Rick Brewer (academic)

Richard Bennett Brewer, Jr.(born April 19, 1956), is the ninth president of the Southern Baptist-affiliated Louisiana College in Pineville, Louisiana. He succeeded the interim president Argile Smith on April 7, 2015, who filled in for eight months following the resignation in 2014 of the embattled former president, Joe W. Aguillard.^[2]

Early life and education

Brewer is the oldest of three sons of the former Frances Dike (born 1936) and the Reverend Richard Brewer, Sr. (July 15, 1934 – September 7, 1990). He was born in New Orleans, where his parents lived while the senior Brewer studied at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary.^[3]

Reared primarily in North Carolina, Brewer received both Bachelor of Arts and Master of Business Administration from Charleston Southern University, a Baptist liberal arts institution founded in 1964 and located in North Charleston, South Carolina. From the University of South Carolina in the capital city of Columbia, he obtained the Ph.D. in educational administration. He also did post-graduate studies at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.^[3]

Personal life

He has formerly resided in Summerville in Dorchester County, South Carolina, where he was a deacon at Summerville Baptist Church,^[3] and Ladson, South Carolina; Eatonton in Putnam County in central Georgia, and Lewisville in Forsyth County in west central North Carolina, specific dates unavailable.^[4]

Brewer and his wife, Cathy Brewer (born November 1, 1956), have two adult sons, Jason and Jonathan.^[3]

Career

Brewer was previously an administrator for twenty-eight years at his alma mater, Charleston Southern University. Over the years, Brewer has held the positions at CSU of director for external relations, assistant to the president, interim director of athletics, and vice president for student affairs, athletics, and planning. He worked to double enrollment at Charleston Southern from 1,600 to more than 3,400, improve freshmen retention from 50 to 78 percent, to boost endowments,^[5] and helped to raise $50 million in student scholarships.^[3]

Trustees voted unanimously to name Brewer as the Louisiana College president and with a five-year contract which began on April 7, 2015. Brewer referred to the unanimous vote on his behalf "a statement. We believe God brought the right man at such a time as this. ... We're going to learn from the past, but not dwell there."^[5] Brewer has been an evaluator for the accrediting body the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools and the National Collegiate Athletic Association. He will tap his SACS experience to return LC to full accreditation. LC was placed on probation in June 2014 and had been under warning status for the preceding two years as well. Brewer said that his "3 R"s for LC will be "relational", relevant, and rigorous," meaning the promotion of nurturing relationships among students, faculty, staff, coaches and administration and partnerships with local businesses, the community, alumni, and Louisiana Baptists.^[5]

Brewer's arrival on campus ended much of the controversy stemming from the Aguillard years. Two bloggers who had worked to expose questionable practices under Aguillard, Drew Wales and Joshua Breland, have left the institution to pursue graduate studies elsewhere. The two said that they believed their activities set the framework to improve the academic climate at the college.^[6]

In a 2015 address before Rotary International in Alexandria, Brewer said that LC seeks to engage students in their own learning. Instruction, he suggested, should incorporate the arts within the technical fields. Future classes, he said, will have less lecture and more discussion or practice sessions: "We must be finding new and creative ways to bring students and educate them."^[7]

In December 2015, Brewer announced that LC's accreditation had been restored by the Southern Association of Schools and Colleges. "This means our accreditation is no longer in question. It means we can continue to advance the college and its vision and mission. ... It means we have met the standards," Brewer said.^[8]

In the fall semester, 2016, LC had a 14.5 percent increase in first-time students. President Brewer said that the numbers were "trending in the right direction." The college enrolled 255 new freshmen and 61 transfer students; overall enrollment was 1,126, the first in five years to show growth in the number of new students.^[9]

In late May 2017, Louisiana College filed a civil suit seeking unspecified damages for defamation against former President Joe Aguillard, who it alleges "engaged in a regular and pervasive campaign to undercut" the institution including "ghostwriting faculty member grievances" against the administration. The suit cites an "anonymous package" reportedly circulated by Aguillard of "derogatory statements" about the college. Individual plaintiffs include President Brewer and Cheryl Clark, whose title is unspecified. Aguillard accuses Clark of having illegally changed the final grades of more than "a dozen nursing students."^[10]

Bonadona lawsuit

In 2018, Brewer was accused to have engaged in ant-semitic discrimination against Joshua Bonadona, a 2013 graduate of Louisiana College who applied for a job as a football coach. Raised Jewish, Bonadona claimed he converted Christianity in college and was known to lead the “Christian devotional” for the school's football team.^[11]

Brewer denied making the remark and said Bonadona was not selected for the position because his application and interview responses revealed “he was not the best candidate for the position. And anyone who would examine my criteria for employment would readily surmise that I have not made, nor do I make any connection to race or gender" in the hiring process. “The College does not dispute that it elected to not extend an offer of employment to the applicant because responses provided on his application and during his face-to-face interview were less than satisfactory and did not comport with the College’s commitment to hire leaders and educators who reflect the College’s mission,” LC’s legal counsel said. “The College disputes that any considerations of race factored into these deliberations.” ^[12]

Bonadona sued the college in and Brewer was eventually found to have violated the Title VII of the Civil Rights Act by engaging in race discrimination.^[13]

References