-- Opinion --
The headline in the morning paper summed it up well: "LSU fires Ryan as UNO chancellor." Tim Ryan was sacked by the good ol' boys of the LSU System because he refused, as he put it, to play the game with LSU staff.
In a follow-up interview with Gambit, Ryan said his departure had its roots in the days after Hurricane Katrina, when certain people at LSU wanted to use the storm as an excuse to clip UNO's wings — or even shut it down.
"I was told specifically to fire most of our faculty and staff by
Ray Lamonica, using force majeure as the excuse to void their contracts," Ryan said. "I said it would destroy the university for decades. I told Mr. Lamonica that we could get federal funds to stay open. His response was, 'If you think you're going to get federal funds, you're just stupid.'
"I think that was the first step in the process that led to today."
http://www.wwltv.com/news/politics/Dubos----103443304.html
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Tim Ryan was the best of the best at UNO - I was lucky enough to have him as an Economics professor when I went there. He was the go-to guy in New Orleans on Economics and rose to become Chancellor of UNO.