Founded in 1925 by Saint Katharine Drexel and the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, Xavier University of Louisiana is the only historically Black and Catholic university in the United States. Dr. Norman C. Francis (right) has been president of Xavier University for 35 years–since his appointment on June 26, 1968. His tenure is the longest of any sitting U.S. university president. He is a Louisiana native  whose college degrees are from Louisiana universities: B.A. from Xavier University and a J.D. from Loyola University of New Orleans. He began his professional career as Dean of Men at Xavier in 1957.

THE BLACK COLLEGIAN (TBC): Xavier University is a major enterprise. Give our readers an idea of the size of its assets, operating budget, and number of employees, acres, and buildings.

Dr. Norman Francis: Our operating budget  is between $70-$75 million. Our endowment has grown to about $48 million.  The campus is  23 acres. The student body now is just under 4,000 students: 3,000 in arts and sciences; 521 in the college of pharmacy; and 350 to 400 in the graduate school, that number depending upon the number of active teachers pursuing graduate degrees any given semester. We have 530 staff members. Our faculty comprises 236 full-time and 48 part-time members.

TBC: You were the first lay president of Xavier University. How were you selected?

Dr. Francis: Well, it's an interesting story. Two years before my appointment, I was asked to consider the office of president. The same Pennsylvania board that ran the Religious Order, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, governed Xavier. In 1966, The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament decided to create a separate Louisiana corporation board to run Xavier University and to add four lay people to that board, the majority of whom were still members of the Religious Order that started Xavier. After creating the new Louisiana board, the Sisters then turned over all the assets, everything, to a reconstituted new lay-board comprised of 18 members, six of whom were Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament. The original board had decided that Xavier needed a lay president. Sister Mary David, chairman of the new board and Superior of the Order, said that if Sister Katharine Drexel started Xavier to create leadership, it was time to test whether the Order had done the right things. "If we did things right," she told me, "then we ought to have a lay-person as president of Xavier, someone who graduated under the system."  Sister Mary David asked me if I would accept the presidency of Xavier University. I was appointed president of Xavier on the 26th of June 1968.

TBC: Were other candidates considered?

Dr. Francis: I don't think so. But had I not accepted the appointment, I am sure that the board would have looked for other lay candidates.

TBC: So there was no Search Committee. Were you groomed to be the first lay president of Xavier University?

Dr. Francis: Clarence Jupiter, Xavier's vice-president for Development some years back, used to say that all of us lay administrators in some way were chosen, but you, he was referring to me, were groomed. I did not think at the time that I was being groomed.  I must tell you that a search is important to do. But many of the candidates for positions we have filled did not come from search advertisements. Often the best candidate is somebody who does not think about a job you are advertising because he or she is happy doing what he or she is already doing. They're not looking for it, so you come and say," "I want you."  And sometimes you have got to sell them, in a sense, on applying for the job. I had ten years at Xavier before they came. I knew where all the dead bodies were buried.

TBC: When you were growing up in Lafayette, what did you want to be when you were a young boy?

Dr. Francis: Actually, I really wanted to be a pilot.

TBC: Somebody told you they didn't have any Negro, any colored, pilots?

Dr. Francis: Southwestern Louisiana Institute (SLI) was in one part of Lafayette, a small town, all the way across town from where I lived. Some of my kinfolks lived in that part of town. We did not have an automobile through my whole time growing up in Lafayette; we rode bicycles to visit our relatives in that northern part of the city.  I always rode past SLI, a beautiful campus.  When I would tell my relatives that I wanted to go to school there, they would always say, "You can't go to school here," referring to SLI. But no, I thought I wanted to fly planes. Some people thought I wanted to be a policeman. In fact, my nickname was "Cop."  When I visit Lafayette, some guys my brother's age still call me Cop. I had no idea where I would wind up. And that's something I tell students now: You never know where you will wind up, what you will be doing.

My family was as poor as church mice. I was born at the end of the depression; nobody had any money. At six years old, I had a job milking the cow and taking the cow to pasture. I was only 10 when Pearl Harbor was attacked. My daddy was a barber. I have one brother and three sisters. My brother was in the seminary. My sister ahead of me was at Xavier. When she graduated, I was on my way to the service because college was not in my portfolio at all. But then one of my teachers, a Holy Family nun, called one of the Sisters she knew at Xavier and told her that she had someone who had college potential if Xavier could give him a work scholarship of some kind. I came to Xavier on a work scholarship. I worked four years in the library at Xavier.

TBC: So tell us what were the two most significant events that contributed to the growth and development of Xavier? 

