Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LaCajunsFan
Guess I’m wondering if you’re saying Authement was the best? I just wish you would’ve stated what you think the ranking of the presidents should be. I would really like to red your thoughts on that.
PS (I'm in a chatty mood today.)
1) I talk about Ray the most because his is the administration I know the most about.
2) Personally, however, I have known T-Joe the longest... we went to HS together. I believe that, now that Gail passed, I may have known him longer than anyone in Lafayette. The argument that T-Joe is the best president could be made.
You might not recognize that, however, and I have come to believe that that is by design. T-Joe was UL's lobbyist for some years, and our VP of University Advancement; and then he was head of the Board of Regents for 12 years. He understands higher ed politics better than anyone in the state. And our VP Finances is Jerry Luke LeBlanc, who only a few old-timers remember, was Chairman of the House Finance Committee, and after that, Chief Administrative Officer. He was one of the two or three most powerful people in state government for awhile, and he understands the overall scope of Louisiana politics as well as anyone.
It's important to understand that. We have a BioInnovation Lab, and a Level III testing lab, both going up in New Iberia; we have a new engineering building going up; Madison is undergoing a second renovation; we acquired the Lourdes property; and there are other significant things going on.
Riddle me this, Batman: Where did all the money come from? Riddle me this #2, Batman: Why isn't anyone asking that question?
Like I said, it's by design. T-Joe & Jerry Luke understand this game very, very well. A few years back, UL received unprecedented funding from the state. Unprecedented. When I heard about it, I asked the administrator what we were going to do with the information. He fixed me with a cold stare and said, "Not a damned thing."
Even though T-Joe and I have known each other a long time, we are not best buds, and I do not share in his secrets. But I have watched him long enough to know that he likes to keep a low, and very affable, profile. If you've heard him talk, he is very informal, even cracking a lot of jokes. I have come to think of that as a bit of a 'Columbo' routine.
Things are happening at UL, and happening fast, but we don't scream it from the rooftops. And so it just keeps happening, we keep growing, and we don't give our enemies traction to fight us. At the same time, those schools that get nasty with us often seem to later end up in deep doo-doo... but I have no information that T-Joe is behind any of that. It might just be an odd coincidence.
So T-Joe is also a very strong president.
If you had switched him to any of the other presidencies, he might not have been so strong; and if you took any of the previous presidents, and put them in T-Joe's place, they would almost definitely not have been as strong.
3) People here keep bashing Ray, or T-Joe. It's a shame that I'm the only person here who's married or has kids (IT'S A JOKE, 'RUNNER), because if any of you had a family, you'd know that you don't get a perfect spouse, nor perfect kids. But when you step back, if you're fortunate as so many of us have been, and you look around at other families, you think, "I guess I didn't do so bad."
Sports fans sometimes tend to the ridiculous. Some of them should have been computers, because they think in 0s and 1s: a coach, an administrator, a president, is completely perfect, or perfectly awful. There is no grey. If we don't win every game, every sport, every year, it's unsatisfactory.* If our stadium isn't the best, if our parking isn't the best, if our tailgating isn't the biggest, if our attendance isn't the best, if our enrollment isn't the largest, if our bathrooms aren't the best...
...the whole program is a failure.
Puh-leeze. I ask you to stop.
There ain't no perfection. We have to look at it like we look at our families, and think about how we are faring over all. Which was one of the intentions of the opening post in this thread: Tech used to be a rival. So were McNeese, ULM, UNO, and the rest of them.
We left them all behind, and in some areas we're now passing LSU & Tulane.
But if a president didn't make every decision the way some of the geniuses here think they should have, they were horrible, terrible, anathema.
Meanwhile, we keep growing and expanding, while our rivals recede.
For those of you who look at the big picture, make posts about that. Remind people that, right now in the state and the conference, we're in the catbird seat.
(And here's to hoping the bird eats the cat... )
*Actually, even that isn't good enough. Lou Holtz went undefeated one year and won the NC at Notre Dame, and was still getting complaints. He realized that many of the fans, the wealthy fans, the ostensibly intelligent fans, expected to not only win, but to drub every opponent.
