LSUS professor says his pro-merger views cost him his job

Published Jul 18, 2012 at 3:00 pm (Updated Jul 18, 2012)

A business professor at LSU-Shreveport claims he got a dismissal letter because he spoke out in favor of merging LSUS with Louisiana Tech University. "They kind of threw me under the bus," Wayne Hogue, instructor of management since 2003 and director of the LSUS Leadership Education and Development program, tells The (Monroe) News-Star. "This is the most obvious retribution I've ever seen. And it's probably the dumbest move I could see them making." Hogue says the letter notified him his services would not be needed after this year. LSUS Interim Chancellor Paul Sisson says he can't discuss Hogue's dismissal because it is a personnel matter: "We never discuss details about personnel issues." Hogue says he supported the merger as a way to stop what he calls "a death spiral" LSUS is in, with an enrollment that hasn't grown in 20 years. Dr. Phillip Rozeman, LSUS Foundation board member, says he and others who supported the merger were distressed to learn of Hogue's dismissal following the Legislature's rejection of the merger attempt. "As it came down, the administration at LSUS decided to terminate his contract not too long after the difference of opinion about the merger," he says. "The Chamber of Commerce and the Manufacturers' Council wrote letters to the administration at LSUS expressing their disappointment at his dismissal" and asking that it be overturned. Read the full story here.