Richard Lipsey: LSU’s value for Louisiana is enormous but more can be achieved

Too many faculty presidents sit of their ivory towers and inform us, their shareholders, why they deserve your tax and tuition {dollars}, whereas counting on the college’s model to maintain it afloat — as an alternative of aggressively and relentlessly pursuing excellence.

That’s why I’m so pleased with LSU President William F. Tate’s Scholarship First bus tour. In solely 4 days, he traveled greater than 1,000 miles, pulling crawfish traps in Crowley, strolling the rows of a Jeanerette sugarcane farm, and celebrating LSU’s financial influence on Louisiana in Pineville.

LSU’s influence on Louisiana is $6.1 billion yearly, in case you’re questioning. Tate shared LSU’s message and influence, however simply as vital, he visited with folks.

He listened, shared meals, made mates. He might not be from right here, however in lower than two years, he’s embraced LSU and Louisiana in a manner that actually issues and has turn out to be considered one of our most fierce protectors and most vocal supporters.

LSU represents the whole lot distinctive and optimistic about our state — academically elite college students, nationally aggressive analysis, unimaginable artwork and tradition, and top-notch athletics, multi functional place. A few of the smartest, most unimaginable folks on the planet dwell and work there. It needs to be a magnet that retains our greatest and brightest right here in Louisiana whereas serving to to attract expertise from others states into our personal. However that requires management, imaginative and prescient, and drive.

Beneath Tate’s steerage, LSU accomplished its fundraising marketing campaign three years early — that’s unprecedented, particularly in greater training. LSU establishments additionally broke information for analysis grants and awards, for the educational accomplishments of their college students, and for working with the state to safe funding for infrastructure, analysis, and school pay. However the momentum hasn’t slowed.