Louisiana
LSU librarians can thrive outside of the tenure framework, dean says • Louisiana Illuminator
Editor’s note: The following commentary was submitted in response to an Aug. 20, 2024 report from the Illuminator: “LSU changes tenure rules for librarians to improve its research rankings,” by Piper Hutchinson
In August, LSU announced that it would no longer hire librarians to tenure-track positions.
The University offered two justifications for the move: LSU’s aspiration for American Association of Universities status, and the chronic difficulty involved in evaluating the promotion and tenure portfolios of faculty who teach no classes and have just 15% of their time allocated to research.
For some of LSU’s library faculty, the elimination of future tenure track appointments felt like a devaluing of their work, and one that could lead to further diminishment and disinvestment.
While I empathize with the concerns of our disappointed librarians, I believe that this move will improve the work lives of librarians generally. Speaking as a research library director with career long research interests, I am fully committed to a model of academic librarianship which involves significant engagement with the literature of our profession, the publication of new knowledge, and service contributions such as leadership in professional associations. My experience, however, leads me to believe that these behaviors can exist, even thrive outside the framework of tenure. They certainly do at the 79% of AAU institutions that do not offer librarians tenure.
The controversy over librarian tenure has shown us all how deeply enmeshed the issue is in foundational values and beliefs that might otherwise go unchallenged. I am as guilty of ignoring my own assumptions as anyone, and it’s taken this abrupt change to make me take stock of what I currently believe. I’ve ended up with the following five principles:
Respect for the role
However research librarian positions are configured, in practice they need to operate as full partners in the academic process. Teaching and curricular support, the provision of student success services, and collection building all require deep professional expertise, and all require full engagement with teaching faculty, Faculty Senate, and campus-wide committees. It is further appropriate for research librarian positions to offer the protections offered teaching faculty. NC State University provides “academic tenure” to their non tenure track faculty, which differs from “permanent tenure” only in that it is bounded within the contract period of employment.
Respect for tenure
Tenure at most of America’s best universities is reserved for those who do significant teaching and research, and who do those jobs extremely well. Teaching is entirely absent from many librarian positions, and for nearly all, conducting original research is peripheral to their primary responsibilities.
Scaffolding and rewards for research and service
The appointment and promotion of research librarians needs to encourage and reward innovation and substantive contributions to the profession. Engagement of this sort will not suit every librarian, but for those who actively seek out this kind of professional life, libraries should provide mentorship programs, internal peer coaching, travel budgets, and allowance for continuing education of all kinds.
Scaffolding and rewards for excellence in librarianship
A common trope in higher education bemoans faculty reward structures that discount excellence in teaching. The analog in research libraries are librarians who are extraordinarily good at the job they’re hired for, only to lose their jobs as a result of inadequate publication activity. Librarian ranks need to recognize excellent work, and provide consequential promotion and compensation rewards. The mentor programs and peer coaching mentioned above can easily be adapted so as to support those oriented towards workplace excellence.
Producing value
There is an additional cost that flows from shoehorning librarian contributions into evaluation and promotion documents built for teaching faculty. That awkward effort also impairs our ability to highlight and reward the dazzling breadth of work our librarians do in serving faculty and students. Now more than ever, we need those contributions to be visible, inescapable really, all across campus. Doing so will come naturally to a profession that has transformed itself so completely over the past 25 years. Excellent research libraries are a university’s competitive edge, and it is their librarians that make them so.
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Louisiana
Louisiana has 21 state parks. Here’s which ones get the most visitors
As the fall approaches and the weather starts to cool down, there’s no better time to head for one of Louisiana’s state parks for hiking, camping, or fishing.
According to the Louisiana Department of Culture, Recreation, and Tourism, there are 21 state parks across the state. But which ones are the most visited?
Here’s a look at the most popular Louisiana state parks:
No. 3: Bogue Chitto State Park
In Washington Parish is one of the most diverse state parks in all of Louisiana. Bogue Chitto offers nearly 1,800 acres of land, encompassing forests for hiking, rivers for canoeing, lakes for fishing, trails for mountain biking, caves for sightseeing, and campsites for when the day is done.