Dr. Francis: Well I must say that I think that the decision by the Sisters to create a separate corporation and then a separate board was a major, major move in Xavier's history. The second was appointing a lay president, not just because the board appointed me, but appointing a lay president. It was important in the church for African Americans in general to be given leadership roles, and young African Americans were calling for leadership roles. I was symbolic, a symbol of the fact that my appointment was a major decision by an Order of white nuns who thought that it was time for them to step back and let the people they had educated run the institution they had built. That was a big decision, a big decision. Catholic colleges did not have lay presidents, to say nothing of a Black lay president. I think that was a significant decision in my time at Xavier. 

I think that another major decision was one on governance. In 1972 we did a commission on governance study that looked at every aspect of how the institution should be run -- from the board, to the faculty, to the students. This diverse commission spent 18 months looking at the responsibility of the faculty, that of the students, and that of the board – management and policy decision-making. I can say without any fear of contradiction that I have had the management responsibility to run Xavier University. I have done so according to the recommendations of that commission on governance. I have taken the confidence that the board had in me and transferred authority down the line. I can't transfer ultimate responsibility, but I do transfer the authority to make decisions. And I let the people who work at Xavier know that I respect the decisions they make.

TBC: Was there another major milestone that you can look back on and say that it was very significant to the development of Xavier?

Dr. Francis: It is really hard to pick a single milestone, but I suspect that our decision to raise money, advertise, and publicize the University was major. Why could that be a milestone?  Before 1955 Xavier never asked anybody for money. Katharine Drexel had all of the money Xavier needed in her lifetime. Unfortunately, under her father's will, these funds were transferred to other beneficiaries after she died. Xavier did benefit from this fortune after 1955.

TBC: What was your budget the first year?

Dr. Francis: My budget the first year could not have been more than, I'm guessing now, $20 million at the most. We now borrow money, bond money. Before I became president, Xavier never borrowed money. It was run on a cash basis. We have changed, and I think this is significant – in a collective sense. We have literally changed every building on this campus, except the gym. And even the gym now has a new floor. We have changed the New Orleans skyline. People entering the City see the new high-rise science building, the new dormitories, the new University Center, and the new library and know that they are first class. These facilities are important parts of the whole Xavier University. They provide capital improvements that enable our young collegians to meet their goals.

TBC: So what's your vision for Xavier?

Dr. Francis: Well, several things. One, I want Xavier to continue to offer the bachelor's degree with a solid undergraduate experience in core subjects that give students confidence in their disciplines.  These core subjects are the foundation, the building blocks, of an excellent college education at Xavier. Undergraduate students must have excellent analytical skills, which come from math, excellent reading skills, and excellent writing skills. The world is changing, so we can't educate students for every specific job that is going to be asked for in business and industry. So my vision is that our students have a strong foundation in core subjects to be able to handle change.

I also have the vision that we really should be a premiere school for preparing teachers. But I am not sure I can defend staying in teaching under the same rules and the State salaries now.  It is difficult to advise students to study for a career with a starting salary of $25,000. I would like to focus on educating teachers for middle-school math and science. I'd like Xavier to be known as a premiere school for preparing middle-school teachers to teach kids math and science well. That's the greatest need we have in this country right now. We lose kids in middle schools because they can't do math and they can't do science. So they drop out. That's one vision I have.

Another vision is business. Now that the school of business is accredited, we must re-look at our curriculum. Accreditation says one thing: that we must find out what we need to do for Blacks in business, as well as for the industry, and do it creatively. Finding out is not going to be easy, but if we are not out producing business graduates who get opportunities to intern and work for major companies, we are not going to have businessmen the likes of whom the country needs. The census is saying that Blacks and Hispanics are going to be the majority and that there is going to be a demand for businesses run by Hispanics and Blacks.

TBC: Does Louisiana State University recruit your students for their  grad school?

Dr. Francis: Yes. I am talking right now with the LSU Medical Center because they are seeking to increase the diversity in the Center. The Dental School needs recruits. In our professional schools, everyone recruits our pharmacists. Xavier maintains its preeminence in its College of Pharmacy, preeminence in its excellence and its ability to serve the needs of this community. Right now, the State's latest report will show that the two hottest and most needed professions are nursing and pharmacy. We produce around 117 pharmacists a year, 25 percent of them are white or Vietnamese and the other 75 percent are Black. We graduate more Black pharmacists than any other university in the country. There is such a need for our pharmacists that companies are paying sign-on bonuses. A pharmacy graduate willing to work in Texas can get either a Lexus or a Mercedes to sign and a starting salary of $80,000. I say that to say this to you, that a larger College of Pharmacy is a vision of mine. We had 650 applicants for 140 slots in the School of Pharmacy. My goal is to add an additional 40 percent of students to our graduating class in pharmacy. I think we can do it; we have to review the plans to assure that we can do it.

