THIBODAUX – At the recent Faculty Institute, Nicholls State University received $160,000 from the Louisiana Board of Regents to complete the funding for four $100,000 endowed professorships and announced the selection of eight eminent scholars to fill existing professorships.
Dr. Stephen T. Hulbert, university president, accepted the matching funds alongside Rita Dickie, executive director of the Lorio Foundation, from Dr. E. Joseph Savoie, Louisiana commissioner of higher education. The match will fund the Lorio Foundation endowed professorships in the departments of nursing, physical sciences, languages and literature and fine arts.
The four professorships were established with a $240,000 donation from the Lorio Foundation. The next step is awarding the professorships to a member of each department’s faculty for a three-year period.
To create an endowed chair or a professorship, colleges and universities must raise 60 percent of the cost from private sources, which makes them eligible to receive the 40 percent match from the Board of Regents Support Fund.
Endowed professorships allow promising educators to conduct scholarly research and help offset the costs associated with research, faculty publications and library acquisitions.
The university also announced the installation of eight previously funded endowed professorships:
- Betsy Ayo Endowed Professorship in Accounting – Dr. Michael Chiasson of Thibodaux, professor of accounting and head of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems,
- Bonnie Bourg Endowed Professorship in Higher Education – Dr. Gregg Stall of Thibodaux, assistant professor of education,
- Jimmy and Glenny Lee Buquet Endowed Professorship in Dyslexia and Related Learning Disorders – Dr. Fran Crochet of Thibodaux, assistant professor of education,
- Agnes H. Candies Endowed Professorship in the College of Business Administration – Dr. En Mao of Houma, assistant professor of computer information systems,
- Gerald Gaston Endowed Professorships in Business – Dr. Sonya Premeaux of Thibodaux, associate professor of management and associate dean of the College of Business Administration,
- Morris and Sandra Hebert Endowed Professorship in Geomatics – Dr. Maurice Temfack, instructor of geomatics,
- T. Baker Smith Endowed Professorship in Geomatics – Dr. Terry Dantin of Thibodaux, head of the Department of Applied Sciences and director of the geomatics program, and
- Thibodaux Regional Medical Center Endowed Professorship in Nursing – Dr. Adrienne Bethancourt of Houma, associate professor of nursing.
