• By LANNY KELLER
• Advocate Opinion page staff
• Published: Nov 10, 2009 - Page: 9B

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After decades at the highest levels of higher education policy in America, maybe John V. Lombardi has earned the right to a bit of irritation about the experts “who come out of the woodwork” and freely advise how to correct the problems of the system during a time of crisis.

The president of the LSU System’s assessment of the quality of these contributions to policy making: “I got out of the eighth grade and I should tell you physicists what to do.”

“I too got out of the eighth grade,” Lombardi said mockingly when he talked to the Rotary Club of Baton Rouge.

Gov. Bobby Jindal, an Ivy League graduate and Rhodes Scholar, was briefly president of the University of Louisiana System.

He also has something to say about higher education, but it was clear from Lombardi’s speech that the veteran college administrator parts company from the governor on several issues as if Jindal were another proud eighth-grade Socrates.

On some things, Jindal and Lombardi agree, including the importance of better colleges to train a work force for the 21st century.

“Every state we admire has a greater level of higher education accomplishment than Louisiana does,” Lombardi said, arguing the state ought to be putting more money into higher education.

Further, he derided the commission — created by the Legislature and blessed by Jindal — that is looking into higher education policy.

Commissions typically propose things that are practically not doable, either because of cost or because of the strain on the political system that would entail from its recommendations, Lombardi said.

He dismissed the suggestion, from state Treasurer John N. Kennedy, that the state consolidate all the boards of higher education into one. That’s a kind of “rearranging the deck chairs” recommendation that would not provide any real benefit even if the political will to accomplish it would exist.

“It goes nowhere,” Lombardi said, adding “I get nervous when people talk about the wrong thing.”

“The main event is students and teachers,” Lombardi said. “The main event is teaching and research.” Louisiana is one of the states with the lowest percentage of its residents holding college degrees. “That’s what is missing in Louisiana,” he said.

While Jindal has pushed for new investments in buildings and programs for community colleges, Lombardi mocked construction of new buildings for community and technical colleges. He said empty classrooms are available for teaching lower-level courses; it should not matter to the state where a student gets his first two years of a college education.