From:  Joel Tohline, Interim Director
       LSU Center for Applied Information Technology and Learning
       [LSU CAPITAL]

To:    LSU Faculty

As most of you know, this year through Governor Foster's leadership,
the Louisiana legislature approved funding for an information technology
(IT) initiative that is aimed at driving economic development throughout
the state.  Through this IT initiative, LSU has received $7 million in
new, recurring funding.  (We expect the level of funding to rise to 
$9.1 million, beginning next fiscal year.)   LSU has been challenged
to invest these funds in a number of broad areas that will:

  -- Better prepare students to enter the modern, IT-intensive
     workplace;
  -- Focus more of our research enterprise on IT-related fields
     of discovery; and
  -- Promote a more rapid deployment of new technologies into the
     marketplace.

Consistent with these goals, we expect to use a majority of these funds 
to hire new faculty whose expertise is in IT-intensive areas of research 
and instruction.  (Taking into account the need to hire additional 
technical staff and to support additional graduate students as well,
we should be able to hire roughly 45 new faculty with the available
new funds.)   It is not yet clear, however, into what broad areas new 
faculty should be hired.   

With this broadcast e-mail, I am inviting faculty from across the campus 
to submit to me short (roughly 3-page) writeups that identify/recommend
broad areas of research into which new faculty ought to be hired using
the funds that have come to LSU through the Governor's IT initiative. Any 
suggestion that you submit should be forward-looking, should be cognizant 
of Louisiana's need for a stronger and more diverse economy (see the
Governor's Vision 2020; www.lded.state.la.us/new/vision2020/contents.htm), 
and should meet the goals of the IT initiative, as itemized above.  I 
encourage you to think "outside the box," and not to submit recommendations 
that are designed simply to enhance a single, traditional disciplinary unit.    
I am also soliciting recommendations regarding infrastructure issues that 
should be addressed if we are going to attract and retain top faculty in 
IT-intensive areas of research and instruction.

Please submit your recommendations/ideas ...

                 To:   tohline@lsu.edu
                 By:   Tuesday, 25 September 2001
             Length:   3 pages
   Preferred Format:   pdf    
                      (MSWord and plain text also acceptable)

All recommendations will be made available for comment to the entire LSU 
community, and will be reviewed by LSU CAPITAL's executive committee** 
with an eye toward presenting the most compelling ideas to an external 
advisory panel later this fall semester.   Guided by the advice of this
external advisory panel, LSU CAPITAL's executive committee will decide 
into which broad areas of research and instruction new faculty will be 
hired with IT funding over the next 3-5 years.

If you have any questions about this solicitation, please either contact
me by e-mail (tohline@lsu.edu), or give me a call (578-6851).  Thank you 
in advance for giving serious thought to this important matter.  This is 
an extraordinary opportunity, not only for LSU but for the state as a 
whole.
            

**LSU CAPITAL's Executive Committee:
    Mark Emmert, Chancellor
    Dan Fogel, Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost
    Kevin Smith, Vice Chancellor for Research and Graduate Studies
    Tom Clark, Dean, Ourso College of Business Administration
    Pius Egbelu, Dean, College of Engineering
    Harold Silverman, Dean, College of Basic Sciences
    Joel Tohline, Interim Director, LSU CAPITaL
--------------------------------------------------------------------------