For the same reason Mitch Barnhardt decided NOT to become the next Athletic Director at LSU, so Mark Emmert has decided to end his career as LSU's Chancellor. The reason? Politics. Mark Emmert had just launched LSU on an ambitious plan to make LSU a top tier research University, an initiative that had just one example where he was bringing in close to 100 new research professor/scientists... He was the driving force behind the LSU 20 year Master Plan...Any of you who are wondering about the subject, please, feel free to point your browser to www.lsu.edu and look for it. Within mere MONTHS of her election...State Farm pulls out, and ignores the millions in "tax breaks" she throws at them... Next, Blanco announces that she will siphon off THIRTY MILLION DOLLARS from higher education, with more than a THIRD OF THAT AMOUNT being siphoned from LSU and it's law school, ag program, etc... Now, we see Emmert is gone, as well...Even in the face of Blanco offering him a big cheesy compensation package to stay... It's not about $$$ for Emmert...and his rejection of her outrageous offer is proof positive. Emmert knows-just as ANYONE else does-that Blanco is nowhere near a friend of LSU. She is LSU's worst enemy. She has frozen the budgets, thereby effectively cutting even more from LSU's projected budgetary concerns, and lest anyone forget, her husband is still employed by The University of Louisiana at Lafayette and referred to as "Coach" on campus. Emmert and his grand visions for building a University like a Phoenix from the ashes is just as good as those ashes...or more like dust...in the wind, now... Amid remorseful lamentations about the 30 million that State Farm turned down, or the hundreds of thousands that Emmert turned down, she'll attempt to drown out the real reason that business and Educational leaders like Emmert are flocking out of state... Her politics-and her Democratic ilk-will drain the budgets of higher education, and her and her anti-LSU minions in the Legislature will cut it to the bone... Mark my words, friends...a vote for Kathleen Babineaux Blanco was not a vote of an LSU fan, an LSU friend...but that of an LSU foe. Our few valiant champions in the Legislature like Jay Dardenne have been banished from powerful positions (Dardenne once held the Senate Finance Committee Charimanship) to those in the Siberian nether-reaches of the Louisiana Legislative Universe (He is not Chairman of the Retirement Committee)... LSU is on the road to ruin, and you can thank the woman from Lafayette, friends...
The reason they leave is quality of life- and that includes cancer alley, polluted river, bottom 5 in all health measurements, and yes education. Now, as for LSU, unless someone comes up with a plan to reorganize the OTHER 4 year+ universities, you can have 10 Emmerts and it really won't make a difference because there is no money to accomplish what you want done. You seem to have no problem ravaging the other schools- the taxpayers, however, don't agree. Reorganize those schools and then there will be sufficient funds to do what you want done.
Most of the other four year schools should not exist. Nicholls, Mcneese, NSU, ULM, Southen, and Grambling et al crippled LSU since the Long's have not been here to protect it. Emmert was going to turn LSU around. Everyone here could see it happening. We were bringing in top notch professors, raising standards, and look at the AD. Blanco has pushed back LSU rise to academic flagship back by years.
