The football team’s win at the Nokia Sugar Bowl Jan. 1 meant national recognition for LSU, but what does it mean for academics?
Neil Mathews, vice chancellor for Student Life and Academic Services, said the team’s win should be inspirational.
“The Sugar Bowl is the excellent example of student athletes and their coaches setting goals,” Mathews said. “I would hope all LSU students would set goals both in and out of classroom and achieve them.”
Chancellor Emmert said the Sugar Bowl win gave LSU greater name recognition.
“What any highly visible athletic success does is raise the overall visibility of LSU,” Emmert said. “It attracts what we’re about athletically and academically.”
Also, LSU Magazine features more academic issues. The past edition’s cover was about the information technology initiative, Gov. Foster’s $22 million endeavor.
The Sugar Bowl win placed the LSU football team seventh in the nation. “I would want us to be a top 10, nationally-recognized division for academics,” Mathews said.
While recruiting is expected to go up, some think applications for admission to LSU will also go up.
“It wouldn’t be fair to say yet if applications have gone up,” said Karen Denby, assistant vice-chancellor of Student Life and Academics. “We have certainly had more inquiries, and our Web site has been busy.”
Denby said with national recognition, there is an indication that it affects applications.
“It increases applications in-state and out-of state, increases excitement and enthusiasm people have for the University and increases indirectly the community and political support,” Emmert said.
Mark Sumner, a construction management senior, said the win will increase interest in the school. “I think everyone is going to want to come to the winning school,” Sumner said.
Athletic Director Skip Bertman said the school benefits academically from bowl games every year. “Generally, [the Athletic Department] gives $500,000 to academic portion every year,” Bertman said.
LSU received $2.5 million for playing in the New Year’s Day Sugar Bowl, but Bertman said expenses from the trip totaled about $1.5 million.
Bertman said the $1 million left will go into the Athletic Department reserve and will be used to improve Tiger Stadium next year.
Now the question will be whether academics can compete with athletics for LSU’s image.
Emmert said LSU is making several efforts to raise the awareness of its academic success. Emmert said while LSU has the attention from the Sugar Bowl, it should address the message of the academic success.
“We have deep, long traditions of academic excellence in our history that we haven’t communicated effectively,” Emmert said.
Emmert sends targeted mailings to leaders in higher education all across the country to educate them about the academic excellence at LSU. He does personalized mailings and appearances. Brochures have been made and sent to these leaders as well as to prospective students.
“I do believe athletics are looked higher upon [than academics] at LSU,” Sumner said.
Business administration sophomore Christi Klein said she thinks athletics get more attention than academics. “It [athletics] is advertised more,” Klein said.
Shane Smith, an LSU bookstore employee, said he thinks athletics gets more attention anywhere.
“Athletics brings in more money,” Smith said. “You don’t get 80,000 people to pay to watch someone take a math test.”