Not-so-smooth sailing for new Southern University System President Ronald Mason, as it has been a hectic transition from Jackson State University to Baton Rouge, apparently more than he thought as he jokingly expressed his disappointed in not getting a small vacation after the abrupt move into the university.
"It was a little more complicated extracting myself from Jackson State than I had anticipated both professionally and personally," Mason said. " Then coming here was a little more urgent than I had anticipated so I didn't have a lot of breathing room in between."
Mason said that he had studied Southern University before coming and made himself knowledgeable of the financial difficulties but really hadn't focused on the Baton Rouge campus' even greater financial situation until arriving. He plans to support each campus chancellors in their endeavors to better the university while implementing certain changes to the system that he hopes will enable them to run more efficiently.
One immediate change were the layoffs of 13 system employees due to sudden job eliminations as well as the replacing of Tolor White, Vice President for Finance of 53 years, with Kevin Appleton, Alcorn State University's current vice president for finance. Appleton will come in making $170 thousand, which is $13 thousand more than what White was being paid and $10 thousand more than what Appleton is making at Alcorn.
"With the job eliminations we were able to save approximately one million dollars so that we could pay him [Appleton] and others more for basically doing more. When he gets here he will be in charge of redesigning the financial structure of the system," Mason said.
This was not the only personnel issue that stuck out, the appointment of former coordinator for student affairs, Brandon Dumas, to deputy chief of staff stood out mainly due to past issues of supplementary funds given to Dumas and others in the system last year.
"Dumas is a good a man and people like him will be needed to help improve the system," Mason said in defense of Dumas, who is the son of board member Walter Dumas.
In conjunction with that Mason said this is a new job and not a promotion of any sort so he [Dumas] will not be getting paid extra to do the same tasks that he was previously doing. Dumas's salary was increased to $60 thousand from $44 thousand.
Mason also wanted to stress the role of the system's office, it doesn't function the same way a chancellor's office would even though it is located on the Baton Rouge campus. His role is to support each individual chancellor and find ways to further the system and not any campus alone.
When asked why the dialogue seemed to convey a sense of disconnect between the system and campuses Mason explained his Five Finger theory to support his function.
"Each campus is a separate finger, my job is make those fingers a hand and then turn that hand into a fist to bring the SU family together to fight through any and every problem," he said.
One very prominent issue are the increased budget cuts that may be ahead for next year. There are plans to cut an estimated 38 percent out of the budget system-wide which according to Mason is "pure insanity." System-wide the budget is approximately $72 million and these cuts would take around $27 million out of that.
"This is a threat to our campuses and we can only hope to react the best way that we can," said Mason. "Now more than ever is the time for SU family to stand up in defense of our fair institution."
Even though there are concerns about Mason not having any ties to Southern University or any Historically Black College he is confident that he is good at what he does and will do whatever it takes for Southern University to improve upon itself.
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