New Orleans Chancellor Is Out in Apparent Dispute

The chancellor of the University of New Orleans is out of a job -- though he and the president of the Louisiana State University System offered different perspectives on whether he jumped or was pushed. The LSU System announced Thursday that its president, John V. Lombardi, had accepted the resignation of Timothy Ryan, chancellor of the New Orleans institution since 2003, and that Lombardi and a team of system officials and local board members would oversee the campus until a successor is named. Later Thursday, Ryan held a news conference at which he told reporters that he had been called to Lombardi's office and "fired" because he "would not allow the LSU System to run UNO as a branch campus of LSU in Baton Rouge." The LSU system released a letter in which Lombardi said he was accepting a recent offer by Ryan to resign. Ryan admitted at the news conference that he had made such an offer, but said he had done so only after essentially being forced out. The LSU system is facing significant budget cuts, and the system's statement said that the interim management team would "conduct a thorough, top-to-bottom review of UNO's strengths in preparing to manage the difficult budget process" over the next year.