Dr. Norman C. Francis, the nation’s longest serving university president, announced today that he plans to retire next year as president of Xavier University in New Orleans, nearly 47 years after he first assumed the post.
“I believe that the time has come to take the brightly burning torch turned over to me by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and pass it on to new leadership,” Francis told students, staff and faculty who gathered at a mandatory convocation held on campus. “I do so with the passionate confidence and absolute certainty that Xavier is better prepared than ever to continue its educational and spiritual mission, and to build on its tradition of excellence.”
The school was temporarily closed and classes were canceled for the historic announcement.
“You know when it’s time to go,” Francis told Diverse in an interview Thursday. “They weren’t going to drag me out of the ring. I was going to walk out.”
Francis, 84, has been affiliated with Xavier for nearly 66 years, having arrived to the nation’s only Black Catholic college from Lafayette, Louisiana, as a 17-year-old freshman in 1948. He quickly made a name for himself on campus, earning a degree in 1952 and going on to become the first African-American to attend Loyola Law School in New Orleans.
In recent years, Francis had been tight-lipped about his plans to retire, but sources say that his wife’s illness and his own age factored into his decision to step down. But in an interview with Diverse last month, he was deeply reflective about his experience as president and talked about his legacy and the desire to write his memoir.
Michael Rue, chairman of Xavier’s Board of Trustees, praised Francis with helping to triple student enrollment and growing the university’s endowment from $20 million to more than $160 million during his tenure.
