Rene J. Bienvenu

René Joseph Bienvenu, Jr. (March 19, 1923 – January 27, 1983), was an American scientist and academic who wound up his career from 1977-1982 as the president of Northwestern State University in Natchitoches, Louisiana.

Bienvenu was born in Colfax, (pronounced COLL FAX), the seat of rural Grant Parish, Louisiana, to Rene J. Bienvenu, Sr., and the former Corinne Wells. He was educated in the Grant Parish schools. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge in 1944, his Master of Science from LSU in 1949, and his Ph.D. from the University of Texas at Austin in 1957. He also studied at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and at the Radioisotope Technological Program at the Oak Ridge Institute for Nuclear Studies in Oak Ridge, Tennessee.

On January 28, 1948, Bienvenu married the former Catherine Augusta Nelken (1927-2018), who was born in Crowley in Acadia Parish but reared in Natchitoches. She was a daughter of Lennie D. and Sylvan W. Nelken, the former dean of administration at NSU. As a girl, Catherine lived with her family in a tin-roofed house located on the hill at NSU. She often said that she "just moved down the hill" to the President's Home when her husband René became the NSU president. She held bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern in 1945 (Commercial Education) and 1972 (Business Education), respectively. She was a business teacher in the Natchitoches Parish public schools. After the deaths of René and her parents, she moved to San Antonio, Texas, to live near her sisters. There she met and married Douglas Henry, Sr., who predeceased her.[1]

René and Catherine had three children, Dr. Steven Bienvenu (Diana) of Shreveport, Louisiana; Dr. Elizabeth Bienvenu of Brownsboro near Tyler, Texas, and Patricia Franklin (Clay) of Hot Springs Village, Arkansas, and three grandchildren, Dr. John Bienvenu (Andrea), Ryan Bienvenu, Kimberly Franklin, and Jonas Franklin.[1]

Bienvenu joined the NSU faculty in 1950 and served the institution for twenty-seven years before he assumed the presidency. As president, he named the historian Donald Rawson as Dean of the Graduate School. He chaired the Department of Microbiology from 1960 to 1967 and was dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Science and Technology from 1967 to 1977. He wrote numerous articles for scientific and scholarly journals.

Bienvenu died in Shreveport and is interred at the Colfax Cemetery in Colfax in Grant Parish, Louisiana.