LSU President F. King Alexander announced last week that faculty and staff of certain University institutions would receive a salary raise averaging 3 percent, starting immediately for some employees. 
This follows Alexander’s announcement last July that faculty and staff across the LSU System would receive a raise averaging 4 percent.
Alexander should be commended for his willingness to move decisively on this issue. A strong faculty is vital to this University, and it is refreshing to see the administration take an active role in listening to and addressing the faculty’s concerns after a long period of inaction.
For four years, the faculty and staff at this University toiled with no reward or promise of advancement. As the cost of living rose around them, professors watched their paychecks stretch less and less. 
Unsurprisingly, this led to a minor exodus of talent as top teachers, administrators and department heads flocked to universities who could afford to keep their paycheck rising with the cost of gasoline. 
Last year, University administration was forced to conduct searches for more than 10 dean positions, and still, some of those positions remain vacant. It certainly could not have been an easy situation for Alexander to step into, but for the most part, the search committees performed shrewdly, hiring promising candidates both from within the University and from smaller regional schools.
These most recent pay raises are a step toward making the University competitive in the talent market once again, but for now, we must recognize it has dropped a tier. Alexander may talk about fighting with the likes of Ohio State University and UCLA for faculty, but the fact that two consecutive cost-of-living wage increases feels like such a victory shows that the University is not stably funded enough to compete with those institutions.
Alexander has done very well to “cobble together” these pay raises two years running, and the fact they have come so early in his tenure shows that his priorities match the University’s best interests.
But when the state legislature can and — as it has shown — will cut funding for higher education seemingly at the drop of a hat, the University needs a concrete plan that will allow it to plan on making these pay raises years, not weeks, in advance. If it expects professors to make a commitment to the University and want to stay here, it needs to show it can afford to pay them not just this year, but five years down the road.
Last year, the raise was put together through tuition hikes, increases in enrollment and money saved on salaries for vacant positions. This year, the money came largely from tuition hikes, increases in enrollment and slight jump in state funding. The common denominators are clear. But the University cannot keep the same standard of education while increasing enrollment without adding teachers, and students can’t afford to keep paying for it all.
Alexander and the administration cannot be expected to secure the financial future of the University and its faculty in the two weeks before the fall semester begins every year – they have a school to run. The responsibility lies one level higher.
The Board of Supervisors, responsible for the whole of the LSU System under the leadership of Alexander, should also act as a conduit between the University and state leadership. With most members appointed by Gov. Bobby Jindal, the Board, — largely a group of influential business leaders from around the state — should hold more influence at the state level.
Instead, we see a yearly precipitous drop in state funding for higher education. This year was an exception, with funding nearly returning to 2012-13 levels. While they should be the University’s voice in Jindal’s ear, they have done just the opposite, laying down on the floor while the state strips the University clean.
In the coming years, we hope to see Alexander put more pressure on the Board to either donate directly to the University or to solicit the state for further funding. He, at least, seems to understand how to run a university as more than a football-delivery machine.