Author: Scott Dyer
Publication: The Advocate
Date: September 15, 2001
URL: http://www.theadvocate.com/news/story.asp?storyid=24486
B.K. Agnihotri accepts India ambassadorial
post
During a memorial service Friday
for the victims of the recent terrorist attacks, Southern University Law
Center Chancellor B.K. Agnihotri dropped a surprise, announcing his immediate
resignation.
Agnihotri said he plans to leave
Baton Rouge on Monday to take a job as an ambassador-at-large for the Indian
government based in New York.
"I just hope I can get a plane out,"
he said.
Agnihotri told students and faculty
Friday that he is leaving his $155,000-a-year chancellorship because he
wants to play a role in the international struggle against terrorism.
"I have to go someday, and why not
go this way, where I can do more things for more people somewhere else,"
Agnihotri said.
On Friday, Southern University System
President Leon Tarver credited Agnihotri with giving a lifetime of service
to the law school.
"I know what you went through for
this place against the odds, against the naysayers," Tarver told Agnihotri.
Tarver appointed Vice Chancellor
Arthur Stallworth to serve as interim chancellor.
The Southern University Board of
Supervisors will consider steps to hire a permanent replacement for Agnihotri
later this month, Tarver said.
A native of India, Agnihotri recalled
how he met the late civil-rights leader Martin Luther King during a visit
to the U.S. in 1966.
When Agnihotri mentioned that he
might stay in the U.S., King offered some advice.
"He said, 'If you want to have a
meaningful life, please go to the South. That's where the action is. That's
where the need is,'" Agnihotri recalled.
Agnihotri helped build the Southern
law school into what it is today, and served as its head since 1975. That
gave him the longest tenure of any active law-school chancellor in the
nation.
During his 26 years at the law center,
Agnihotri has contributed to the education of more than 85 percent of the
state's African-American attorneys, officials said.
To help stay in touch with students,
Agnihotri made a point of teaching a class himself almost every semester.
One of his students last fall was
Gov. Mike Foster, who enrolled as a part-time student despite similar offers
from LSU.
Agnihotri reminded the students,
faculty and staff Friday how far the law school has come from the struggling
program that was initially created with a shoestring budget.
"Today we are in a very enviable
position. When the people across town (at LSU) start being jealous of us
and start comparing their funds with our funds, it's almost a time for
celebration," Agnihotri joked.
Agnihotri said that Indian Prime
Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, a longtime friend, has been trying to recruit
him to the Indian embassy for the last two years.
Agnihotri said he was planning to
resign later this semester, but Indian officials convinced him to expedite
his resignation after Tuesday's terrorist attacks.
Agnihotri said one day he would
like to come back to the law center as a professor.
