Hy and Christopher start the show by celebrating the 200th Anniversary of the visit of the Marquis de Lafayette to New Orleans on his 1825 Farewell Tour. We are joined by General Lafayette himself (as well as his alter ego, Mark Schneider) and the President of the American Friends of Lafayette, Chuck Schwam.We then talked to Trump tariffs and the potential deal to open 10% trade with 75 countries, and Christopher says the words you never expected, “Thank God for Benjamin Netanyahu and Elon Musk”.  Could expanded free trade follow?For our main local topic, Christopher argues, “LSU Must Invest in UNO”State Sen. Jimmy Harris, D-New Orleans, filed a bill last week to transfer the University of New Orleans, which has operated deficit and plunging enrollment, from the University of Louisiana system to the LSU system.       From 1956 until 2011, UNO seemingly prospered under LSU’s aegis – boasting of tens of thousands of students and graduates. Senate President Cameron Henry and House Speaker Phillip DeVillier both believe it could be again, and the GOP leadership stands in bipartisan support of Harris‘ bill. The legislation to transfer administrative control of UNO (in the April 14 legislative session) comes after the Board of Regents unanimously voted in favor of returning administrative oversight to LSU. If Harris’ bill passes, the transfer process would happen before the fall semester begins, yet few have devoted much brain power into reasoning exactly how LSU would reverse the loss in student enrollment, now at just 6,500, nor how to cover a projected future debt over $30 million.      Mostly, though, the legislative discussion has ignored why UNO became successful in the first place. LSU-NO, as the former lakefront military base-turned-university was originally dubbed, enjoyed decades of success in large part due to the quality staff and academic programs and partnerships championed by its founding first chief executive, Dr. Homer Hitt,.     He led UNO from 1958 to 1980, and throughout his tenure as Chancellor, sought to create a university to which students would be drawn for more reasons than easy driving distance from Metairie or Gentilly.   Carol Gelderman, later the famed biographer of Henry Ford and Louis Auchincloss, was one of the young junior professors recruited by Chancellor Hitt in the early days of LSU-NO. As a relatively unknown female junior professor, she seemed a risky choice for most academic recruiters. Rarely did single, female professors from out-of-state usually win such posts. However, Hitt saw talent beyond her gender and youth, and students would clamor to win a spot in her class over the decades. In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly prior to her death, Gelderman noted the intellectual atmosphere and sense of excellence which Hitt engendered.    Gelderman lamented, “When UNO was taken away from LSU…many of the departments that made it special were gutted.” Yet, she also admitted that that process was underway even before the transfer from LSU, as the school no longer had the leadership it once enjoyed.   From the beginning, Hitt put a premium on talent, recruiting other young trendsetting professors like Nick Muller, Maurice Villere, John E. Altazan, Tim Ryan, Ellis Marsalis and, of course, Stephen Ambrose. Under Hitt’s watch, not only would the history department birth Ambrose’s Eisenhower Center, the intellectual forerunner of the National World War II Museum; theatre would spawn Marsalis’ award-winning jazz performance program; and Altazan’s business department would engender a world-renowned economic analysis group under Ryan and Villere.    Partnerships with notable local engineering firms would turn mechanical engineering into a national destination for aspiring engineers, and the naval architecture program reached international standing when it became a hot-house of development for Avondale and Bollinger shipyards.    Hitt achieved these academic triumphs despite meager fiscal resources thanks to strategic partnerships with industry and with the nonprofit sectors. Likewise, he stood by his professors, even when jealousy in academia resented bestselling authors or key research grants going to a small, supposedly “second rate” college.     In other words, Hitt’s vision and stable presence over decades played a huge role, as did his willingness to reach beyond the typical university boundaries to seek funding and academic excellence to enhance UNO.  Without that kind of vision and focus, Gelderman noted that UNO might never have thrived in the first place.  After all, New Orleans does currently have another public four-year university in SUNO, which fulfills many of the roles of a “commuter” campus education. Logic suggests that LSU should fund and support UNO to accentuate its distinctiveness, or UNO has no reason to exist.      Some of the proposed initial changes could involve restoring UNO’s historic academic relationships, particularly with the WWII Museum. Originally, the former D-Day Museum was supposed to serve as the nexus of a graduate American studies program specializing in 20th century military and political history, in direct partnership with UNO. The WWII Museum ultimately did create those academically accredited graduate programs, yet its staff opted partnered with the University of Arizona, due to UNO’s operational deterioration in recent years. Mechanical engineering has lost many of its strategic alliances with local industry, even as Tulane gave up that academic course of study post-Katrina, eliminating the academic competition. Naval architecture never really embraced the mergers of the local shipbuilding industry. Reaching out to the remaining players must stand as a priority to insure on-the-job, real-would experience for UNO students.     LSU, though, must resolve to treat UNO as fat more than as a satellite similar to LSU-Shreveport or LSU-Alexandria. Members of faculty at these schools have lamented to this newspaper that they often feel like “stepchildren” in academic planning. The LSU main campus in Baton Rouge is crowded and surging with out-of-state students – a sign of health. Some of its programs – perhaps even entire academic departments – could be transferred to New Orleans’ Lakefront campus, which has quite a lot of available space. Upper divisional and graduate students would follow.       Unless the LSU board commits to putting both financial AND academic resources into UNO, little chance exists that the university will be able to grapple with its substantial long-term debt, which Board of Regents officials said could be as high as $30 million. Nor will it be able to deal with an enrollment that has gone from 17,000 to 6500.  More importantly, a city as dynamic as New Orleans deserves a research-oriented, public university of excellence. 

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