Norman Francis

Norman Christopher Francis (born March 20, 1931) is a retired African-American academic who served as president of Xavier University of Louisiana from 1968 to 2015.

He was the first Black and first lay president of the school, and the second African American to ever serve as president of a Catholic university in the United States.

Francis also served as the chairman of the Louisiana Recovery Authority, the state agency in charge of planning the recovery and rebuilding of Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and Hurricane Rita.

After he graduated from St. Paul High School in 1948, he turned his interest toward the military, but because of the interest of one of the teaching sisters at St. Paul High School, Francis found himself with a work scholarship to Xavier University in New Orleans.

The "work" part of this scholarship landed him in the university library, where he repaired damaged books.

By his senior year he had worked himself up to night supervisor of library services.

Francis was an honor student and was president of his class all four years.

In his senior year he was chosen the president of the student body..

Francis earned a B.S. degree from the university in 1952.

He then became the first African-American to enroll at Loyola University New Orleans, where he attended the Loyola University Law School for his J.D., a degree he received in 1955.

He has said that one reason that he was accepted was because he had been active in the National Federation of Catholic Colleges, where he became acquainted with several of the Jesuit fathers on the Loyola University faculty.

Francis graduated from Loyola with honors with a Doctor of Jurisprudence degree in 1955 and he began to practice law.

He soon decided that the law was not for him.

"I could have made a great deal of money," he said later, "but I could help only a few people. The future belongs to those who are educated, so I turned to education."

Francis served in the United States Army from 1956 to 1957 and became a specialist 4.

He then rejoined the U.S. Attorney's Office to help integrate federal agencies.

About that same time, Francis acted as counsel for the Xavier student body president, Rudolph Lombard, who had been arrested for attempting to integrate the lunch counter at McCrory's on Canal Street in New Orleans.

It was those experiences that led him to choose the path of education over that of a law career.

During the turbulent times just preceding the Civil Rights Movement he returned to Xavier University.

From dean of men in 1957, he advanced to director of student personnel services in 1963, assistant to the president for student affairs in 1964, assistant to the president in charge of development in 1965 and executive vice president in 1967.

In 1961, while dean of men, he played a key role in Xavier's decision to house the Freedom Riders, an integrated group testing application of the Supreme Court decision banning discrimination in interstate rail and bus travel, in a campus dormitory when they were flown to New Orleans by Federal Marshals after having been attacked in three Alabama cities (Anniston, Birmingham and Montgomery).

Because of his scholastic record, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, the religious order which conducts Xavier University, offered him the post of dean of men, which he accepted.

He then began a rise to higher administrative positions at the university.

In 1968, the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament promoted him to the post of president of the university, the first lay, male and black head of the university.

Coincidentally, he accepted the presidency at Xavier on the same day, April 4, as the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in Memphis.

During the following 40 years, Francis guided Xavier University's growth in both size and dimension.

The university has more than tripled its enrollment, broadened its curriculum and expanded its campus.

At Xavier, Francis presided over a major expansion of campus facilities and enrollment growth of 35 percent.

His brother, Joseph Abel Francis, would later become an auxiliary bishop who retired from active ministry in 1995 and died in 1997.

For his various avenues of service, he received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George W. Bush in 2006, and the Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame in 2019.

He has received 35 honorary degrees from colleges and universities around the country.

Francis was born in Lafayette, Louisiana, the son of poor parents, neither of whom had finished high school.

His father was a barber who rode to work each day on a bicycle because the family did not own a car.

He earned pocket money by shining shoes on Lafayette's main street.

His parents felt that Francis, his three sisters and his brother needed an education.

Norman and his brother and sisters attended Catholic schools and his parents saw to it that the children rarely missed school.

"I had to have a fever, and really be ill before I dared to try to miss school," he has said.

His parents also made certain that the children attended Mass on Sunday and were punctual in their religious duties.

On September 2, 2014, Francis announced his plan to retire from his post as Xavier's president in June 2015 after serving the university in this capacity for 47 years.

Francis has been chairman of the board of Educational Testing Service, The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Southern Education Foundation, and president of the American Association of Higher Education and the United Negro College Fund.