LSU to re-energize research efforts

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Oct 30, 2009 - Page: 10A

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LSU is starting a new “think big” campaign challenging faculty to embrace big ideas and collaboration in research projects.

The three initial concepts and committees — “Big Science and Technology,” “Big Arts and Humanities” and “Big Coast and Community” — were discussed Thursday during an “LSU Thinks Big” roundtable discussion with administration, faculty and students.

“It’s not about size or scale,” said Astrid Merget, LSU provost and executive vice chancellor. “It’s about having a big impact in our scholarship.

“We see this as a new way of looking at the university,” she said. LSU does not want to “perpetuate more of the same.”

LSU faculty must no longer see themselves as “solo researchers in the lab,” she said.

David Cronrath, dean of the School of Art and Design who is leading the Big Arts and Humanities charge, said LSU often does not capitalize on its many assets because of too much duplication and not enough research collaboration.

Too often “we really don’t know each other” from building to building on campus, he said.

Brooks Keel, the LSU vice chancellor for research and economic development who will become the new president of Georgia Southern University in January, said LSU needs more faculty, more graduate students and more buildings and infrastructure to produce these outcomes.

“The only cranes you see on LSU’s campus are landing on the lakes,” Keel joked in making the bird reference.

But collaboration and winning more grants can lead to all of these things, Keel said.

He said LSU has plenty of positive things going on — Electronic Arts, the AVATAR digital media curriculum, human genome project research, a multidisciplinary hiring initiative and more — but more of these assets can work together.

LSU Chancellor Michael Martin said that college budget cuts and a poor national economy will not stand in the way of inspired research growth.

“If we have a good idea, we’ll find a way around it,” Martin said of the economic climate.