McNeese’s Eighth President Is
Committed To The University — So Committed He’s Moving In
By Diana Vallette
Rousse grew up in Golden Meadow, La., “in a household that was rich … in love. We had no money,” he says. “But what we did have was a mom that was incredibly supportive of higher education. She dreamed of a better life and she knew higher education was the way to get that.”
Kathy wasn’t able to attend college herself, but she made sure things would be different for her son. “Education was at the center of every conversation. There wasn’t a dinner we had without her asking us what we learned in school that day.” His mother often asked him what he was going to study in college, what his aspirations and dreams were — never mind that they didn’t know how they were going to afford college in the first place.
“My mom was incredibly important to me,” he says. “When my parents dropped me off (at McNeese) at the corner of Joe Dumars Drive and Common Street, she was so emotional.” With the benefit of maturity and time, Rousse was able to see why that moment was so touching for his mother. It was the first step towards a better life for the entire family.
Rousse played on McNeese’s football team for two semesters before Coach Sonny Jackson told him he was a great student, but not a very good football player. “He told me ‘You can quit football, but if I ever hear you say you’re going to quit school I’ll whip your tail.’”
Rousse believed him and he credits Jackson for him having stuck it out. “No doubt about it, if Sonny Jackson wasn’t in my life when I was at McNeese, I wouldn’t be here. I would be doing something else.”
He studied at McNeese for three years before transferring to Nicholls. While finishing up his bachelor’s degree, he worked in the marine transportation business. “My degree is from Nicholls, but when I think about my undergraduate experience, I think of McNeese,” he says.
Rousse spent 11 years with Sea and Sea Marine, first as a blue-collar laborer cleaning toilets and washing dishes and eventually, and quite impressively, as a partner, equity owner and vice president of operations. A remarkable ascent up the company ladder which he humbly credits to “luck.”
In 2002, Rousse graduated from the University of New Orleans with a master’s in finance. It took him eight years of night study to get his degree while working for the company. “It was because that coach wouldn’t let me stop,” he says. “I was going to quit and work offshore. That’s what all my friends were doing. I’m thankful to this day for him.”
Sea and Sea Marine was sold in 2003. “We got lucky,” he says. “For the first time in my life I could do anything I wanted to do. I didn’t need to worry about where my next meal was going to come from.”
He went on to get his second master’s degree in economics from the University of Illinois-Chicago and then later a PhD in economics from the same school. His mother’s laser focus on education was paying off.
He planned to get his doctorate, come home to Southwest Louisiana, run a hedge fund and start fishing again, but things didn’t work out like that. Instead, he got an opportunity with the Federal Reserve, started teaching at the university level and fell in love with the classroom.
“It was our happy place. We absolutely fell in love with teaching,” he says. Rousse has a habit of attributing his hard work and success to luck, spreading credit around when most would take the win for themselves, and he often uses “we” in place of “I.” If he’s speaking about his goals, passions or achievements it’s always “we.”
Who is the other half of “we?” His wife Angela. “I believe no one does anything worthwhile alone,” he says. “I’m a big believer in teams, and Angela is my…my…she’s everything. That’s the we.”
The pair have been married for 25 years and have no children, although he has a much younger sister who is like a daughter to him. And then there are the students. The bio on his X account reads “#1 fan of McNeese students” which is a good thing, since those students are now his neighbors.
In an unprecedented (and maybe slightly insane) decision, Rousse and his wife now live in the dorms. “We love our home in Big Lake, but it’s important to me that we walk the quad at midnight and make sure everyone’s ok.” He’s seen the president’s role played out this way at other universities, and it’s how he plans on keeping a pulse on the student experience.
“We’re going to have a meal ticket,” he says. “We’ll eat in the cafeteria.” His life changed while living and learning on McNeese’s campus, and now it’s time for him to do it again in a way no other McNeese president has. “It’s important to us to bring 45 pizzas into the dorm and hear informally what the students are learning and not learning.”
Maybe without even noticing it Rousse is continuing his mother’s legacy — having those important “what did you learn today” conversations over dinner with students. The couple went all in and are living in Burton Hall –– a 565-square-foot apartment without a kitchen.
How does the other half of “we” feel about the move? “Angela is superwoman. She’s on board,” he says before chuckling and adding, “We had a decorator come by and it’s great. Big nice leather chairs for us to sit in.” He promises not to “cramp the style” of his new neighbors and says he’ll head back to Big Lake when the fish are biting. The couple is hoping their move will be a catalyst for the president’s house on Ryan Street to receive the post-hurricane renovations it so desperately needs. Currently the university is waiting on the funds from FEMA.
Rousse’s love for the university is contagious. Five minutes with him will turn even the most lukewarm Southwest Louisiana resident into a die hard, bleeding blue and gold Poke fanatic. But it’s not all pie in the sky. There are challenges ahead of him.
The Enrollment Problem
In his letter of interest to the University of Louisiana Board of Supervisors, Rousse wrote, “Creating a culture that stresses the importance of enrollment must be the initial primary objective of the next McNeese president.”
Early indications suggest enrollment will once again decline for the fall semester of 2024. Fixing the enrollment problem will be the primary focus of Rousse’s presidency.
