Rousse Becomes President of McNeese

It’s the dawning of a new era at McNeese State University as Dr. Wade Rousse took the reins as president on Monday, July 1.   

Rousse, the eighth president of McNeese, hosted a news conference and reiterated that his first goal is to stabilize enrollment. He explained that in the next 45 days objectives will be set to support that goal and every employee on campus will focus on a metric that positively effects recruitment, retention or job placement of our students.  

He also introduced his executive leadership team. The team is Dr. Kedrick Nicholas, senior vice president for student affairs, April Broussard, interim vice president of business affairs, Dr. Michael Buckles, interim vice president of academic affairs and Heath Schroyer, athletics director. 

Rousse understands that higher education is worth the investment and is dedicated to creating an atmosphere at McNeese that produces employable graduates.  

“Data still suggests that on average a college degree has positive return-on-investment over a high school diploma,” Rousse said. “A recent study out of Georgetown finds that the median life-time income of a college graduate is about $1.2million higher than that of a high school graduate.” 

The media were invited to tour campus. Rousse and facilities director, Kevin Martin, talked about the construction projects happening on campus, and future projects. 

Not only did Rousse move into his new office that day, but he and his wife, Angela, moved into their new home—a dorm.  

“Angela and I don’t have children, but now we have more than 6,000,” Rousse said. “I want to host late night pizza parties and walk the quad at midnight to find out how are students are doing.” 

Rousse says he chose to live in the dorm because he believes the president should live on campus allowing him to engage with students more often. Until the president’s house is repaired from the 2020 hurricanes, they will spend part of their time in the dorm. 

“When we produce graduates that have the skills to be gainfully employed upon graduation, and the sense of curiosity to continuously learn and have the desire to be pioneers in their chosen fields, we win,” he said. “We win, our city wins, our region wins and the entire state of Louisiana wins.”