Today, the State Capitol stands as a stately guardian, towering above downtown Baton Rouge and peering over the city and the universities sprinkled throughout.
But one year ago, about 500 students from across the state filled the skyscraper’s steps, outpouring fury about budget cuts to higher education after Gov. Bobby Jindal projected cutting as much as 32 percent of state funding to the University last year.
The fear of losing programs, professors and research opportunities grappled students. The University eliminated 14 foreign language teachers as a way to stay afloat, exacerbating students’ worries.
Letters pleading with legislators to keep higher education funding safe flooded the campus. Jindal was spotlighted in newspaper editorials from states he was visiting, with former Student Government President J Hudson asking him to prioritize students. Administrators talked incessantly of what the University could lose with every dollar trimmed.
Today, students are no longer sealing letters. Most of the leaders of organizations that rallied against budget cuts have graduated. But administrators still say the University has not been spared.
This year, music students saw their scholarships cut, and all students living on campus were subjected to a mandatory mailbox fee regardless of whether they use a mailbox. Students involved in Greek Life are paying extra fees, and the trademark licensing program lost its operating support. These were the results of a $1.9 million cut from the University’s more than $440 billion operating budget near the beginning of the semester.
“We did not come out unscathed, but we came out less scathed … and probably survived the legislative session and a lot of other bumps and lumps along the way about as well as we could have expected,” Chancellor Michael Martin said about the operating budget in August.
The commotion is much quiter now. Students may be confused by fees, but they are not protesting them.
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost Jack Hamilton attributes that to the lack of looming budget cut scenarios the University previously saw.
“Everybody understands that one budget-cut scenario after another is not a productive way to do things,” Hamilton said. “The problem is [students] don’t have a target. If you have budget scenarios with cuts, then you have something to fight against.”
Among the once passionate student groups that have disappeared or turned mute are Proud Students and College Caucus.
Proud Students, co-founded by now-philosophy graduate student Bradley Wood, helped organize last year’s protest at the Capitol and a jazz funeral for “the death of higher education” that drew more than 300 students and faculty. The group also shot a video asking students what budget cuts would take from them and unveiled a banner reading “Don’t Sink LSU” crowded with student signatures to the Faculty Senate.
“To be honest, after the fall [semester], participation and interest plummeted,” Wood said. “I think that was mainly due to Bobby Jindal coming out and saying he wasn’t going to cut LSU as much as anticipated.”
Aly Neel, mass communication alumna, organized College Caucus to hold legislators and policy-makers accountable for their actions.
“I am not saying everything was successful,” Neel said in a Facebook message. “We fell on our faces sometimes. And as much as we kicked ourselves at the time, we at least tried.”
SG has continued to stand behind the University’s administrators and mimic their stances. Hudson and former Vice President Dani Borel met with Jindal last year.
“Yes, we may have done some crazy things to get his attention, but the point was we got to talk to him,” Borel said.
Cody Wells, current SG president, said his path to fight budget cuts has diverged from Hudson’s.
“From working in the Legislature, I think there’s a way to go about getting what you want, and sometimes, yelling and screaming and kicking is not the way you go about making negotiations,” Wells said. “I’ve worked to build relationships with board members and state legislators who have influence where money goes.”
Wells said his efforts, along with those of administrators, helped shrink the University’s budget cut from $22 million to $2 million.
Borel and Hudson hosted “WhatNow Lsu?,” an event promoted with mystery that revealed Flagship Advocates, a separate advocate group. At “WhatNow Lsu?” the estimated 350 attendants were asked to write letters to then Speaker of the House Jim Tucker, among others.
Flagship Advocates separately continued this letter-writing campaign through the remainder of the school year.
Flagship Advocates is now headed by SG Senate Speaker Aaron Caffarel, and he said the organization has since been dormant because they wanted to wait until after the fall’s legislative elections to outline their agenda.
Hudson also created EducateLA, a corporation aimed at spreading awareness about Louisiana’s higher education needs. EducateLA hosted an unsuccessful rally at the Capitol in April.
John Parker Ford, EducateLA vice president, said despite the fizzled-out budget cut effort, EducateLA will be successful because of its long-term mission. He said the group is not focused solely on rerouting the University’s funding shortfalls, but also on addressing the problematic roots.
Administrators urge students and faculty to remain tenacious amid the budget crisis. Instructors recently breathed a sigh of relief in the provost’s decision to let deans stop issuing termination notices. But plans are going forward for two mergers — one of six University programs and one of two departments.
And administrators say a mid-year cut could be right around the corner.
 
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Contact Andrea Gallo at [email protected]