Most mornings, Pierre Champagne wakes before dawn, dons a blue polo and socks emblazoned with the University of New Orleans logo and reports to campus to help save his alma mater.

Champagne, a retired AT&T engineer who graduated from the university in 1976, has spent the past few months volunteering at the front desk of the Bursar’s Office, answering the phone and reassuring panicked students as the university contends with the worst financial crisis in its history.

“If you want to define it, my job is to give (students) comfort, give them encouragement, make sure they know they have an ear to listen,” said Champagne, who keeps tissues and a fully stocked mug of candy at his desk to help soothe anxious students.

For years, Champagne has been on a mission to rally his fellow alumni to donate their time and money to the university. He often issues clarion cries on social media, such as this Instagram post from 2023: “WE NEED ALL 400,000 FORMER STUDENTS TO STEP UP AND RECRUIT STUDENTS!!,” he wrote. “All hands on deck, Privateers!”

But lately his endeavor has taken on heightened urgency as the university attempts to right a major budget deficit that administrators have blamed on years of low enrollment and missteps including expensive long-term contracts. Since last summer, the university has laid off and furloughed staff, closed buildings and consolidated colleges to address a $10 million gap.

More changes could be on the way: Last month, Senate President Cameron Henry and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier asked the Board of Regents, which oversees higher education across the state, to consider putting UNO under new leadership . The proposal would move UNO from the University of Louisiana System, where it's been since 2011 , back to the Louisiana State University system.

The financial uncertainty and questions about UNO's future have spurred an outpouring of support from alumni near and far, school officials say. Adam Norris, a UNO spokesperson, said alumni have recently offered financial donations, hosted alumni events, volunteered on campus and helped with student recruitment.

“I am so inspired by so many of our alumni who now are leaders in our community, leaders in business who constantly reach out to me to tell me how much their UNO degree has meant to them and how much they're rooting for us,” UNO president Kathy Johnson told staff at a December town hall meeting.

Alumni step up

UNO is often credited with developing New Orleans' middle class by offering an affordable education to a diverse student body, which includes a sizeable number of non-traditional college students. Since its founding in 1958, it has graduated countless engineers, researchers, teachers, artists and writers, many of whom stayed in New Orleans and shaped the city economically and culturally.

UNO has about 50,000 graduates, a spokesperson said, but the number of people who have taken classes or obtained a certification at the public university is likely far greater. Some of its notable graduates include local leaders, including former New Orleans police chief Ronal Serpas and Jerry Bologna, who leads the Jefferson Parish Economic Development Commission, and culturally significant artists, such as Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Jericho Brown , the late cartoonist Bunny Matthews and many successful local musicians. Frank Ocean briefly attended the university before Hurricane Katrina.

Tim Ryan, a UNO graduate and New Orleans economist who has served as a UNO faculty member and chancellor, said the university plays an important role in the New Orleans economy as a designated research-based institution.

"If we're going to ever diversify our economy, a place like UNO is an incredibly critical part of it,” he said.

Julie Stokes, a former state representative who serves on the UL Board of Supervisors, said that UNO’s low cost allowed her, her husband and her sister-in-law to obtain top- notch educations while living at home in New Orleans.

“We all came from nothing and now we’re all very successful, in large part because we had an affordable option,” said Stokes, who graduated from UNO in 1992 with a degree in accounting.

Stokes said she knew about UNO’s long-term enrollment struggles but was surprised to learn about the severity of the financial crisis. In the months since the reality of UNO’s financial predicament has surfaced, she said she’s heard from alumni and others asking how they can help. A group of alumni have discussed writing an op-ed and others plan to write to state legislators urging them to step in.

“The amount of community support has been overwhelming,” she said.

'How can I help?'

Few alumni have stepped up as visibly as Champagne. After his retirement in 2023, he began patrolling the campus and popping into buildings to ask, “How can I help?”

“After a while,” he said recently, “people actually came to realize that I am serious.”

His current post in the Bursar’s Office comes after decades of volunteer work at UNO, including scorekeeping during basketball games, mentoring engineering students and assisting the alumni association. In 2022, Champagne and his wife, Cheryl, who has been an advisor to the cheerleading squad on and off since the 1970s, were inducted into the UNO Athletics Hall of Fame.

Pierre Champagne is a ubiquitous presence on campus. He regularly attends meetings of the student government, faculty and staff senate, and the United Campus Workers, the campus union that represents faculty and staff. After the university cut spending on groundskeeping services, he helped pick up the slack, recently cleaning the grime he noticed on some signs around campus.

“I beg alumni and former students,” he said. “At least show up. Come to campus. Find your department.”

Sometimes, he said, students, staff and faculty simply need a morale boost and to know they have the community’s support.

“That is the greatest power I believe we have that is not fully tapped,” he said.

A personal fight

Champagne attributes UNO with shaping the trajectory of his life.

After graduating from De La Salle High School, a Catholic school on St. Charles Avenue, he enrolled at UNO because of its low cost. His engineering coursework included a co-op position at Southern Bell, now AT&T, that led to a long career at the company.

And on a spring day in 1971, he met his wife Cheryl on campus. (He can still point out the exact spot, five steps above a landing at the University Center.) Two weeks after that first meeting, they were engaged.

“My ring trilogy: my marriage, my degree, my engineering career,” Champagne said, pointing to his wedding band, engineering society ring and class ring. “Tolkien has his, I have mine, and it would have been impossible without UNO."

This year, Champagne was nominated to ride in the university’s annual Carnival parade, known as Krewe of UNO, on a float honoring the school’s “Everyday Heroes.”

When the parade rolled through campus Tuesday, Champagne threw beads and candy to onlookers from the ship-style float. Decked out in a bedazzled silver and blue hat and a sash that read “UNO hero,” he was accompanied on the float by the student homecoming queen, a representative from the Beach at UNO a faculty member and a student advisor.

Champagne said that seeing the celebration proceed despite the turmoil at UNO felt a little like New Orleans throwing the first Jazz Fest after Hurricane Katrina.

“We need to be able to laugh together, to celebrate together and commiserate together,” he said. “This is my life, this is my family.”