“There’s been a paradigm shift in higher education. People think we have all of these blue-collar opportunities so we don’t need a college education. Louisiana ranked 49th in terms of higher education attainment,” he says. “If you prescribe to the theory that we don’t have
the university education because there are other opportunities, well, by rational reasoning we should rank second in labor force participation. We rank 44.”
Rousse’s PhD in economics and years working as a specialist in the Federal Reserve should come in especially handy to right the financial woes that come with McNeese’s enrollment problem. “We need to make sure our product is valued in the market,” he says.
How’s he going to do that? Rousse and his team plan to do heavy recruiting in the five-parish area and restructure the university so that enrollment becomes the main priority. “There are models that show when you compare a college graduate’s lifecycle earnings to a high school graduate’s, the difference is about $1.3 million. Getting a college degree has a high ROI.”
Rousse and his executive leadership team (Dr. Kedrick Nicholas, Dr. Michael Buckles, April Broussard and Heath Schroyer) will be putting assets into increasing enrollment and, beyond that, enrollment management. “It’s important that if someone wants to come to McNeese, we don’t make it too tricky. It needs to be a frictionless, enjoyable process.”
Leveraging Athletics
One important part of his strategy for increasing enrollment is to maximize the impact of McNeese athletics. “I’ve lived in a lot of different places in this country, though I’ve never lost this accent,”
he says. “When you think of any strategy you must consider core competencies. In this region, it’s truly about relationships. We enjoy being around other people. We enjoy food. We enjoy our culture. It’s who we are in Southwest Louisiana.”
For a university in a region where community is king, athletics is naturally at the heart. Even more so after the 2023-24 basketball season that saw the Pokes with a 30-4 record, the best in program history. Rousse has been cited as a huge influence in the recent revival of McNeese athletics.
He believes student engagement plays a key role in increasing student enrollment and says one of the best ways to get students engaged is with athletics.
“If you come early to a football game, you’ll find he and Angela cleaning the McNeese Athletic Foundation (MAF) tent, stocking the coolers and putting out food,” says friend and McNeese athletic director Heath Schroyer. “Dr. Rousse is a leader who serves, and that’s why he has so much support.
“He sets a clear vision for where he wants to go, communicates that vision effectively and then sets clear objectives for everyone. And he isn’t afraid to hold people accountable. I believe when people look back 10 or 20 or 50 years from now, they will be able to see that Dr. Rousse was the man who put McNeese on a successful trajectory.”
Through MAF McNeese has been able to increase corporate sponsorships from $400,000 to $2.5 million.
The new, two-level football press suites are expected to generate $600,000. The project is expected to be completed by the end of this academic year. If the football team can turn around last year’s one-win season (a Northwestern State forfeit), Rousse expects it’ll positively affect fan engagement, excitement and ultimately recruitment and enrollment.
He knows it’s all connected, and he plans on utilizing all of it — from the basketball games to the landscaping on campus. “It all matters. We need campus to look good because it has a positive impact on recruitment,” he says. “If you’re a high schooler you should be thinking when you graduate you’re going to go to McNeese and get a great degree that’s going to add value and you’ll have a better life.”
For a president who is extremely attentive to student engagement and experience, the new student union is especially exciting. Farrar Hall and Memorial Gym have both been demolished, and in their place students will soon find a state-of-the-art union. “That’s the most important building to me,” Rousse says. The project is currently in the demolition stage and is expected to last 14 months.
Also of note: the old police station on Ryan St. will soon be the home of the McNeese Autism Program, the baseball team is getting a new hitting arena, and the university has 2.5 million earmarked to update its labs.
It’s not just cute catchphrases and empty promises from Rousse. “You must have objectives that support goals and tasks that support objectives. It’s the way
my mind works,” he says. “We have one universal goal: stabilize enrollment. And everything that we’re doing will work towards that goal.”
When he does finally get to sleep, Rousse says he dreams about McNeese’s LNG Center of Excellence. The center is a 23,000-square-foot facility which will include classrooms and industrial grade training facilities. “It’s a big deal,” he says. “I envision the 7 pm newscast where there’s new research on, let’s say, the benefits of clean burning fuels and it’s coming out of McNeese’s campus.”
The university currently offers an undergraduate certificate in liquefied natural gas –– the first program of its kind in the nation. The project is expected to be completed in the fall of 2025.
On the day Rousse was announced president, he had 250 congratulatory messages before he even got out of the building. By the end of the day, there were over 600 emails and texts. “I had Angela drive us home because I wanted to answer every single one. I didn’t want to just say ‘thank you.’ I wanted to give them a real answer.”
Many of those messages were from people he didn’t even know. “For example, I got one that said ‘Hey, I live in Dallas and I know Ben Bourgeois. He gave me your number and I hope you’re not mad. I just wanted you to know I’m praying for you.”
“It’s amazing when you understand the real reach of the McNeese community, the McNeese family. When you have that standing behind you…I feel like there’s nothing we can’t accomplish.” What’s good for McNeese is good for Southwest Louisiana as a whole and it seems like Wade Rousse is just what the doctor ordered.
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