No. 2: Bayou Segnette State Park
Jefferson Parish brings us one of the best fishing state parks in Louisiana. Bayou Segnette’s unique location — just a 15-minute drive from New Orleans — offers both saltwater and freshwater fishing. This park also offers picnic areas on land, playgrounds for kids, and a wave pool for swimming.
More: Houma bar named one of the best in US. Everything to know before you go
No. 1: Fontainebleau State Park
Located in St. Tammany Parish, this is one of the most popular state parks in Louisiana. Fontainebleau is surrounded by water on three sides, allowing for sailing fans to bring the boat out. The park also offers beaches, trails for hiking and bicycling, and campgrounds.
More: Miss Louisiana Makenzie Scroggs reflects as she gets ready to say goodbye to the crown
Louisiana
11-year-old boy charged with killing former Louisiana city mayor, his daughter: Police
The boy is in custody after being accused of shooting and killing former interim Minden Mayor Joe Cornelius Sr., 82, and his daughter, 31-year-old Keisha Miles.
An 11-year-old boy has been charged with two counts of first-degree murder after being accused of shooting a former Louisiana city mayor and his adult daughter to death, police said.
Minden Police Chief Jared McIver announced the arrest of the boy during a news conference on Tuesday and confirmed the deaths of Joe Cornelius Sr., 82, and his daughter, 31-year-old Keisha Miles.
“I just want to start out by giving our condolences to the family,” McIver said. “This is a very tough issue to be dealing with and the city mourns with you, as well. The city is also in shock.”
Minden police officers got a 911 call about the shooting on Sunday around 6:30 a.m., according to McIver. The caller, who the chief said was a family member, told the operator that two people were dead inside of a home.
Cornelius and Miles were found in the home dead from multiple gunshot wounds, the chief said. Investigators found two guns that were hidden on the property that matched the empty shell casings found at the scene of the shooting, he added.
11-year-old boy confesses to the murders: Police chief
Detectives soon interviewed the 11-year-old boy who was at the scene when officers responded, McIver said. After the boy gave authorities a story that “didn’t add up,” he later confessed to committing the shootings, according to the chief.
The boy’s relationship with Cornelius and Miles is unclear, and while police did not specify, McIver said he is their family member.
“A lot of questions have arose about what is the why behind this. We do not know that yet,” according to the chief. “We are still piecing the puzzle pieces together right now.”
McIver also did not release what guns were used to commit the shootings.
“When it comes to a crime like this, if a person wants to do harm to someone it doesn’t matter the weapon,” he said. “They’re going to find something to use. In this case, firearms were used.”
The 11-year-old remains in custody with a $500,000 bond, according to the chief.
‘This is a somber day for our community’
Joe Cornelius Sr. previously served as a longtime city council and interim mayor of Minden, Louisiana, current Minden Mayor Nick Cox said during the news conference.
“This is a somber day for our community as we face this tragedy that has deeply affected us all, our hearts and prayers are with the Cornelius family and their friends during this unimaginable time,” Cox said. “Joe Cornelius was more than just a public servant, he was a committed leader who dedicated many years to the service of the city of Minden.”
McIver said Cornelius has “been around” and everybody knew him, which is why his death “hurts the most.”
“When you know somebody that’s been in the community that long, (and) that’s reached so many people there, there’s a sorrow,” the chief said.
Louisiana
Harris campaign reacts to Louisiana hospitals pulling life-saving drug from post-delivery access • Louisiana Illuminator
The campaign of Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has waded into Louisiana’s reproductive health debate, criticizing Republican Donald Trump for restrictive policies that states have approved since the U.S. Supreme Court reversed its stance on legal abortion in 2022.
“Let’s be clear: Donald Trump is the reason Louisiana women who are suffering from miscarriages or bleeding out after birth can no longer receive the critical care they would have received before Trump overturned Roe,” Harris-Walz spokeswoman Sarafina Chitika said in a statement to the Illuminator.
