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| Louisiana State University has awarded “Foundations of Excellence” status to seven departments, following a rigorous performance review by a panel of top university academicians and administrators. Chancellor Sean O’Keefe announced the five-year designations, which were recommended by the University Planning Council, or UPC, for the departments of biological sciences, chemistry, English, mass communication, mathematics, music and physics. “At a time when we’re demanding that incoming students meet higher academic standards consistent with LSU’s National Flagship Agenda to advance this world-class, public research university, we’re raising the bar for our departments,” said O’Keefe. This spring, all LSU colleges and departments were invited to compete for the excellence designation in a series of presentations before the 17-member UPC, which is made up of a cross-section of LSU’s leading faculty, including several Boyd and Alumni professors, representing the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and professional schools, along with senior university administrators. “The most important element of the Flagship Agenda is the development of departments, schools and colleges that are of nationally competitive caliber,” said Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Risa Palm. “As LSU strides toward national prominence, we need to identify the early leaders, those units whose strength can become the basis for an ever-stronger faculty and curriculum.” Recognition as a “Foundation of Excellence,” the university’s top departmental honor, brings additional funding for enriching faculty pay and graduate student stipends in hopes of drawing high-quality students and faculty to LSU. “Recruiting and retaining top-quality faculty raises LSU’s prospects of winning competitive government and corporate grants,” said O’Keefe. “Prestigious faculties, in turn, attract undergraduates with higher grade-point averages and test scores, improving graduation and retention rates.” Selection as a Foundation department is based on a demanding assessment by the UPC that includes the national and international reputations of individual faculty, a review of graduate programs, an appraisal of collaborative efforts with other departments and reviews of academic progress. “The University Planning Council reached a consensus that seven of these units are particularly meritorious and should be designated ‘Foundations of Excellence’ for a new five-year term,” said Palm. The “Foundations of Excellence” program originally targeted 12 departments for enhanced resource allocation when the effort was launched in 1999, under the theory that extra funding helps strong departments advance more quickly to national and international prominence. The new peer-review process was organized by the UPC at O’Keefe’s request shortly after becoming chancellor earlier this year. The UPC strategy effectively turns over the recommendation process to a panel of eminent university leaders and includes a number of exacting selection criteria. “We have fundamentally changed the way our departments are judged, making it much more difficult to achieve this level of distinction,” O’Keefe pointed out. “This process is important to demonstrate national, as well as regional, academic excellence and competitiveness.” The seven departments newly awarded Foundation status were among the dozen departments so designated five years ago. To date, more than $5.5 million has been awarded under the program for graduate scholar awards and faculty salary supplements. Units not re-designated as Foundations will retain faculty salary enrichments already awarded. UPC member Thomas Lynch, a professor of public administration, stressed that all departments that took part demonstrated “remarkable improvements over the past five years.” “I think we need to stress that the concept of the Flagship Agenda is working and our departments are focusing their efforts on achieving excellence,” Lynch said. As a continuous quality improvement effort, all LSU units not selected will have another opportunity to compete for Foundation status in the spring of 2007. “These departments are clearly making significant progress, and with some changes, could become eligible for designation in the near future,” Palm noted. - 30 - Charles Zewe LSU System 504/251-5400 |
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