LSU Rolls into New Orleans with the Annual APLU Conference, Bringing Together the Nation’s Land-grant Universities, and Second Lines Out

As LSU President F. King Alexander introduced keynote speaker Walter Isaacson, former editor of TIME magazine, world-renowned author, and current professor of history at Tulane University, at the 2018 Association of Public & Land-grant Universities (APLU) conference in New Orleans November 11-13, he remarked on Isaacson’s role in leading the recovery efforts after Hurricane Katrina and how that experience matched the overarching conference theme of resilience.

“I can’t imagine anyone else who embodies our theme of resilience more completely than our speaker today,” President Alexander said. “I’m excited to hear his thoughts on how we as public university leaders can innovate to turn our challenges into opportunities, and better serve our communities, states, and regions.”

Isaacson then went on to laud the role universities played during both the immediate rescue and the long-term rebuilding efforts.

“If you had to pick a dynamo, it was universities,” he said. “It was LSU, Tulane, Xavier... The universities were the driving force behind the revival of this city, along with the students.”

The sessions for the APLU Council of Research touched on a wide range of themes, including how to better collaborate with China amidst growing national security concerns; the importance of communicating the value of research to the general public; how to address sexual harassment at research institutions; and how machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) can be used at universities to help manage admissions, orientation, and facilities, among other repetitive tasks (without going overboard, however—Henry Kautz with the National Science Foundation showed a funny/not-so-funny example of how, when shown a picture of a turtle and asked what it was, the AI decided that it wasn’t a turtle, but a rifle—a mistake a virtual teaching assistant hopefully never will make).

Monday's sessions ended with a second line led by the Lagniappe Brass Band from the French Quarter conference hotel to the House of Blues, an event co-sponsored by the LSU Office of Research & Economic Development. Vice President Kalliat T. Valsaraj welcomed President F. King Alexander and Interim Executive Vice President and Provost Stacia Haynie, among other notable guests—and danced a little, too.

Photos by Elsa Hahne/LSU.