Lazy River At LSU Creates Budget Debate

It's one of my favorite ways to spend a lazy summer day. Floating in a "lazy river" pool. These are the kinds of pools that gently propel the floater around the pool with a steady current of water. These are the kind of pools you expect to see at a water park, not on a college campus. Especially a college campus where classes and professors and students are being cut because of a budget crisis. But this is Louisiana and strange things happen here.

Construction of a lazy river pool in the shape of the letters " L S U " is currently underway. Many on campus wonder about the feasibility of building such a pool when the university has threatened bankruptcy.  Kevin Cope is President of the LSU Faculty Senate,

The fact that we can build this pool on one budget while the university is sinking on another shows that overall there is a problem with the way universities finance their work.

The problem that Cope addressed to the Louisiana Radio Network concerning different budgets is explained by Student Body President Andrew Mahtook, who says the money is coming from a different source.

It doesn't touch the funding that goes into teachers salaries, funds courses, or anything like that.  The funding for "lazy river" was voted on by the student body as an approved self assessment fee.

So the facts are clear. The money for the lazy river does not affect students, faculty, or classes at LSU. It just sends a very fuzzy message to the rest of the state and the rest of the world. How can the university complain about money when they have money for a new pool?