Chancellor Michael Martin faced a tense, tightly packed crowd Tuesday as he answered questions regarding the University’s budget at the Faculty Senate-Chancellor Forum in the Shaver Theatre of the Music and Dramatic Arts Building.
Martin discussed the “challenges” of the budget situation, noting the series of cuts throughout the past 21 months totaling $42 million at the forum where faculty and administration outnumbered students.
“Through it all, LSU continues to be one of the best-performing institutions in the state of Louisiana,” he said. “In so many ways we are pulling up the performance of all higher education in Louisiana as the flagship.”
Following the speech, a five-person panel comprised of faculty, administrators and one student asked Martin a series of questions gathered from a campus-wide survey.
The questions in this section covered topics ranging from endowment funds to the cost of Easy Streets.
The first question concerned the construction of new multimillion-dollar building projects in the midst of the budget crisis.
Martin explained the funding for this construction is “fundamentally separate from the operating budget” and that the University came in under budget. For example, the new business complex was projected to total $48 million, but the cost was $40 million.
Another question was raised about expanding online courses, an area Martin argued “we are well behind the curve on.”
Martin said the University has six to eight degrees that could easily be adapted online, which he called “pockets of opportunity that we need to exploit.”
Martin was also confronted about future increases in student fees and tuition.
“I’m going to be honest with students,” he said. “Over time, the only way this place can continue, is to become more dependent on tuition and fees.”
Martin said he aims for the University to become less dependent on the state and more dependent on alternative funding means.
Another question asked why specific details were not released for cuts in Level Three of the University’s three-tiered budget reduction plan.
Martin said the University will respond as directed when there are more specifics about the cuts.
“There is no point in making people’s lives inordinately uncomfortable about a hypothetical,” he said. “I will resist having to impose damage, even hypothetically, for as long as I can.”
In regard to the mass termination notices to faculty, Martin said the painful layoffs were conducted as humanely as possible.
The topic gave rise to the discussion of furloughs, a voluntary or involuntary temporary leave of absence from employment — something Martin doesn’t like.
“I’ll take twice the percentage [of a salary cut] that everyone else takes if we chose to do that,” he said.
The hottest discussion surrounded the recent hit to the Department of Foreign Languages and Literature. The submitted question asked about the University’s mission of diversity and the contradicting cuts in funding to foreign languages.
Martin said the University will remain committed to diversity and excellence, and while the loss of four foreign languages was difficult, the University is attempting to hold on to its core.
“If we’re going to hang on to foreign language, we’ll keep ones we do well,” he said. “Don’t water down the entire program.”
When the floor was opened to the public, a mixture of students and faculty demanded answers to more controversial questions.
Students, like Student Government Senator and mass communication junior Cody Wells and music performance junior Cameron Young, focused on the cut to degree programs, the future of their educational careers and what students can do to take action.
A psychology professor asked about “seven of the 14 colleges being closed” — a figure mentioned in a Sept. 15 projection from the University.
Martin said this phrase was misunderstood and stressed the phrase was a way for people to grasp the magnitude of the cut, which could be so large it would equal the sum of seven colleges, but whole colleges are not planned to be cut, he said.
Faculty Senate President Kevin Cope said he was impressed with the “number of topics of taboo that suddenly came out.”
But with positive comments also came criticism. Johanna Sandrock, Latin, Greek, German and classical studies instructor, said she viewed the forum as the only way to get answers about foreign language but was not satisfied.
“He basically dodged all the questions he could,” said international studies junior Alexandra Bobet.
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Contact Sydni Dunn at [email protected]