Pineville, La. — Rather than losing his job or getting a contract extension, an embattled Baptist college president in Louisiana will return to the classroom with an honorary title and trustees will search for a new president to replace him.
Louisiana College trustees voted April 15 to designate President Joe Aguillard as president emeritus, a title typically used in academia to recognize distinguished service, effective Aug. 1.
The choice was controversial because of the college’s past under Aguillard’s leadership beginning with a textbook policy trustees adopted after a student complained about “A Road Less Traveled” by Scott Peck and “A Lesson Before Dying” by Ernest Gaines being used in a values class.
In 2013, controversy intensified when Aguillard declined to renew contracts of three faculty members who were supposedly promoting Calvinism.
Just recently, previously unreleased internal documents surfaced alleging the misappropriation of funds, lying to donors and trustees and ignoring sexual misconduct by a staff member paid hush money after threatening to go public with inside information.
The Town Talk newspaper in Alexandria, La., reported that Aguillard will begin a one-year paid sabbatical June 1 at his full $202,007 base salary. When he returns to the classroom as a tenured professor, he will receive 50 percent of his current base salary — $101,003.50 — for his first year as a senior professor and 30 percent of his current base salary for all subsequent years he works at the college.
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