LSU braces for possible loss of chancellor

The Colorado State University Board of Governors is scheduled to hold a special meeting Thursday morning, just one day after LSU Chancellor Michael Martin confirmed that he is being seriously considered for the chancellor position at that school.

Colorado State University System spokesman Kyle Henley previously said the university’s chancellor search committee met Monday night and forwarded one candidate’s name to the Colorado State system’s Board of Governor’s with a unanimous vote.

Under Colorado law, Henley said the candidate’s name would not become public until the board makes him a finalist for the job.

LSU Board of Supervisors Chairman Hank Danos said Wednesday that Martin told him earlier in the week he expected to be offered the job.

But Danos said it’s still too early for the board to take any steps toward finding an interim replacement for Martin, provided he leaves for Colorado.

“We don’t know if he’s going to get the job offer,” Danos said. “We’re just going to have to wait. If we determine that we need a chancellor, we’ll put something in place. We are going to be deliberate in our thought process.”

Should Martin leave, Danos said, LSU’s current System President William Jenkins, who is serving in an interim role, could quickly appoint an interim chancellor before the LSU board goes into search mode.

“I’m not concerned in the short-term; in the long-term, we have an opportunity to do a nationwide search,” Danos said.

Jenkins said Martin’s possibly leaving Baton Rouge came up Wednesday morning during a chancellor’s meeting, but wasn’t discussed at length.

Jenkins also said it’s too early to start preparing for a vacancy at the top of LSU’s main campus.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” Jenkins said. “If we were to start speculating and then it didn’t happen … well, then we would be in an even more difficult situation. That’s why it’s not wise to speculate.”

The news of Martin’s possible departure comes less than two weeks after the LSU Board of Supervisors fired System President John Lombardi on a 12-4 vote April 27. Some board members said they’d lost confidence in Lombardi’s ability to represent them at the state Legislature.

The two men worked together previously in the late 1990s when Lombardi hired Martin to become the senior vice president for agriculture and natural resources at the University of Florida.

Lombardi was the Florida president at the time.