Smoke and mirrors.
That’s what University students can expect during this legislative session, which begins today, unless the LSU System and University administrators reconcile their differences and tell the truth about higher education funding.
Free speech on campus is a pleasure, not a right, that University leaders don’t have anymore.
Last month, LSU System President John Lombardi sent a letter to administrators that was published by The Times-Picayune. It referenced Gov. Bobby Jindal’s budget, which relies on tuition hikes to make up for the funding gap that higher education is experiencing.
The letter tells all administrators they should provide “coordinated responses from our PR offices so that all units of higher education respond in the same generally positive and supportive way to the Administration’s efforts to avoid significant loss of funding from the all-funds budgets of higher education institutions.”
A few weeks ago, Lombardi sent a broadcast e-mail to LSU students that once again exerted the System’s power over individual campuses by emphasizing that only the System, not universities alone, has the power to make final decisions and can decide how administrators should perform their duties.
“This applies to all state/LSU employees as well as to others who perform ‘governmental functions,'” Lombardi’s letter reads.
A pattern has emerged that lets one voice – the voice of the LSU System – ring louder than all others combined. Students, who are the primary constituents of the University and the LSU System, are the ones being left in the dark.
The Daily Reveille can attest to that. When we asked the LSU System to further explain one of its letters, Charles Zewe, the LSU System’s vice president for communication and external affairs, called our reporter “too simple” to understand their inner workings.
University administrators can’t give us their real stories without fearing for their jobs. Whispers echo among them about the bureaucracy, but fear of their superiors keeps them quiet on the record.
No longer can students get honest, public answers from administrators, who must now swear allegiance to the LSU System or risk losing school funding or their own jobs. How can anyone expect students to protest budget cuts if they aren’t allowed to know the truth about what’s happening?
Today’s beginning of the legislative session finds bills looming that propose increasing tuition, changing TOPS awards, restructuring the authority of the Board of Regents and the controversial merger of LSU Shreveport and Louisiana Tech University.
It’s time for the policymakers to put aside their differences and remember that the goal of higher education is not to argue about college funding, but to inspire students to learn voraciously, think critically and realize that sometimes there aren’t answers to every question.
Instead, this closed-door administrative hoopla inhibits the free speech that college campuses are known for and reinforces the mindset that students can’t make a difference once policymakers have made up their minds.
Here’s to hoping politics and egos don’t obstruct real solutions about higher education this spring.
 
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