LSU’s Faculty Senate met Thursday to discuss various topics, including a report on the university’s presidential search, reiterating stances from the Oct. 1 meeting, as well as reassuring faculty that their opinions will be considered.
“I would like to emphasize the importance of faculty remaining attentive to the search and ready to become more engaged, if necessary,” said Dr. Daniel Tirone, sitting as LSU A&M Faculty Senate president. “One of the criteria listed for the next president’s attributes and qualifications in the published job advertisement is that they have, quote, ‘significant academic accomplishments and an earned terminal degree sufficient to gain the trust and respect of the faculty.’”
They also introduced three new members for the faculty appeals board, university auxiliary services tailored to faculty, as well as a proposed change to the LSU online graduate school “I-Grade” remediation policy.
This policy was proposed by Matthew Calamia, associate dean of Pinkie Gordon Lane Graduate School. It would give online graduate students more time to rectify their incomplete grades.
Unlike on-campus LSU students, if they get an I-Grade in the fall, they can remediate that grade until the spring. Online students only get until the next month meaning if they get an I-Grade in the first fall semester, they only have until the second fall to remediate that grade.
The Senate motioned for the policy to be referred back to the Admissions, Standards and Honors committee for further review.
Once the meeting concluded, Tirone told the members that they could stay for a presentation on civil discourse by Faculty Senator Scott Baldridge. This presentation was not part of the scheduled meeting. During the presentation Baldridge presented an open letter from select LSU faculty members affirming civil campus discourse and condemning political violence.
When the letter was presented after the meeting, 100 faculty members had already signed. The letter is independent and does not represent the Faculty Senate as a whole.
Baldridge reiterated to faculty members in the crowd that this is, in fact, an open letter and that they are not required to sign it.
“On September 10, 2025, conservative speaker Charlie Kirk was shot and killed during a campus event at Utah Valley University, directly implicating the conditions for discourse in higher education,” the letter states. “Violent attacks such as the July 2025 shooting of Minnesota state legislators, the June 2025 antisemitic attack in Boulder, Colorado, the April 2025 arson attack on Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro’s residence, and the June 2017 attempted assassination of U.S. Representative Steve Scalise, among others, rightly drew bipartisan public dismay.”
The letter continues stating, “Accordingly, we, the undersigned LSU Faculty Members, condemn in the strongest terms any act of violence or intimidation in any place of speech, affirm that civil discourse, not force, is the proper means of addressing disagreement on our campuses, and reiterate LSU’s commitment to the freedoms of expression and inquiry consistent with the First Amendment.”
The letter concludes with condolences specifically to Kirk’s family as well as “to all others— public officials, victims, families, and communities- who have been touched by recent acts of political violence.”
Many faculty members and student members of LSU’s Students for a Democratic Society expressed concerns and qualms about how the public might react to this letter.
“I was just curious because the timing of it will be in conversation with the event, whether you say his name or not,” said Vanessa Uhlig, assistant professor of film and television. “I just want to say that Charlie Kirk’s name is a trip wire, and putting it into this is going to create [discourse], and there’s such a great opportunity to condemn violence in all ways. Let’s just do that, we are all on the same side.”
Baldridge assured the audience that the letter only represents some faculty members, not the faculty as a whole. With caution from faculty members and to make sure the perception to the public is that it does not speak for all LSU faculty members, he agreed to specify in the letter that it is the undersigned faculty members who represent this letter.
“As you gain more and more people on board, it becomes harder and harder,” Baldridge said. “Half of my business in doing this is making sure that people understand that what they are signing onto isn’t changing. It’s not becoming something new every time they look at it.”
When asked about the criticism of the letter from faculty members, Baldridge was open to it, saying that the comments he received were equally from people of liberal backgrounds as well as conservative ones. He stated that they cannot rewrite the letter because 100 people had already signed it.
On being asked where this letter will go from this meeting, Baldridge told the Reveille after the presentation, “I suspect that the faculty senate will meet with the FSEC and deliberate a resolution that they feel comfortable with.”
A previous version of this story erroneously said the remediation policy would be further reviewed by the FSEC instead of the ASH committee.
