Northwestern State University recently received $120,000 in matching funds from the Louisiana Board of Regents to complete three endowed professorships.
Louisiana Commissioner of Higher Education Joseph Savoie presented $120,000 to Northwestern President Dr. Randall J. Webb to complete the Robert Huie Endowed Professorship in Nursing, the Bryant & Heloise Lewis Endowed Professorship in Business and Dr. Francisco A. Silva Endowed Professorship in Psychology (Addiction Studies).
“We are grateful to these donors who are committed to the future of Northwestern State University and want to see this university accomplish even greater things in the future,” said NSU President Dr. Randall J. Webb. “These endowed professorships will allow us to support the work of our faculty as they seek to provide the best possible educational opportunities for our students.”
The endowed professorships were created with $60,000 in donations then matched by the state to create a $100,000 endowed professorship. Interest generated by the endowment will fund faculty research and development along with needed equipment.
“We look forward to these events each year because they give the Board of Regents and Louisiana’s colleges and universities a great opportunity to recognize our generous donors across the state and to focus attention on the critically-important Endowed Chairs and Professorships Program,” said Savoie.
Since 1986, the Board of Regents has been able to award nearly $286 million in matching grants through the program, creating 277 endowed chairs (including 30 $2 million chairs) and 1,935 endowed professorships. When matched with private contributions, the value of those chairs and professorships is more than $438 million.
Huie is executive vice president and chief financial officer of Willis-Knighton Health System. Huie has worked at Willis-Knighton for 36 years. He holds a bachelor’s degree in management and marketing from Louisiana Tech, a bachelor’s in accounting and health care administration from Louisiana State University and a Master’s of Business Administration from Centenary College.
A Haynesville native, Bryant Lewis transferred to Northwestern from Kilgore Junior College on a football scholarship. He served as co-captain of the football team his senior year and graduated in 1958 with a degree in business. He worked as a grocery store manager and restaurant owner and eventually began a logging and pulpwood business.
Lewis has been a member of the NSU Alumni Board of Directors and the President’s Council.
Silva was a Baton Rouge psychiatrist who passed away in 2004. For more than 40 years, Silva played a leadership role in the Baton Rouge mental health community. Silva was an associate professor of clinical psychiatry at the Tulane University School of Medicine from 1959 until 1972 and was a lecturer at Tulane until 2004. From 1989 until 2004, he was medical director of Mental and Behavioral Health at Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge where he developed the Center’s Behavioral Health Program.
The professorship was created with a donation by Northwestern alumnus Dan Chase, who was a patient of Silva’s.
Northwestern has three $1 million endowed chairs and 38 endowed professorships worth $100,000 each. Pledges have been made for eight more endowed professorships.
