Nicholls State University is positioned to have new endowed professorships in coastal studies thanks to the generosity of the Callais sisters, a press release from the university announced.

The Callais sisters, Rachel and Leah Callais, have been supporters of Nicholls State University for years, having recently awarded $200,000 to the University’s College of Nursing for the creation of a computer lab in Ayo Hall. More recently, it was announced that each sister is donating $60,000 for a total donation gift of $120,000 that will be used to create two professorships in honor of their father, Mike Callais.

Their donation will be matched by the University of Louisiana System Foundation with an additional $80,000 added to the Callais Sisters’ donation. This total $200,000 gift will create two endowed professorships in coastal studies, each named:

• The University of Louisiana System Foundation and C. Michael Callais Endowed Professorship in Coastal Studies.
• The University of Louisiana System Foundation and Charles M. Callais Endowed Professorship in Coastal Studies.

A joint statement from the Callais sisters read, “our family has always been involved with the coast and the Gulf of Mexico, and that is why it was so difficult to drive around after Hurricane Ida and see the impact to our community. We know that someday it could all be gone, so we believe it’s important to preserve the coast, to do our best to keep it around and keep it alive.”

The University of Louisiana System Foundation gifted their matching donation of $80,000 in an effort to support and fund new STEM professorships. In 2019, the Chicago Community Trust had gifted the ULS Foundation $800,000 in order to support new professorships concerning STEM fields, or fields focusing on the subjects of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. Along with their matching donation, the ULS Foundation emphasized that one professorship is to be awarded to a male and the other to a female.

The Nicholls press release also detailed that the Callais sister’s donation could not have come at a better time. This is due to the fact that a new Coastal Center is set to come to Nicholls’ campus to study the effect of land loss in the Terrebonne and Atchafalaya Basins, and according to Dr. John Doucet, the director of coastal studies and the dean of the College of Science and Technology, “these professorships will help the university attract and retain top coastal scientists.” The announcement of the new Coastal Center came from Nicholls State University and the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority back in 2019.

Dr. Doucet shared more about how the two new endowed professorships will directly impact those scientists in saying, “those professors will, in turn, develop solutions to restore and protect coastal communities where the Callais and other families live and work. The Callais family settled in the coastal marshland of the Lafourche Basin in the early 20th century. Over several generations, they have seen first-hand the changes and challenges of our coast that Nicholls will address through the Coastal Center.”

Rachel and Leah Callais’ donation will be highly beneficial for the future of coastal studies at Nicholls and the Louisiana Gulf Coast for years to come, and the Callais sisters reported in their joint statement that it’s all thanks to their father. “If it wasn’t for our dad then we wouldn’t have what we have, we wouldn’t be where we are and we wouldn’t know what we know. He showed us how to be a part of a community, how to live the right way and he instilled in us that we have to do whatever we can to help because it’s the right thing to do.”

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