According to the data, which is from 2008, twenty-two of the twenty-five highest paid state employees work in the University system. This include the ten highest paid state employees: LSU President John Lombardi (550k), Athletic Director Stan Bertman (425k), Assistant Head Coach David Crowton (400k), LSU chancellor Mike Martin (400k), Commissioner of the Board of Regents Sally Clausen (377k), President of the Board of Regents Michael Moffett (375k), Vice President of the LSU Board of Supervisors Fredrick Cerise (357.5k), Executive Staff of LSU/Health Care Services Michael Kaiser (353k), and Athletic Director Joseph Alleva (350k).

The Board of Regents employs 14 people that make more than 100k (all bureaucrats; board members themselves are unpaid).  The Board of Supervisors employs 13 people that make more than 200k a year.

In comparison to these hopelessly bloated salaries, the instructors who were given non renewal notices earlier this year almost all make between 30-60k year.

Madness.

In other news, the Reveille reports that construction will begin this summer on the new $25 million dollar parking garage.  Highland Dining Hall will be demolished for the new garage.  According to administration officials, the garage should be completed in Spring 2012.

The $50 $85 million dollar Student Union renovation, which began in November 2006, is still ongoing.

This crisis is not caused by the global recession.  Rather, it is caused by the the leadership of our educational institutions, who have cynically used the pretense of financial pressure to pursue their own narrow agendas.

Through their decisions (eliminating faculty and programs while continuing unnecessary large-scale construction projects; laying off custodians while giving athletic coaches massive raises), university policymakers have made it clear that their priorities share little in common with those of the teachers, students, and workers who make our school great.

LSU has already sent one year notices of non-renewal to 244 instructors and slashed several programs. Tuition raises and fee increases are surely next on the agenda.

These decisions were not made democratically, but by unelected administrators and bureaucrats.  We – the students, teachers, and workers of LSU – demand a voice in the discussions that will shape our institution.

And we are not alone.  All across the world similar groups of students, teachers, and workers have begun to say that enough is enough.  Over the past year strikes, protests, and sit-ins have temporarily shut down schools in England, Austria, New York, Santa Cruz, Berkeley, and elsewhere.

We will not be silenced: these are OUR universities.  The problems facing LSU are not isolated, but global.   The new student movement to save education must also be international.

The call has gone out for an International Strike and Day of Action in defense of education for Thursday March 4, 2010.  Students, faculty, and staff of LSU will of course participate.  On this day, we are calling on all LSU professors to cancel class, all students to skip class, and all workers to call in sick.  Instead of business as usual, we will begin a constructive discussion about the future of our school – a discussion that is ours to have.

Please email lsustrike@yahoo.com if you want to help with some part of this day (rally, picket, teach-in, sit-in, music, food, etc.).