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BATON ROUGE – On Tuesday, Oct. 6, LSU held the first Chancellor/Faculty Senate forum of the 2009-10 academic year as Chancellor Michael Martin discussed “Economic as well as Agricultural and Mechanical: Money and the Many Futures of LSU.” Martin opened the forum with what he considers to be some of the key challenges facing LSU in the future. Those concerns covered several areas, including the need to increase graduate student enrollment and the budget. Martin discussed the need to increase graduate school enrollment, which he thinks should be between 23 and 25 percent of the university’s enrollment. One way he sees to increase that enrollment is by providing competitive stipends and amenities, including improved graduate school housing. Martin is considering a private sector partner to improve the housing along Nicholson Drive, since the university does not have the funding to make the improvements on its own. The city is working to improve the Nicholson corridor from downtown to the LSU gates, so it is a natural progression to improve that same area once on campus. “The Nicholson corridor is the front door to this university but right now it looks more like a loading dock than a front door,” said Martin. The budget was the most discussed topic of the afternoon. With the anticipation of deep state budget shortfalls for the next several years, LSU faces serious budget cuts in the future. In order to counteract the impact on the university, Martin stressed the importance of LSU’s ability to raise its own revenue. “We have to make a strong case to a broader public for higher tuition,” said Martin. “I believe the business leaders in Louisiana understand the necessity of a higher quality education, but we must explain to parents of potential students, to our alumni and to our donors just how far LSU has come.” In addition to increased revenue, Martin said that the university needs to show the economic, as well as the cultural and social impact of LSU on the state. A recent study showed a $1.3 billion impact on the local economy, and LSU alumni are CEOs of some of the top companies in the state and provide more than 79,000 jobs in Louisiana. Funding for LSU should be seem more as an investment in the state and less as a state expenditure. “We need to do a better job of explaining why programs and departments are better at LSU and in Baton Rouge than they would be in other places,” said Martin. “We need to explain this in terms relatable to regular people and not in terms that are just important to academics.” It is also the responsibility of the LSU community to explain what the university means to the state, which includes projecting LSU’s impact beyond Baton Rouge and East Baton Rouge Parish. The contributions provided by LSU need to have meaning to the general public in their everyday lives. That impact must be kept at the forefront of their thoughts so they will stress the need for improvement, just as people caught in traffic in their commute everyday impress upon their elected officials the need for road improvements. The second Chancellor/Faculty Senate Forum will be held on Wednesday, Nov. 11, in the Geology Building. The title of the forum will be “The University with Dressing and Gravy: Programs, Administration, Arrangement, and Occasionally Expansion.” In addition, a roundtable discussion concerning “The Big 3: Big Science, Big Arts and Humanities and Big Coastal Studies” will take place on Thursday, Oct. 29, in Coates Hall. -30- |
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