"LSU administrators paid at outrageous levels, with faculty far behind:" Professor A.R. Rau's letter to the Baton Rouge Advocate

Professor A.R.P Rau published a letter to the editor of the Advocate this morning. I am printing the letter in its entirety.

LSU recently hired a football coach for an obscene $100 million. Athletic directors, other coaches, and umpteen assistant coaches have million-dollar salaries. And now the revenue secretary who is stepping down from state government is being hired as “chief administrative officer” at LSU for $370,000 in place of her previous $250,000.

LSU’s chancellor-president was recently hired for $750,000 plus substantial house and car allowances. There is a provost, and multiple vice chancellors and vice provosts, all making equally impressive six figures.

Why then is a new administrative officer needed, created by fiat by administrators and the LSU Board of Supervisors? This is taxpayer money.

The rot started with then-chancellor Mark Emmert. By bringing Nick Saban as a multi-million-dollar coach, he parlayed that to doubling his own salary, out of all proportion to salaries of faculty or staff. He went to his own further millions at the NCAA but left behind administrators down the line, all making huge salaries, more than double that of professors with decades of teaching, research and scholarship.

This has been noted elsewhere as “rapacious contemporary capitalism” at institutions that were created by societies for different purposes. It is an abuse of the tax-exempt status granted them on the grounds that knowledge generated and taught is a societal good.

LSU’s worth rests on its performance in education. Hiring contingent faculty at fractions of even the smallest numbers cited above, and grudging graduate teaching assistants who are paid even less minus health insurance and other fees they then must pay out of pocket, is shameful.

I leave as an exercise to our boards to calculate how many assistant professors, adjunct instructors, and graduate TAs would be supported by that $370,000 they conjured out of thin air for this new administrative hire.

A.R.P. RAU
professor
Baton Rouge

Revenue Secretary Kimberly Lewis will make $370,000 in new LSU job

LSU buys out football coach's contract: What's $17 million among friends?

 A few days ago, LSU announced it is getting rid of Ed  Orgeron, LSU's football coach.  Orgeron coached LSU's football team to a national championship in 2019, but what has he done for us lately?

What will it cost to buy out Orgeron's contract? Almost $17 million. Orgeron gets the cash in installments, but he gets the first half a million in December.

LSU will also buy out several members of Orgeron's coaching staff. What will that cost? Another $9.5 million.

And the university is still paying for some earlier buyouts. In 2020, LSU bought out defensive coordinator Bo Pelini's contract. That cost LSU $4 million. 

It also bought out a passing game coordinator's contract. But that was chump change. It only cost LSU $1 million.

Money, money, money. LSU renovated the football team's locker room in 2019.  That cost a cool $28 million. Each player gets his own sleeping space in case he gets tired while studying for exams.

College sports is big business. Everyone understands that. But does it have anything to do with the students?

Apparently not. Every time LSU's athletic department spends a ton of money, its PR people remind us that LSU's football program is a moneymaker and that students don't have to pay a dime to support it.

I'm not sure I believe that line. LSU football wasn't a moneymaker in 2020 when the COVID pandemic virtually shut down college sports.

In any event, students probably aren't paying attention. On any given day, students walk across the LSU campus with their eyes fixated on their cellphones. Many don't bother to use the crosswalks. They just meander across the streets anywhere they choose.

Just a few days ago,  two cars collided on Highland Avenue, which runs right through campus. As you can see from the photo, one of the cars flipped over and was totaled.

The speed limit on Highland Road is 30 miles an hour. Maybe LSU should spend less money on football coaches and devote more resources to traffic control.

Look both ways before you cross the street on the LSU campus.

LSU Football Player Kills a Man in Scotlandville: Will He Still Play in the Playstation Fiesta Bowl?

An LSU football player killed Kobe Johnson, an 18-year-old man, yesterday evening in Scotlandville.

This is what we know. Clyde Edwards-Helaire, an LSU running back, and Jared Small, a linebacker, were trying to sell an "electronic item" when Johnson allegedly tried to rob them. One of the players--police haven't said which one--shot Johnson multiple times and he died in the backseat of a late-model Chevrolet Silverado truck.

The LSU athletes called 911 and stayed at the scene until the police arrived. Joe Alleva, LSU's Vice Chancellor and Director of Athletics, called the incident "traumatic." Three lawyers showed up to represent Edwards-Helaire and Small, who claim self-defense.

As the Baton Rouge Advocate succinctly put it, there are "several unknowns about the incident."

First, the newspaper asked, which footballer player killed Johnson?

Second, what types of weapons were recovered and who owns them?

And finally--and most importantly--will Edwards-Helaire and Small suit up for the Playstation Fiesta Bowl on New Year's Day?

And I have a few questions of my own:

Who is paying the three lawyers who miraculously showed up to represent the football players? Perhaps LSU's Mr. Alleva knows the answer to that question.

Who owns the stylish pickup truck where Johnson bled to death?

And finally, was it necessary for the football player (Small or Edwards-Helaire) to shoot Johnson multiple times?

