BusinessReport.com

Forever LSU

To the editor:

On Jan. 19, faculty, staff, friends and family gathered on the LSU Parade Grounds for a memorial service. We recognized that LSU cannot sustain itself with the current budget cuts [“The Big Story,” Jan. 26].

I was not there to mourn the loss of my job; I have lost it and I don’t want it back. I told the assistant director of the university writing program that when they make the decisions of who will remain and who will go, I want my name at the top of the list to go, despite my 10 years of service that could prevent my elimination.

I attended the event because I am outraged by what’s going on in Louisiana. I was born and raised in this state. I am a product of the New Orleans Public School System—Jean Gordon Elementary, Francis Gregory Junior High and Ben Franklin High School.

When I graduated from Franklin, LSU was considered a second-rate party school. In my high-school circle, not one of my friends attended college in Louisiana. They attended the University of Virginia, the University of Texas and the University of North Carolina—outstanding public universities in states that support higher education. But my father was a public-school teacher. There was no money for college and no TOPS. I stayed here and supported myself by waiting tables, and I fought my way through undergraduate studies at UNO.

When I went away for graduate school to Virginia, I felt like I had traveled ahead in time. I wasn’t simply amazed by the resources available at the public university I attended. I was amazed to find technologies I didn’t even know existed.

And when I returned to Louisiana five years later, in 1999, to teach at LSU, I felt I had traveled in time yet again—only backwards. When I arrived on campus, Allen Hall was not wired for the Internet. I had no computer in my office. There were no computers in the classrooms.

The people of Louisiana decided they wanted LSU to be as esteemed as UVA and UNC and UT, so they voted for the Stelly tax to fund higher education, among other things. I cannot begin to tell you what progress LSU has made as a result of the money generated by that tax and the generosity of the people in Louisiana. LSU is a different university because of it. It is a far better one.

Rather than support the will of the people, Gov. Bobby Jindal has decided to ignore it. He pushed to repeal the tax that allowed LSU to make such gains and become the university the people in this state wanted. Jindal argues the people in this state and the people in this country don’t want to pay taxes, but I don’t think that’s true.

We supported the Stelly tax before. We support it now. Some of us just don’t realize it was Jindal’s decision to repeal that tax during an economic downturn that is forcing this budget crisis and eviscerating all that we hold dear, including LSU.

Tania Nyman, Baton Rouge

Go Saints

To the publisher:

How true your comments for the Saints and Saints fans and also for the citizens of Louisiana [Daily Report PM, Jan. 25]. A slogan you may use from time to time is a slogan the Saints also use—“Finish strong.” It’s very simple, and it’s easy to memorize.

Too often the citizens of Louisiana assume second place or less in business and in education. It would be wonderful for the state if there was a voice deep in the mind of each citizen issuing a constant command to finish strong. To finish strong does not connote an automatic first place, but only that one will give the effort to win in whatever is undertaken in life. In time, such an attitude will create a better person and a better community.

Ed Wilson, Baton Rouge