A Note from Provost Haggerty

August 29, 2022

Dear Colleagues,  

As I complete my first month as provost, I want to share some of my first impressions and define two of my initial priorities.

 First, thank you for the kind and warm welcome. I have been very impressed by the faculty, students, and staff I have met thus far. Your love for LSU is clear, as is your dedication to the land-grant mission of ensuring that the state’s flagship serves the people of Louisiana.

While these are early days, and I still have much to learn from all of you, I want to provide my initial thoughts. Many of the priorities listed below will appear in some form in the Scholarship First Agenda that is currently in development. In the coming months, initiatives will be implemented that advance student success, increase funding, and leverage the partnership with the new vice president for Inclusion, Civil Rights & Title IX, Todd Manuel. For now, I will detail two focus areas that have received my immediate attention – growth in scholarship and strengthening our foundation.

Growth in scholarship, particularly in the pentagon research areas. President Tate’s Scholarship First Agenda pairs Louisiana’s strengths and needs with LSU’s strengths and capabilities. I have launched the Provost’s Fund for Innovation in Research through the support of the Office of Research & Economic Development, an extensive seed funding effort to grow scholarship. Therefore, if you have a scholarship idea that will be impactful to LSU and Louisiana, we likely can help further your efforts by obtaining extramural support. Please note that this is for all tenure-track, tenured and research faculty, regardless of rank.  

Other opportunities to grow scholarship will also be explored, including faculty hiring initiatives and ways in which we can grow the number of our PhD students. The latter will include, but not be limited to, improving graduate stipends.

My next priority is strengthening our foundation. Early in my tenure as provost, I aim to improve some of the fundamental elements of our work life at LSU. Using internal sources, such as data collected from the COACHE Faculty Job Satisfaction Survey, I will initially focus on areas that do not require extensive funds or labor, but later in the academic year, I plan to address more resource-intensive items, such as salaries.

While these are my academic priorities, communication will be the cornerstone of our  collective success. My general philosophy is that if something affects you, and if I am responsible for it, then I need to communicate it to you. This also goes to shared governance – if something affects you, you need to have an opportunity to provide input directly or through representatives. If you see something that you would like more communication about, please let me know, and if it is a widely shared sentiment, I will do my best to make it happen. Additionally, to strengthen our channels of communication, I will be visiting every academic department during this academic year.

If you see me on campus, please introduce yourself to me. I will enjoy meeting you and learning about what matters to you. Until then, I hope you have a great start to the fall semester.

Sincerely,

Roy Haggerty
Executive Vice President & Provost