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NEWS RELEASE
Contact: David West
News Bureau
Northwestern State University
Natchitoches, LA 71497
(318) 357-6466
12/2/99
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
NATCHITOCHES - Bobby Jindal, president of the University of Louisiana System will be the speaker at Northwestern State University's fall commencement exercises Friday, Dec. 17 at 6 p.m. in Prather Coliseum.
The ceremony will honor students who earned associate, bachelor's and graduate degrees during the summer and fall semesters.
Jindal has been recognized as one of America's most dynamic and accomplished young persons. In less than four years, he has made enormous contributions to Louisiana and the nation.
He is credited with rescuing Louisiana's Medicaid program from bankruptcy by turning a $400 million deficit into three consecutive years of surpluses totaling more than $220 million; even as he was reducing annual spending by $1 billion, Jindal was able to produce positive health outcomes. For example, Louisiana moved from 37th to 3rd best nationally in health screenings for children, increased childhood immunizations from 50 to nearly 90 percent, and offered new and expanded services for elderly and disabled persons.
Jindal served in Washington, D.C., as executive director of the National Medicare Commission which recommended ways to strengthen the $210 billion health care program.
He also volunteered his time and provided comprehensive research at the request of the Legislature and the Governor about other states' investments to help Louisiana get the most return over the next 25 years from its $4.4 billion share of the national tobacco settlement.
Jindal also advised Fortune 50 companies as an international business consultant at McKinsey & Company.
He was only 24 when Gov. Mike Foster appointed him in 1996 to head the Department of Health and Hospitals. Jindal relinquished admissions to Harvard and Yale medical and law schools to lead DHH, the state's largest department with 12,000 employees, a $4 billion budget and hundreds of facilities.
As president of the University of Louisiana System, he oversees one of the largest public university systems in the United States. The University of Louisiana System is comprised of eight of Louisiana's four-year universities including Northwestern.
Jindal was one of 20 young persons in the U.S. to be named to the All-USA First Academic Team by USA Today, and he was named Louisiana's Most Outstanding Young Man by the Junior Chamber of Commerce.
His other honors include selection by the American Institute for Public Service to receive its 1998 National Jefferson Award for the Greatest Public Service by an Individual Thirty-Five Years or Under. The Jefferson Awards were established by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and other Jefferson Award recipients have included former President Jimmy Carter, General Colin Powell and Walter Cronkite.
Jindal was born and raised in Baton Rouge. Following graduation from
Baton Rouge High School in 1988, he attended Brown University, wrote two
honors theses, and graduated in both biology and public policy with a perfect
4.0 average. Jindal attended Oxford University on a Rhodes Scholarship and
obtained a graduate degree in politics.
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