Don't be like Notre Dame.
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
^^
Agree 100% with CajunFun. Dr. Savoie has been great for this university. The amount of growth we have made during his tenure from Infrastructure to Athletics (spare me of the basketball talk today) and academic is incredible. Yes there is more work to be done, but Dr. Savoie is the man that will get it done
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CAJUNSby90
^^
Agree 100% with CajunFun. Dr. Savoie has been great for this university. The amount of growth we have made during his tenure from Infrastructure to Athletics (spare me of the basketball talk today) and academic is incredible. Yes there is more work to be done, but Dr. Savoie is the man that will get it done
Why exclude basketball from the athletics discussion?
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
zeppelincajun
Why exclude basketball from the athletics discussion?
lol….cuz it’s discussed ad nauseam on every thread? Don’t get me wrong, I agree it’s a problem but it’s just gets old hearing about it all the time.
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LaCajunsFan
lol….cuz it’s discussed ad nauseam on every thread? Don’t get me wrong, I agree it’s a problem but it’s just gets old hearing about it all the time.
BINGO
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
CAJUNSby90
^^
Agree 100% with CajunFun. Dr. Savoie has been great for this university. The amount of growth we have made during his tenure from Infrastructure to Athletics (spare me of the basketball talk today) and academic is incredible. Yes there is more work to be done, but Dr. Savoie is the man that will get it done
I agree. And he keeps making better and better points….about T’Joe. It’s why I think it’s a virtual tie with Stephens. I mean I am basically T’Joe’s age, so yeah, I definitely know Ray’s tenure the best, but I also can appreciate those outside that timeframe.
Guess I’m just a little disappointed there isn’t more love for Stephens. IMHO, had he not been our first, neither the school or city would be where are today.
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Oh….forgot to answer those bat riddles: I had my suspicions, but was never sure. I also so agree with the ‘don’t make a big deal out of it’ approach that Savoie takes about this…..I have learned, sometimes the hard way, it’s better not to poke the bear or step on snakes unnecessarily.
So yeah, let’s never overlook Savoie’s talent to be ‘understated.’ It’s one of his best traits, and much needed, given what he’s doing.
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LaCajunsFan
lol….cuz it’s discussed ad nauseam on every thread? Don’t get me wrong, I agree it’s a problem but it’s just gets old hearing about it all the time.
That doesn’t make it any less a part of the resume.
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LaCajunsFan
Oh….forgot to answer those bat riddles: I had my suspicions, but was never sure. I also so agree with the ‘don’t make a big deal out of it’ approach that Savoie takes about this…..I have learned, sometimes the hard way, it’s better not to poke the bear or step on snakes unnecessarily.
So yeah, let’s never overlook Savoie’s talent to be ‘understated.’ It’s one of his best traits, and much needed, given what he’s doing.
Making moves in silence is the best route..most people choose to be loud
Re: A Tale of Two Universities
Quote:
Originally Posted by
Duckster
Not being an apologist for the State nor taking issue with anything written, however didn't TOPS funding and multiple tuition increases the past ten years offset quite a bit of these funding reductions? Taxpayers still footing the bills one way or the other.
That was one of those textbook 'dirty Louisiana politics' moves.
Yes, the state funded TOPS. That was great.
But then the Governor turned around and cut the same amount from direct funding to the colleges, counting the money in TOPS as an offset. The result is obvious: It looks like a fair trade, until you realize that the money is going to the student, and only offsets the students' out-of-pocket expenses.
Meanwhile, the colleges lost a huge chunk of state funding, without any increase in tuition income.
It was a very cleverly constructed funding cut. I have it from a very reliable source that Jindal told insiders that his goal was to make sure that only upper middle class students could afford to attend college. (Which meant that students from lower-middle class families, people like myself, wouldn't be able to afford it.)
We can argue about whether or not he said it.
Because there is no question that he cut state taxes while the budget office warned him that the universities would have to suffer deep funding cuts as a result. And there is no doubt that on top of those cuts, he backed TOPS to the students, and cut funding on the other side.
So TOPS didn't save the state anything, it only hurt most of the students, and our universities.
