New Orleans’ Loyola University is honoring its first Black graduate by renaming its largest residence hall in his honor.
Norman C. Francis, a well-known community leader, civil rights activist and education advocate, graduated from Loyola University’s law school in 1955. The New Orleans-based university has renamed its Carrollton residence Hall to be Blanche and Norman C. Francis Family Hall.
“Norman Francis embodies everything we strive for here at Loyola,” Father Justin Daffron, Loyola’s interim president, said
. “He and his late wife, Blanche, have set an example for us all, showing us how to live and love in the way the Gospels have taught us, with compassion, kindness, hope, courage and service to others.”
Francis was Xavier’s first Black and first lay president. According to the Norman C. Francis Leadership Institute, “during his tenure, the University has more than doubled its enrollment, broadened its curriculum, expanded its campus, and strengthened its financial base.”
He is also the “longest-sitting university president” in the U.S., serving Xavier from 1968 to 2015, and the esteemed educator’s bio also revealed that “Xavier ranks first nationally in the number of African American students earning undergraduate degrees in biology and the life sciences, chemistry, physics and pharmacy.”
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Francis has received numerous awards, including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the 2015 St. Ives Award, the highest honor awarded by the College of Law Alumni Association and the 2019 Laetare Medal from the University of Notre Dame.
He has served as an adviser to U.S. presidents on education issues. In addition, he has earned more than 40 honorary degrees, including
his Doctor of Laws from Loyola in 1982, Doctor of Humanities from Xavier University in 1998, Doctor of Laws from Harvard University in 2003 and Doctor of Laws from Georgetown University in 2015.
In 2021, New Orleans renamed its Jefferson Davis Parkway to Norman C. Francis Parkway to honor him.