BREAKING: McNeese narrows presidential search to two<\/p>\n
Published 4:15 pm Wednesday, May 13, 2026<\/p>\n
The search committee has narrowed its choices to two for recommendation for the next president of McNeese State University \u2014 Dr. Dee Dee Anderson and state Sen. Mike Reese. The ultimate decision now rests with the full University of Louisiana System Board during a special meeting set for Tuesday, May 19.<\/p>\n
Anderson is a seasoned academic insider serving as the vice chancellor for Student Life at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. She brings 30 years of deep higher education experience. A Louisiana native, she pitched herself to the committee on Wednesday as a leader wanting to return home. Her vision emphasized student retention, mental health resources and expanding traditional academic programs.<\/p>\n
Reese, a two-term state lawmaker from Leesville, offers a non-traditional direction. Though he has no professional experience in higher education management, he does possess a massive advantage that the committee previously said it highly valued \u2014 a deep, powerful presence in Baton Rouge and a background in commercial business.<\/p>\n
This story will be updated with today\u2019s interviews.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BREAKING: McNeese narrows presidential search to two Published 4:15 pm Wednesday, May 13, 2026 The search committee has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":641439,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4,450,276954,451,276955,3,276956,452,453],"class_list":["post-641438","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dr-dee-dee-anderson","tag-headlines","tag-mcneese-presidential-search-committee","tag-news","tag-sen-mike-reese","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641438","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=641438"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/641438\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/641439"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=641438"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=641438"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=641438"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}