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
 Connect with Provost Haggerty on LinkedIn!
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