BATON ROUGE — An LSU search committee hoping to whittle down the number of candidates for the school's presidency added another person to its list Wednesday before opening a series of interviews.

The panel plans to develop a list of finalists by the close of business Wednesday as it seeks to replace William F. Tate IV, who left LSU after five years to become president of Rutgers University in New Jersey.

Tuesday evening, the search committee said it planned to meet interim LSU president Matt Lee, Dr. Giovanni Piedimonte of the Tulane School of Medicine, former University of Arizona president Dr. Robert Robbins and McNeese president Wade Rousse. Piedimonte and Robbins are medical doctors; Lee and Rousse hold Ph.Ds.

Wednesday, the group added University of Alabama executive vice president and provost James T. Dalton to the interview schedule.

The new president will likely preside over the hiring of a new LSU football coach after Brian Kelly was fired Sunday.

The university hired a consultant to identify potential applicants for the job, letting LSU shield names from the public. The maneuver prompted a student protest over the university's lack of transparency, and that protest ultimately led to the arrest of one student after she exceeded the three-minute time limit for public comment.

Complaints also have come up over a lack of diversity among search committee members and potential candidates. All five candidates invited for interviews are white men. Tate is Black.

The Reveille, LSU's campus newspaper, reported in August that committee that settled on Tate in 2020 had nine women and eight people of color among its 20 members. This year's panel has three women and three people of color among the 20.

After the list of candidates is narrowed, finalists will meet with university staff and students through next Monday. A new president will likely be named some time next week.

The full schedule of interview-related activity is available at https://www.lsu.edu/bos/president-search/finalist-schedule.php