As Co-Anchor of Good Morning America, Robin Roberts is one of North America’s most recognized faces on morning TV. She’s also a Southeastern Louisiana University alumnus who has not forgotten her roots; recently, she made a personal investment in the university’s broadcast media center, which opened in her name on the Hammond campus in October 2025.

The Robin Roberts Broadcast Media Center, at D Vickers Hall, is the largest student building on campus, with three production studios, including a multipurpose set, soundstage and dedicated news studio, as well as a Legacy Wall – a visual timeline of Roberts’ life and career.

The center’s inauguration is a key milestone for Southeastern this year as it marks the centenary of its foundation in 1925 by local school principal Linus Sims. As part of the celebrations, the university will pay homage to a historic live oak tree on site, known as the Friendship Oak.

“As we celebrate a century of impact, we honor our beloved Friendship Oak with tree plantings of clones that will foster the growth of Friendship Grove as we enter our next century of promise,” President Dr William Wainwright tells The CEO Magazine.

“We’ve also broken ground on our academic and athletic training facility as part of our centennial in partnership with North Oaks Health System.”

Retaining talent

Southeastern is a sprawling, 141.6-hectare campus on Louisiana’s Northshore, located less than an hour’s drive from New Orleans’ French Quarter, Baton Rouge and the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Over the past 100 years, it has significantly invested in strengthening families, building communities and growing economies as it remains true to its mission: to lead the educational, economic and cultural development of south-east Louisiana.

“For our centennial, we’ve been analyzing data and have found that over the past 100 years, we’ve awarded 99,200 degrees,” Wainwright reveals.

Of great significance is that of the university’s 80,766 living alumni, 63,897 live in Louisiana.

“Through degree attainment, we’re able to keep a lot of Louisiana talent at home to ensure that we’re strengthening families, communities and economies. That’s vital to our mission,” he adds.

Southeastern’s economic impact on the southern region of Louisiana has been calculated at US$1 billion. Beyond dollar value, some indicators show an increase in quality health outcomes, directly attributable to the graduates who enter the healthcare workforce, as well as increased gains in K–12  education.

Future vision

As Vision 2025, its current strategy, draws to a close, Wainwright is now in the process of planning for the next iteration: Vision 2030. He says examining the economic value of Southeastern’s graduates – especially how they perform in earnings compared to their peers across the region and nation – will be a focus to further this impact.

The overarching focus of Vision 2030, however, is student success, whether through the expansion of its research portfolio, increasing retention and graduation rates or identifying niche markets it can serve.

“We’ve invested in serving our veteran students and their dependents, and we are the only university in the state that has veterans and military affiliated residential housing on campus,” he explains.

As one of the state’s fastest-growing regional public universities, Southeastern has 15,570 enrolled students, up from 13,800 in 2023 when Wainwright joined; he describes it as “a city within a city,” considering the population of Hammond is 23,000.

Its three founding programs of study – education, healthcare and business – still represent its largest colleges on campus, although science and technology, arts, humanities and social sciences are witnessing exponential growth. The university recently achieved a Carnegie classification as a research college and university.

“We’re spending a lot of time specifically in the healthcare sector with advanced simulation, ensuring our labs represent the highest level of technology and mirror what graduates will see in the workforce,” Wainwright says, adding he can argue the same for science and technology.

None of that, he points out, would be possible without the assistance of private industry and key private partners such as cleaning services company Jani-King.

“When you look at our budgets and our higher education business model, we must run efficiently as a business, but we also don’t have the same autonomy as the private industry for revenue generation, so those business and industry collaborations really fuel our investment in technologies,” he says.

In fact, for its centennial year, Southeastern launched a campaign seeking private foundation investment, with a target of US$100 million.

“We exceeded it by an additional US$12 million, and that’s a direct result of partnership, private investment and a belief in our mission,” he notes.

A different subject

Wainwright admits that he never aspired to enter higher education administration as a career path. Coming from a family of hardworking oil and gas offshore workers in southern Louisiana, it was assumed he would follow in their footsteps.

Yet the industry collapse in the mid-1980s would shake up everything, including his future career.

“I received a lot of pressure and support from my family to do something different to ensure that our quality of life and future would not be subjected to these types of economic downturns,” he reveals.

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“Our partnership with Southeastern Louisiana University reflects a shared commitment to leadership, workforce development and community impact. We’re especially grateful for the leadership of President William Wainwright, whose vision continues to strengthen the university’s role in shaping future leaders.” – Chance Enmon, CEO, Jani-King Gulf Coast

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Until the last semester of his undergraduate studies at the University of Southwestern Louisiana (now University of Louisiana at Lafayette), that looked like criminal justice.

“Like a lot of seniors, at the very last moment I changed my mind,” he says with a smile.

He noticed a new trend of teaching at proprietary institutions, specifically to adults who were changing careers. Having found his calling, Wainwright went on to complete a master’s degree in adult education at Northwestern State University in Louisiana and a doctorate of philosophy in higher education administration from the University of New Orleans.

For nearly 15 years, he was Chancellor of Northshore Technical Community College, transforming it from a series of technical campuses into a comprehensive community college. His efforts didn’t go unnoticed, so when the President of Southeastern announced his retirement in early 2023, Wainwright competed for the position and was appointed the university’s 15th President.

While he’s nowhere near passing on the baton, Wainwright says that when the time comes, he hopes that Southeastern’s growth trajectory will have continued on its stellar path.

“I certainly hope we’re globally recognized as a market-driven, market-responsive institute of higher education that understands and values the holistic academic development of every learner, leads in innovation and leads in technological advances to ensure the value of our mission,” he says.