s a lot of listening and discussion about different people’s perspectives and interests.”
“Because the position has been gone for a while, the challenge is trying to reintroduce it to some of our operational things,” Weaver said.

According to Murphy, Weaver will be “wearing two hats” as the Vice President of University Advancement and the Executive Director of the Nicholls State University Foundation. The NSU Foundation is a 501C(3), which means it is separate from the University. When people want to donate to Nicholls, they go through the foundation.

“I think [advancement] is an important part of any institution in today’s world where state funding for public education is being reduced. We have to change our business model and philosophy of how we fund what we want to do,” Weaver said. “That’s what I’m here to help do.”

Another new face in the administration is Alex Arceneaux, the chief of staff. According to Murphy, the role of the chief of staff is “to integrate and coordinate the staff.”

Arceneaux has experience as a registrar for St. Martin’s University in Lacey, Washington and University of New Orleans. He also has experience in banking and as an editor of a weekly newspaper in Welsh, Louisiana.

Murphy said that after the national search, he knew that Arceneaux would be a good fit for Nicholls.

“He has a very calm way about him. He’s very good at bringing people together and he’s very good at anticipating. I couldn’t be more pleased,” Murphy said.

Arceneaux said that it is comforting to be home in Louisiana where people spell their names like his, after spending three years in Washington.

He said there are many components to his position and many hats to wear.

“I’m the one that brings people together to discuss and to make things work better,” Arceneaux said.
Another part of the job is to work as a liaison between the government and the University, according to Arceneaux.

“I try to keep an ear on what our legislators are doing,” Arceneaux said.

He has been working over the last three months to get to know everyone on campus, but Arceneaux has also been working on a few projects.

One particular project that he helped coordinate was the renovation of one of the classrooms in Gouaux Hall with the help of the WISE funding from industries. Work started on the classroom in December and was finished in time for the first day of classes in January.

“It’s all the people that are here that are doing this,” Arceneaux said. “Our crew was able to work and get the classroom online for the start of the semester.”

“It’s so exciting to know that Nicholls people did this,” Arceneaux said.

He has also been working with the CFO, payroll, controller’s office and IT to implement an electronic time sheet.

Arceneaux explained he isn’t the one doing all these projects, but he is bringing people together “to let them talk and think of plans.”

“To know that I’m involved with these projects that are positive,” Arceneaux said, “that’s really and truly what I think the president envisioned when posting this position.”

Another new face in the administration is Ronnie Rodriguez, the new chief financial officer.
Murphy said that he has been very pleased with Rodriguez.

“Sometimes people know the financial world but don’t know the academic world or vice versa,” Murphy said. “Fortunately, he knows both of them. He’s been in both, and he knows how Louisiana works. He’s been a great hire.”

Todd Keller is currently serving as the interim vice president for Academic Affairs while the University conducts a national search.

One way the University is staying within its budget is by not hiring search firms to conduct its national searches.

“I would love to engage a search firm, but I know that that costs money,” Murphy said. “A search firm probably would have given us more candidates in the pool, but the committees have done a great job of screening. I don’t think we would have gained a whole lot more with a search firm, but I know it would have cost us a lot more money.”

“You take a little risk when you do that, but I think so far, that’s borne out. I’m very pleased with all of these hires,” Murphy said.