SU AG CENTER CHANCELLOR LOYAL TO SU
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or 13 years, it is easy to say, that chancellor Leodrey Williams has been loyal to Southern University and the SU Ag Center. He has been “the best chancellor thus far for the Ag Center,” he said laughing. How can he say this? He is the first chancellor and only chancellor that the campus has had.
Starting out, the Ag Center was just an extension program but in 1971 Williams, then an Ag specialist, and former director Ashford O. Williams, were given the task to combine the research aspect of Southern University’s College of Agriculture, Family and Consumer Sciences to the already existing extension program. This came about after the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) granted funds to Southern to implement an extension and research program. And the first director was hired, extension coordinator Ashford O. Williams, whom the SU Ag Center’s building is now named after. Williams’ career took him back and forth between Louisiana State University (LSU), Southern, and Washington D.C. Williams started working at LSU in 1965, where he was the assistant county agent for the equal employee civil rights. This position was important for the time following the passing of the Civil Rights Act. His job was to make sure positions at the university were equal for both blacks and whites. OVATIONS ❘ 20
In 1980 Williams returned to Southern to be the director of the program he helped start in 1971. In 1993, Williams took an assignment in Washington D.C. as the special assistant to the USDA head. Four months later he was promoted to the National Director of Extension with the USDA. Williams again returned to Southern in 1995. In 1998, Williams was asked by the then SU System President Leon R. Tarver II and the Board of Supervisors, to open a campus for the SU Ag Center and to be the chancellor. This meant bringing the research and extension program together to meet the goals at the Southern University System level. Of course Williams said yes, and took on the role of turning the Ag Center into one of the most diverse and successful campus in the SU System. On July 1, 2001, Williams officially became chancellor of the newly formed Southern University Agricultural Research and Extension Center. Williams said he did not feel any pressure,“ because I had the experience and I started at the lowest level in the organization,” said Williams, making him prepared to take on any challenge. From there he just kept climbing his way up to the top. Taking a look at the man Williams is, you have to go back 50 years. Williams has been working for 50 years come January of 2015. As a young boy from West Feliciana Parish, Southern was the first college campus he stepped foot on. He visited the campus as a participant in the SU Live Stock Show. Williams brought his cattle down to be in the show, Spring/Summer 2014