LSU not bluffing on funding cuts, chancellor says

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: May 19, 2009 - Page: 1A

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Four Pulitzer Prizes and the publishing of the famed “A Confederacy of Dunces” may not be enough to keep the LSU Press from being shuttered because of budget cuts.

In order to protect its “academic core,” LSU leaders are threatening to cut or even close many of its ancillary units unless the Legislature significantly reduces proposed budget cuts of up to 15 percent of the state’s appropriations to colleges.

Among the units on the proverbial chopping block are the LSU Press, the Southern Review literary journal, the LSU Museum of Art, Rural Life Museum, Hilltop Arboretum, Louisiana Library Network and the Center for Advanced Microstructures and Devices

So is LSU bluffing with fear tactics to convince the Legislature to reduce budget cuts or are these threats legitimate?

LSU Chancellor Michael Martin said that “probably” none of the LSU units will be completely shut down.

However, he emphasized that the fears are “legit” and substantial funding cuts are likely.

“We’re not trying to use scare tactics, in all candor,” Martin said.

“We don’t want to draw if we’re not willing to fire.”

Martin said he is not trying to turn the LSU Press and other popular LSU entities into “human shields.”

Martin admitted a “very delicate balancing act” exists in portraying how much budget cuts could hurt LSU, while also avoiding scaring away potential students and faculty from the university.

The main LSU campus is facing up to a $35 million cut beginning July 1, not counting about $10 million already sliced in January, because of the recession and declining state revenue.

What has resulted at LSU is that many officials from the at-risk museums and research units are waging their own unofficial publicity campaigns to get the attention of the public and Legislature about the people they employ and their respective cultural and scientific values.

LSU mass communication professor Bob Mann, who has published with the LSU Press, is among those attempting to spread the word about the worth of the press.