The University of New Orleans sign sits on Thursday, Dec. 15, 2022, at the lakefront campus entrance on Lakeshore Drive in New Orleans. (Photo by Matthew Perschall)
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Facing a $10 million budget shortfall, the University of New Orleans is out in full force at Washington Mardi Gras, hoping to secure private donations and more federal research dollars.
It had been approximately 15 years since UNO, a research university nestled on the south shore of Lake Pontchartrain, had held an event at Washington Mardi Gras, an annual gathering of Louisiana political figures in the nation’s capital. That changed this week when UNO President Kathy Johnson hosted alumni, potential donors and public officials for a Saturday morning brunch.
“I’m just systematically working the plan to get from where we are right now,” Johnson said, noting private money funded the school’s presence at Washington Mardi Gras.
A key part of that plan: hiring a federal lobbyist. The firm the university settled on is Washington Navigators, which specializes in higher education lobbying. Johnson said the private University of New Orleans Foundation is paying for the firm.
While UNO has employed a federal lobbyist in the past, it hadn’t had one for several years, Johnson said. Having one can help the university secure more research funding, she added.
The university has to spend at least $5 million on research annually and award at least 20 doctoral degrees to maintain its status as an R2 university, which the Carnegie Classification of Institutions gives to universities with “high research activity.” While UNO is not at risk of dipping below this line — it spent around $20 million on research in 2023 — more grant funding could help keep faculty in place at a university currently mired in instability.
“It starts with raising your profile,” Scott Sudduth, a partner with Washington Navigators, said in an interview at the UNO brunch.
Sudduth said it was still early in the firm’s partnership with UNO, but said he anticipated visiting its campus to get a sense for existing research programs and to find model researchers among the school’s faculty to show off to the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies.
Louisiana’s powerful Republican congressional delegation puts the university at an advantage, Sudduth said. Not only is U.S. House Speaker Rep. Mike Johnson from Louisiana, so is the House Majority Leader, Rep. Steve Scalise, and Sen. Bill Cassidy, who now chairs the powerful Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.
Cassidy was among those attending the UNO brunch. When asked to give remarks, the senator said he will work to get jobs for UNO students, which was met with cheers.
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Past holds promise for future
UNO’s budget problems aren’t anything new. Johnson’s predecessor, John Nicklow, struggled with the budget during his tenure from 2016-23.
The fiscal problems truly began after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, when the university’s enrollment dropped from around 17,000 to around 6,000. For the fall 2024 semester, UNO’s total student body was 6,488.
Complicating matters were significant cuts to the entire state higher education system during Gov. Bobby Jindal’s two terms in office, from 2008-16. Those reductions switched the burden of funding colleges and universities from the state to the students, leading to significant tuition hikes across Louisiana.
UNO was slow to adjust its expenses to match its shrinking student body, a task that has forced Johnson to make drastic moves, including consolidating administrators and furloughing most employees earlier this month. The university is also likely to lay off staff later this year.
While faculty cannot be furloughed, even tenured professors can be terminated in the face of a budget crisis.
“I so appreciate what UNO has been in the past, and I can see what it can be in the future,” Johnson said.
Attendees at the event reminisced about what the university had been to them. Founded in 1958 as a branch of LSU, UNO was the first racially integrated public university in the South and the first public university in the city.
Leo Surla, who was part of the first first graduating class in 1962, said he wouldn’t have had the opportunity for a postsecondary education if UNO hadn’t been founded.
“People in New Orleans who couldn’t afford Tulane and couldn’t afford to go to Baton Rouge could go to school,” Surla said. “Just think of the thousands and thousands of students who had an opportunity to do that, and I was one of the first.”
After graduating from UNO, where he also served as student body president, Surla participated in a prestigious fellowship at Vanderbilt University and subsequently became an economist, eventually establishing his own consulting business with projects in 70 different countries.
“That’s all because they set up that university in New Orleans,” Surla said.
Despite a strong start to the school — Surla doesn’t recall any lack of money in those early days — the university has hit repeated rough patches, including numerous hurricanes and hard budget times in a poor state. Attendees at the brunch agreed Johnson is well equipped to bring back the good times.
It’ll be on Johnson and her team to cut and lobby UNO’s way out of the crisis as increased funding for higher education is unlikely to come from the state. Gov. Jeff Landry has indicated he wants spending to remain at existing levels.
“To hell with those guys,” Surla said about the Louisiana Legislature.
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