Meet Dr. Norman Francis
Dr. Norman Francis, 92, is one of the longest serving higher education administrators in U.S. history.
Francis, a 1952 graduate of Xavier University of Louisiana (XULA), retired in 2015 after serving 47 years as president of his alma mater, the nation’s only Historically Black and Catholic college.1
XULA was founded by the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament, a religious order that traces its roots to St. Katherine Drexel. In 1915, then Mother Katharine Drexel, the former Philadelphia socialite who founded the Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament and who devoted her life to the education of African Americans and Native Americans, opened a high school on the site previously occupied by Southern University in the heart of New Orleans. A Normal School, offering one of the few career fields (teaching) open to Blacks at the time, was added in 1917. In 1925, Xavier University of Louisiana became a reality when the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences was established. The first degrees were awarded three years later.2
Although the Sisters still maintain a vital presence on campus, today Xavier is governed by an independent, lay/religious Board of Trustees on which the Sisters have representation.
Norman Francis, the son of parents without a high school education, spent time as a youth shining shoes to help make ends meet before winning a scholarship to attend XULA.
After receiving his undergraduate degree in 1952, Francis attended law school at Loyola University in New Orleans. In 1957 he became dean of men at XULA. Francis steadily rose through the ranks before becoming the school’s first lay president in 1968. He counts among his honors the Presidential Medal of Freedom, awarded by George W. Bush in 2006, and the University of Notre Dame’s Laetare Medal awarded in 2019.
The university recently unveiled a statue of Dr. Francis who gave a surprise address at the campus ceremony speaking of his experiences as an administrator over roughly half a century. Asked what he valued most among his accomplishments, he cited his one-on-one connection with young people at XULA:
“At Commencement, I looked at every student who came up those steps, I shook their hands, and I said, ‘I see me in you.’ That was my feeling for what happened over the 60 years I was at Xavier.”3
Francis will turn 93 on March 30.
His older brother, the late Joseph A. Francis, SVD (1923-1997) was a priest of the Society of the Divine Word. Ordained in 1950 he later served as auxiliary bishop of the Diocese of Newark, NJ from 1976-1995.
XULA.edu
Ibid.
Black Catholic Messenger, February 26, 2024.