Today Chancellor Michael Martin should stare down a hot barrel of public opinion so the legislators and politicians that hold your future will take notice — and it’s students that need to put him in that uncomfortable situation.
The Faculty Senate Forum, today at 3:30 p.m. in the Shaver Theatre, is open to all faculty and students, and it’s an opportunity for you to ask Martin anything you want about the $62 million projected cut in the University’s operating budget in the 2011-12 fiscal year.
In case you missed the budget cuts saga of the past months, these are the cuts that could raze 50 degree programs, 700 faculty and staff members and the equivalent of seven of our 14 colleges.
The Faculty Senate has been collecting questions from students and faculty for the past two weeks, and many of them will be presented to the chancellor today. Fifty-five minutes have been allotted for previously received questions and an additional 15 minutes for spontaneous questions from the audience.
But only 90 questions had been received as of Monday, according to Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope.
For a forum open to faculty, staff and 28,771 students, fewer than 100 inquiries is a damning reflection of the apathy permeating the student body.
We are the flagship university of this state, yet we’re its most immobilized student body.
Universities across Louisiana are experiencing budget crises — Nicholls students and faculty held a protest last week for a projected $3.4 million budget cut for the 2010-11 fiscal year, and the UNO student body’s involvement has put students at the LSU Baton Rouge campus to shame with one protest already on the books and a march on the Baton Rouge Capitol in the works.
The apathy on this campus has painted a picture of students content with seeing the degrees they work for turned into hollow shells of the education they came for, many faculty members content having their jobs or the jobs of their coworkers stripped while alumni contently watch as one of the state’s most powerful economic engines is stifled by the short-sighted politics of the governor and State Legislature.
Today’s forum is designed as a direct response to the calls for communication about the budget crisis, but it is more appropriately an opportunity for students to take the first step out of the shadow of ignorance toward a resolution in a conflict that would threaten the entire state’s well-being.
If our legislators don’t provide us with proper funding, University administrators have few choices but to terminate programs and jobs.
The time has come to let Martin and our legislators know we, the students and faculty, are not willing to quietly compromise the integrity of our education. We were promised a top-level education when we enrolled at LSU — and now we must fight for it.
 
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