Of course all these questions are trivial when compared to what's at stake: The 2019 Playstation Fiesta Bowl, which is only a week away.  After all, how can we compare the life of an obscure kid from North Baton Rouge to the upcoming epic battle between the LSU Tigers and the University of Central Florida?

Surely football fans all over Louisiana are down on their knees in prayer. Please God, if an LSU football player killed someone on Saturday night, let it be Mr. Small, who is only a walk-on linebacker, and not Edwards-Helaire, who is a star running back who probably has a great career ahead of him if he goes pro.

Death scene (photo credit: Travis Spradling, Baton Rouge Advocate)

Louisiana State University: $30 water bottles, an official personal-injury law firm, and a student's death from alcohol poisoning

I live a couple of blocks from Louisiana State University, and I occasionally visit the campus book store. Or I should say I visit the Barnes & Noble book store that operates on the LSU campus.

As I walked in a few days ago, I noticed a large stack of plastic water bottles, all bearing the LSU logo. How much does such a water bottle cost, I asked myself? I discovered there are two versions. The basic plastic water bottle is priced at $25 and the premium bottle costs 27 bucks.  Actually, the premium bottle costs almost $30 because the buyer also pays a 10 percent sales tax.

Thirty dollars for a plastic water bottle!

The campus bookstore also has a coffee bar that sells Starbucks coffee for about four bucks a pop. Incidentally, the coffee bar is not owned by Starbucks so you can't use your Starbucks gift card there to buy your Starbucks coffee.

But that's OK because most students have debit cards, which they whip out to pay for everything. And how are students paying for $30 water bottles and four-buck exotic coffee? With student loans, of course.

But the expensive items at the Barnes & Noble bookstore are small beer. LSU recently completed a $85 million leisure project that includes a a 645-foot "lazy river" water feature shaped in the letters LSU.

Mercilessly ridiculed for constructing this monstrosity, LSU officials solemnly defended the project. "I will put it up against any other collegiate recreational facility in the country when we are done because we will be the benchmark for the next level,"Laurie Braden,  LSU's recreation director, said in 2015. I have no idea what that means.

LSU's world-class spa is conveniently located near LSU's fraternity houses, but the frat boys apparently are not visiting it enough. Nine members of Phi Delta Theta were indicted this week on charges of hazing after Maxwell Gruver, a freshman from Georgia, died of "acute alcohol intoxication" while at a drinking party.

Hazing is a crime in Louisiana, but the frat boys' lawyers insist that the drinking incident was not hazing. As a matter of fact, a fraternity member lured Gruver to the drinking site by directing him to report for "Bible study." And perhaps that is the proper description of an incident that left Gruver's system pickled with five times the legal amount of alcohol in his system.

In any event, what's the big deal? According to experts, Gruver "probably slipped out of consciousness and died without pain . . ., as if under anesthesia." And no one was charged with murder because, hey, college boys will be college boys.

Mr. Gruver's death will soon be forgotten.  All that matters at LSU is football. LSU's stadium was expanded to seat 103,000 fans, including the high rollers who sit in air-conditioned executive suites and drink premium liquor while the plebeians sweat it out in the cheap seats.

Everyone wants to be associated with the LSU Tigers. In fact, the Tigers have an official personal-injury law firm by the name of Dudley DeBosier. What does it mean to be the LSU Tigers' official injury law firm? Dudley DeBosier explains it to us on its web site:

"Being the Official Injury lawyers of LSU Athletics means more to us than just a simple sponsorship," the firm assures us:

It means hot boudin, jambalaya, fried catfish, and more gumbo than you can eat. It’s thousands of smiling faces walking in between stately oaks and broad magnolias on a Saturday morning. It’s the sound of Tiger Stadium as you cheer on your team with 100,000 of your closest friends. It’s the traditions, tailgates, and everything else we love about Louisiana.

 Got it. So if I get maimed on Interstate 10 by an 18-wheeler, I'm going to hire Dudley DeBosier to sue the trucking company because--well, Dudley DeBosier is LSU's official injury law firm.

Meanwhile, LSU is tearing down an old dorm and constructing new, more luxurious student housing. Some LSU officials feel that the students should live in at least as much splendor as Mike the Tiger--LSU's mascot, who resides in a "habitat" that looks like Club Med.

LSU officials say they are only providing all these amenities because this is what today's students demand. And indeed, the student body voted to pay for the lazy river with student fees.  From the students' perspective, I suppose, the cost of going to college is immaterial. After all, everything is paid for with student loans; and if the costs go up, Uncle Sam and Wells Fargo are always there to loan students more money.

Maxwell Gruver probably "died without pain" from alcohol poisoning

Meanwhile, Mike the Tiger has his own private swimming pool.

References


Rebekah Allen, Grace Toohey, and Emma Discher. 10 booked in LSU fraternity hazing death case. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, October 12, 2017, p. 1.

Alla Shaheed. LSU's 'lazy river' leisure project rolls on, despite school's budge woes. Fox News, May 17, 2015.

Lela Skene. LSU fraternity pledge Maxwell Gruver's 'off the charts' blood-alcohol level shocks experts. The (Baton Rouge) Advocate, October 11, 2017.