In a broadcast e-mail sent to the LSU community Monday, Chancellor Michael Martin gave his manifesto on how he sees LSU emerging from the current budget problems relatively unscathed.  We absolutely agree with the basic premises of Martin’s message, though we have some questions about a few of the specifics.Martin’s calls to make the University more efficient and self-reliant are commendable. By partnering with public businesses and finding sources of funding other than the capricious state budget, the University can put out deeper roots to weather the storms of future budget cuts.Additionally, we applaud Martin’s exhortations to locate and focus on the most productive programs in the system – even if this means limiting or eliminating some of the less productive ones. While a university should certainly not focus entirely on profit, we cannot allow unproductive or under-performing programs to exist unchanged.But this can’t be merely a vague sentiment in a mass e-mail — Martin and the rest of the administration need to be willing to make the tough decisions necessary to trim fat from the budget. They might catch heavy flak for such decisions, but budget cuts are the perfect opportunity to make the University as lean and productive as possible.We view skeptically one assertion Martin makes in his e-mail — he wants to “increase our student enrollment with a goal of 5,000 new students per year.”While an admirable goal, raising the number of students almost necessarily means lowering entrance standards. This seems counter-productive to the larger goal of increasing graduation rates and the overall prestige and competitiveness of the University.If Martin has a way to increase enrollment without lowering standards, we’re certainly behind that. But if raising enrollment doesn’t bear some other cost, why haven’t we done it already?That said, we wholeheartedly support Chancellor Martin in his efforts to make LSU as budget-cut resistant as possible. This is an example of long-term thinking that has been sadly lacking in previous University — and past and present state — leadership.- – – -Contact the Editorial Board at [email protected]