re: Is F King next on the chopping block?

So, your position is that (1) messaging has shifted from excellence to access and, I may be putting words in your mouth so please do push back, (2) access is incommensurate with excellence? I'm not convinced access and excellence are inherently at odds. Further, is access nefarious? Please do elaborate. I feel like there's more under the surface to your argument against access.

Honestly, LSU can't release headlines for competing at the national level (except for a few programs, which have historically been strengths of the university). That wasn't the case at the time of the release of the Flagship Agenda (created during my time at LSU as a student and at a time when LSU was finally being named a Tier 1 institution by US News, in part because the cut off line moved, I think). And it hasn't been the case with O'Keefe or Martin or Alexander since. The University isn't undoing the Flagship Agenda from the inside.

What has changed in this time? State funding for LSU under Jindal. That has been a cataclysmic shift that affects both excellence and access. This is what we should ALL be railing against.

At the end of the day, admitting a few students at the lower end of the standardized test score scale who have shown in other ways that they can be successful at LSU isn't undermining excellence. If the retention and graduation numbers hold up, then we should be celebrating this as the right move.