Dr. Lewis Gale, dean of the B.I. Moody III College of Business Administration at UL Lafayette, is leaving the university in June. The respected economist has accepted the dean's position with Weber State University's John B. Goddard School of Business and Economics in Ogden, Utah; his wife, Candice, KATC-TV3's morning show personality, hopes to segue into a much bigger TV market.
"It's a considerable jump," she says. "But I'm going to give it a shot."
The Gales, who have called Lafayette home since 1994, and their two young children are leaving Lafayette to be closer to family ' Lewis' parents live in Sacramento and Candice's mother is in Phoenix ' and for health reasons.
"In the last few years, my health has taken a turn," says Candice, who suffers from asthma. The well-liked broadcaster says her doctor believes the new environment will alleviate her symptoms, freeing her of the medications she's been taking.
"It's a nice dry climate," she says of the mountainous city, located 35 miles north of Salt Lake City.
The Gales say they will leave Lafayette with a heavy heart. "Neither one of us really wants to go right now," Lewis says.
Earlier this year, Lewis and Dr. Paula Carson, the Moody College's associate dean/MBA director, joined The Independent Weekly in launching the Acadiana Consumer Confidence Index, designed to gauge Acadiana consumers' perceptions of the local and national economy. Carson, who will fill Lewis' shoes at the university in the interim, will also assume responsibility for the ACCI.
The Moody College, which this year relocated to a new state-of-the-art facility on campus, has more than 2,700 undergraduate students and about 170 graduate students in its MBA program. The Goddard School has 2,000 undergrad and graduate students, awarding more than 250 degrees each year. The school boasts scores on national exams that place its senior students among the top 1 percent in the country; more than 90 percent of them find jobs by the time they graduate.
"It's a school that has a lot of promise, a lot of opportunities. It's very much like [UL]," says Lewis. ' LT
LOUISIANA CROSSROADS HONORED
Louisiana Crossroads has been named the first recipient of the 2005 Cultural Economy Development Award given by Lt. Gov Mitch Landrieu's Office of Cultural Development. Fourteen nominees from around the state ' including Gerald Breaux and the Lafayette Convention and Visitors Commission ' vied for the award of recognition.
Pam Breaux, assistant secretary of the Office of Cultural Development, says the award was open to individuals, organizations and even political entities that have managed to integrate partnerships that develop the state's cultural economy. Under the direction of Todd Mouton, the Louisiana Crossroads music series is a partnership between the Acadiana Arts Council and the Lafayette Economic Development Authority.
"The Cultural Economy Development Award is a very special award to Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu," Breaux says. "When we began the cultural initiative last year, he envisioned honoring not only the arts and culture in the state, but also the businesses that are developing the arts and culture in Louisiana. And we believe that Louisiana Crossroads is the best example of that in our state today." ' RRF
MAY 17 Here's a column from James Gill, this time in the Advocate. Gill, who has jumped ship from the Picayune, writes about the absurdity of dueling polls in this post. The numbers are so wildly different, it is obvious that both sides are "cooking the books," he writes. In particular, he looks at Sen. Mary Landrieu, and how her recent actions in DC have been received by those polled. Gill's acerbic, amusing prose is a welcome addition to a paper so conservative as to be occasionally lacking in personality.
MAY 17 Blogger Tom Aswell continues delivering bombshells about the state education department and Gov. Jindal's education "reform" efforts. In this post, he reports that students in the Shreveport area have been signed up for a charter school without their knowledge or consent. Most interesting to Aswell is how this Texas-based charter (with ties to GOP types) got the personal student information it has, if the students didn't give it.
MAY 17 This post by JR Ball in the Baton Rouge Business Report is an interesting tongue-in-cheek look at recent Baton Rouge economic development efforts. Among the items he examines is the idea that gaining a Costco makes BR a "world-class city." (Really? All you need is a different brand of Sam's? MK!) This effort, and other recent ones, are all built on the taxpayer's back, with tax zones, tax incentives and tax rebates, Ball writes.
MAY 17 Blogger CB Forgotston is critical of the legislature's reliance on a revenue-estimating committee's decision to include projected tax amnesty income in this year's forecast. That's a problem, CB posts, because the deadline for these people to pay their taxes is June 30, 2014. So when do you think these people who haven't paid taxes in years are going to pay their taxes? Surely not before June 30, and that means the money won't be there for this year's budget, he argues.
MAY 17 Here's an interesting blog out of California by a Hollywood writer, attorney and academic named Brian Alan Lane. He blogs about higher ed, and was a whistle-blower in a scandal over false credentials. In this post, he takes aim at LSU's new top dog, King Alexander. It's convoluted and a little confusing, but it sure makes Alexander a lot more interesting than he was yesterday.
MAY 17 Blogger Robert Mann writes about the LSU Board's refusal to allow Dr. Fred Cerise to testify before the legislature about Gov. Jindal's plan to close down all the state's charity hospitals and dump the poor on the private system. It's hard to imagine anyone more qualified than Cerise to testify about that, so why would anyone try to prevent him doing so? Mann thinks it is because the powers that be aren't interested in hearing any truth about the plan.
MAY 17 This post on the Louisiana Sinkhole Bugle, a blog that notes developments in the Bayou Corne and Jefferson Island salt domes, talks about a proposed expansion of the salt dome storage under Lake Peigneur in Iberia Parish. Residents are working against it for several reasons, including two biggies: the sinkhole disaster in Bayou Corne and the continuing, unexplained bubbling on the surface of the Lake.
MAY 17 NOLA police arrested more people Thursday accused of either being involved in the Mother's Day shooting or hiding the suspect afterward, this Gambit story reports. The NOLA police chief said he suspects the whole thing was gang-related and throws out a challenge to the gangs: he's got informants now, he says, and he knows a lot more than the gangs want him to know. The people who live in the neighborhoods terrorized by gangs are ready to talk, he says.
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