“Because of Trump, doctors are scrambling to find solutions to save their patients and are left at the whims of politicians who think they know better,” she added. “Trump is proud of what he’s done. He brags about it. And if he wins, he will threaten to bring the crisis he created for Louisiana women to all 50 states.”
Chitika’s comments came after the Illuminator reported earlier Tuesday that Louisiana hospitals are preparing to remove misoprostol from their obstetric hemorrhage carts now that the medicine has been reclassified as a controlled dangerous substance. The new law goes into effect on Oct. 1, and health care providers are scrambling to come up with new protocols for a medication they have relied upon to save women with life-threatening hemorrhages after delivery.
Misoprostol is prescribed for a number of medical reasons, one of which is to prevent and treat postpartum hemorrhaging. A new Louisiana law reclassifying the medicine as a Schedule IV drug has introduced extra barriers for access because controlled substances have different storage and prescription requirements.
The drug, along with mifepristone, is being targeted because it is also used for abortion. Gov. Jeff Landry signed the law in May, despite more than 200 doctors sending him a letter of concern that the law could have unintended medical consequences.
Doctors grapple with how to save women’s lives amid ‘confusion and angst’ over new Louisiana law
Misoprostol will still be available in Louisiana hospitals, but it won’t be able to be easily accessible on the rolling carts and in-room kits that OB-GYNs typically use if a patient starts bleeding profusely after childbirth. This could mean a delay in care. Some hospitals have already started preemptively removing the medication from their obstetric carts.
“We’re trying to fix something that is not broken and that is absolutely safe,” said Dr. Stacey Holman, division director for Touro Infirmary’s maternal child services. “It’s an unnecessary barrier and really critical to the regular everyday care that we provide to our patients.”
In August, 50 Louisiana doctors signed a letter requesting the Louisiana Department of Health and Surgeon General Ralph Abraham provide guidance on the use of misoprostol in the inpatient setting. “This is a nationally recognized guideline to emergently treat life-threatening postpartum hemorrhage and it is critical that providers are aware and have access to medication without delay,” the doctors wrote.
Louisiana has one of the highest maternal mortality rates in the country, and Black women are disproportionately affected. Seventy-five percent of the state’s rural hospitals don’t have maternity care. The Illuminator spoke with a physician who treats pregnant women at a rural hospital in northwestern Louisiana who was shocked to hear misoprostol was being reclassified as a controlled dangerous substance.
“What? That’s terrifying,” the doctor said. “Take it off the carts? That’s death. That’s a matter of life or death.”
The physician said she uses misoprostol as one of the first drugs to treat hemorrhages because it is easily accessible, doesn’t require syringes or IV access, and has fewer side effects for women with high risk pregnancies.
Other politicians and reproductive health activists have weighed in since the Illuminator published its report on Louisiana’s new law.
Starting 10/1, mifepristone and misoprostol – two drugs used for medication abortion – will become controlled, dangerous substances in Louisiana.
This political move will have dangerous consequences for pregnancy care.
H/t @lorenaoneil & @IlluminatorLAhttps://t.co/kwEvwtc3tq
— Cecile Richards (@CecileRichards) September 3, 2024
Misoprostol can be a *lifesaving* medication. Women are at risk of emergency hysterectomies and even death if it’s not administered promptly.
Trump’s Supreme Court overturned Roe, and now look where we are.
Miso isn’t dangerous — Republicans’ stance on abortion is. https://t.co/L3HiOJ1fY4
— Senator Tina Smith (@SenTinaSmith) September 3, 2024
Restricting a lifesaving drug isn’t just extreme, it’s preventing doctors from doing their job.
Women deserve better. Doctors deserve better. Americans deserve better.
We can’t let such dangerous measures become the norm. https://t.co/lrScSyUpwU
— Rep. Diana DeGette (@RepDianaDeGette) September 3, 2024
MAGA abortion bans put all pregnant women in danger. One in three American women have had their reproductive freedom stripped away by Trump’s friends, and this is the future that #Project2025 will bring to every state. We won’t go back. https://t.co/R17se0WIqD
— Michigan Democrats (@MichiganDems) September 3, 2024
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