Serious Question: Could one compare LSU to the likes of Cal, Michigan State, North carolina, UCLA, as being an elite public institution that successfully balances academics and athletics?
We're one of less than 50 Land/Sea Grant Institutions... Our law school is world renowned...and our political science department is EXCELLENT and a degree from it is one of the more valuable you can obtain... The recent biotechnology breakthrough-growing proteins and future medecines inside chicken eggs-is going to revolutionize the medical prescription and production industry... I'd say we do lots of good work...that's just the stuff off the top of my head... Why do you ask? I also wonder why you ask a question like that in only your 3rd post here?
We're not on the levels of Cal, UCLA, or UNC.....yet! We will get there in a matter of time. We are moving up and we're moving quickly. LSU will be a top University in the near future I believe.
Shrill fit-pitching from the ULL and La. Tech folks and arrogance from Ole Miss and Texas aside, LSU is getting much better and has made great strides since Emmert came here. As a university, I'll be blunt, LSU flat out SUCKED ten years ago, academically and athletically. We have Edwin Edwards and his complete disregard for higher education to thank for the academic shortcomings, and Joe Dean to thank for the athletic side. But Mark Emmert has gotten us successfully turned around and now we are starting to pick up steam and get some serious recognition in several fields. And say what you want about Mike Foster, but he did increase funding for higher education in general, and LSU in particular, while he was governor. Some of the reforms Emmert has implemented have been painful, but they are necessary to get LSU off the bottom and into the upper echelon of elite public institutions. The goal should be more than just to get into Tier II status in U.S. News and World Report though. The goal should be, as BD99 says, to become an elite public university. I want one day for LSU to be mentioned in the same breath with elite public universities like MIT, Rutgers, Penn, North Carolina, Texas, Texas A&M, UC-Berkeley, UCLA, and Cal Tech. We will only get there if we get rid of the attitude of complacency (Emmert has done a good job, but there are still people in leadership at LSU who don't get the message) and aggressively move forward, with zero tolerance for failure or lack of ambition. We can be the best, if we are willing to work hard and emphasize the most important principles of academics. As for athletics, I think we are only a few football national title, a women's basketball Final Four, a men's basketball tourney victory, and a return to Omaha away from being recognized as one of the elite athletic programs in the country (if we aren't there already).
Over the university isn't elite but individual departments and programs are tops in the in the country. I beleive as a whole we are on the border or Tier 2 and 3 according to Princeton Review. Florida and Georgia are Tier 2. The whole "LSU Master Plan" is supposed to take care of this over the next 10 to 20 years.
No. Just in the SEC, which isn't the greatest collection of public universities, LSU is average. Florida, UGA, and UK are much more highly regarded. As much as LSU works at it, I don't think we will compete any time soon with schools like UCLA, UVA, Berkley, UM, UNC, UT, Wisconsin, etc (BTW, I've never heard Michigan State or Rutgers being mentioned as top state universities). Louisiana does not have the funds to make LSU "competitive" with these other state schools. I've quickly come to learn, however, that reputations, and even schooling in general, have little to do with education. The most important thing a university can provide for its students in my opinion is a motivation to learn. In this regard, I think most schools, from Harvard and Princeton down to ULM and ULL are not separated by as large a chasm as our reputation-driven opinions would have us believe. A college education, for that matter, is really not as important as most people think either. As Matt Damon, who will appear on this Friday's Conan (look for me, as I was seated in the front row behind the band, wearing a purple shirt) said, "You wasted $150,000 on an education you coulda got for $1.50 in late charges at the public library."
