Author: Emily Gautreaux

Educator and long-time President of UL-Lafayette, Ray Authement, passed away on April 5, 2020, the school announced.  Serving as the president of University of Louisiana at Lafayette for more than 30 years, from 1973 to 2008, Authement became the longest serving president of a public university in the country.

President of the University of Louisiana System, Jim Henderson, said in a news release, “As the longest-serving public university president in the United States, Dr. Authement laid the foundation for the extraordinary advancement of UL-Lafayette into a national model and a source of pride for Louisiana.”  He continued, “Countless students and multiple generations were blessed by his leadership.”

Dr. Ray Authement was known for leadership, notably making UL the first university in the country to establish a birthing lab where patient simulators could assist their nursing students.  Other noteworthy accomplishments included the establishment of a bilingualism support center, creation of an intensive care lab for nursing students, procuring of an atom smasher and installation of cutting-edge computer systems for research/instruction.

Authement spent his formative years in Boudreaux Canal near Cocodrie in Terrebonne Parish.  He began college in 1947 at Southwestern Louisiana Institute (SLI), which later became UL-Lafayette. He was the first of his family to attend college and graduated in 1950 with a bachelor’s in physics, then attended Louisiana State University, where he achieved his master’s and doctorate in mathematics in 1952 and 1956, respectively.  He went on to teach at Louisiana State University and McNeese State University and returned to SLI as an associate math professor in 1957.

He later became a professor and taught until 1966, when he earned a promotion to academic vice president. From there, the institution had become the University of Southwestern Louisiana. Authement was named vice president in 1970, then the acting president in 1973 when Clyde L. Rougeau took a leave of absence.  When Rougeau retired in 1974, Authement became president.  He was named president emeritus in 2009.

Current UL-Lafayette President, E. Joseph Savoie, said in a news release, “Through dedication, determination and selflessness, (Authement) changed how the university saw itself and how others perceived it as well. He guided our growth from a strong regional university to one recognized nationally and globally for its research and scholarship.”

UL-Lafayette’s Ray P. Authement College of Sciences serves as an homage to the impact the former president had on the institution.

Further well-known and most prominent contributions Authement made were the name change from the University of Southwestern Louisiana (USL) to the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, as well as the construction of the Cajundome.

Julie Johnson, Dr. Ray Authement’s daughter, said that Authement took over at UL — then USL — in 1973, and had a clear vision for its future. “He had a dream for what the university could be, and that dream is why it is what it is today,” she said.

Authement and his wife, Barbara, were the faces of UL. Johnson remembered her mother always wearing red to university events, a tradition a lot of locals still follow.  “She was the social aspect of him,” Johnson said. “Always in red. And she pointed out when other people didn’t. It was the uniform of our home.”

Dr. David Allie, one of the founders of the Critical Limb Ischemia and Limb Salvage Club of Lafayette and friend of Authement stated, “I knew him as a mathematician, as a computer guy. I’m talking 25 years ago, he was doing things and trying to do things that other universities didn’t,” Allie said. “I’m just appreciative of everything that guy did.”

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