Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Astrid Merget described the University as a large, architecturally sound monument, flanked by elaborate Corinthian columns representing the different branches of the school’s new “big” initiative — splitting the University into three main areas of academic focus with the intention of pushing these programs to national acclaim.Merget shared this image Thursday to an audience of about 75 at a roundtable discussion, sponsored by Faculty Senate and Office of Academic Affairs, on such initiatives.University officials’ plans to think big are not about scale, but performance, Merget said.Coastal studies professor Robert Twilley said the focus is on interdisciplinary studies that allow members of the LSU community to look at the University in a new way.”When we think big, it’s not in any one vertical structure of the University,” Twilley said. “It’s thinking big by combining our talents across the horizontal structure of the University.”Twilley spoke about the goals of the “big coast and community” — combining concerns of buildings, nature and people. He said the program must examine risks, resiliency and restoration, while focusing on the Louisiana environment.”Protecting our delta is protecting one of the largest domestic supplies of energy production,” he said.The big coast and community initiative will rethink the marriage between infrastructure designs and natural resources, manage coastal risks “in the context of people” and look at coastal development from a business standpoint, Twilley said.When people think of big science and technology, they typically think of “big budgets, big machines and big laboratories,” said Brooks Keel, vice chancellor for research and economic development. And though big science and technology are more about impact than size, Keel said the University already has its hands in some significant projects.Keel cited the University’s Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices, the AVATAR — arts, visualization, advanced technologies and research — program and the Center for Computation and Technology as the University’s ongoing big projects. But he said more programs like these will not be possible without some additional resources.To continue making a big impact in science and technology, the University needs more faculty, graduate students and buildings such as laboratories.”The only cranes you see on campus are the ones landing in the lakes,” Keel said regarding the lack of new building construction on campus.But a significant new building may be in the not-so-distant future, Keel said.The University is getting closer to creating a Center for Digital Innovation, he said, which would include a center for EA Sports testing, AVATAR work and academic space for engineering and computer science.With the new facility, the University can allow students to “take classes in the academic part and right across the hall do an internship in industry and graduate with a job making six figures,” he said.David Cronrath, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, said big arts and humanities are the FedEx of the University — they develop a package and provide a vehicle by which it is delivered.Cronrath said the arts and humanities will work on creating “cultural products” to raise the University’s profile.”The only reason people from around the country come to Louisiana is to see our cultural products,” he said. “The University contributes to that by making cultural capital.”Cronrath said the most important cultural commodity is knowledge, and it must be pushed to members outside the campus community.”Think of arts and sciences like a big, digital megaphone,” he said.By increasing the University’s ability to create and broadcast educational content, Cronrath said the big arts and humanities will make the University “more democratic and less elitist.”- – – -Contact Ryan Buxton at [email protected]