TBC: You just have to expand the facilities?

Dr. Francis: Facilities, classrooms, faculty, and labs. Our hope is to add a wing to the Pharmacy Building, an additional 50,000 square feet, so that we can increase the number of students majoring in pharmacy. I would love to find a building I can renovate.

TBC: Tell us about the support you have gotten from New Orleans businesses, I mean the white businesses.

Dr. Francis: It has increased considerably the last five years, more in the last three years. Most of the funds we have to raise come from outside of Louisiana. A number of local companies have stepped up, and we are now in what we call our capital campaign, the last half of it, and we are calling upon the local community for support. We need more money from the community to support tuition grants. Most of our dropouts are the result of students who cannot afford the tuition. We need scholarship funds for very capable students. These will produce graduates who return to the community as productive citizens.

TBC: Your focus was once on recruiting Black men. Does your focus on recruiting Black men continue?

Dr. Francis: In law schools across the country, women constitute a majority. It is the same thing in the College of Pharmacy. It is an American tragedy that we don't have males coming out of high schools entering college at the rate they should be. At Xavier the ratio is three women to one man. I'm really worried about the fact that so few Black men apply. Recruiting Black men is very affirmative for us at Xavier.

TBC: Because Xavier attracts the brightest students and those who can pay their own way, is it becoming an elitist Black school?  How do you attract under-prepared Black students – you know, those diamonds in the rough?

Dr. Francis: That's a good question. On the one hand, let me deal with the economic side. Ninety percent of our students need some kind of financial aid, and the biggest challenge I have right now is trying to find the money for students to pay their tuition. Scholarship money becomes so important, so the idea of Xavier being an elite school is not so with respect to students who have enough money to come. We are losing students every year, but not because they cannot do the academic work. They are very bright, but they don't have the money for tuition. Our SAT and ACT scores are above average for African Americans nationally, but they are below the national average for whites.  What we've learned is that being smart and being poor are separable. We do have a lot of students who are smart but poor, and it hurts my heart  to lose these students, so we work continuously on increasing our scholarship fund. The second half of that question is what about those students who have been cheated, so to speak, in their preparation. They cut across all economic lines, and we make a very special effort to get them here. We have admissions requirements, but I think we've learned better than most whether a person can graduate from college. And that knowledge is not simply based on their SAT or ACT scores. We have our requirements for admission, but, as a special effort to reach out, each year we take at least 50 students who do not meet our regular admission standards.

TBC: What advice would you give a student who aspires to become a leader?

Dr. Francis: The first thing that I would tell that student is to be secure in himself or herself. The second is to like people, followed by respecting people, learning to be a follower, and prepare yourself.

We have been told to respect ourselves all our lives, but I think that self-respect is worth restating as the foundation upon which leadership is built. As I watch students at Xavier develop, I see that those students who get the leadership roles are the ones who respect themselves; they are secure; they are not arrogant. Others like them. They don't give the impression that they know everything and they are willing to work, willing to give time and effort. I think that this kind of self-respect is an essential quality for leadership.

And I guess the other thing that I'm convinced of is that a leader must like other people and respect the work that they do for him or her. When the respect a leader has for others grows out of an understanding of what they do for an organization, his or her love and respect are felt to be genuine. Leaders may not have to actually do the work of others, but they must be willing to do so and the workers must know their willingness. I meet with every employee here, the gardeners, the painters, the security people, the secretaries, and I give them the same message that I give faculty – you are important.

I actually believe that for someone to be a leader, he or she first must be a follower. He or she must be able to follow other people in whatever the institution is, whatever the community is, whatever the organization is. You can't be a good leader without being a follower. Leaders really are created by the people they serve.

Leaders must be prepared to the fullest of their potential, no slacking. None of us is going to be smart in everything we learn, but we must know fully what our potential is. Some of us are much better at certain fields in the arts and the sciences and in general, but we have to always work hard at leadership that matches our fullest potential.

Final Comment:

When I was young, I would bring my daddy his lunch and sit in his barbershop. That's where I learned the "street."  I learned to play checkers in his barbershop, straight checkers and pool checkers. I can tell you this: Sitting in the Office of the President is like playing checkers. I always want to know what my alternatives are: If I move here, I must know what I am going to do next.