The Louisiana State University System is budgetarily the largest public university system in Louisiana. F. King Alexander is the system's president. The system has its headquarters in the System Building on the property of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge 3810 West Lakeshore Drive.
The Medical Center of Louisiana at New Orleans (MCLNO) is the name of two teaching hospitals in New Orleans, Louisiana, USA. Both hospitals are part of the Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center in New Orleans, commonly referred to as the LSU Medical School in New Orleans.
The two hospitals are Charity Hospital and University Hospital. Charity Hospital was severely damaged by Hurricane Katrina and closed, possibly permanently.
As of 2014, the Interim LSU Hospital (ILH) is providing services for the community that would have been served by Charity Hospital. A new facility which will be called the University Medical Center is scheduled to open in the spring of 2015.
The original medical school opened in 1931. Among its founders was the physician Edgar Hull, who later contradicted the LSU historian T. Harry Williams' account of the assassination and subsequent death of Huey Pierce Long, Jr.
Louisiana State University (officially Louisiana State University and Agricultural and Mechanical College, often referred to as LSU) is a public coeducational university located in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.[7] The University was founded in 1853 in what is now known as Pineville, Louisiana, under the name Louisiana State Seminary of Learning & Military Academy. The current LSU main campus was dedicated in 1926, and consists of more than 250 buildings constructed in the style of Italian Renaissance architect Andrea Palladio, and occupies a 650-acre (2.6 km²) plateau on the banks of the Mississippi River.
LSU is the flagship institution of the Louisiana State University System, and the largest institution of higher education in Louisiana in terms of student enrollment. In 2011, the University enrolled nearly 24,000 undergraduate and over 5,000 graduate students in 14 schools and colleges. Several of LSU's graduate schools, such as the E.J. Ourso College of Business and the Paul M. Hebert Law Center, have received national recognition in their respective fields of study. Designated as a land-grant, sea-grant and space-grant institution, LSU is also noted for its extensive research facilities, operating some 800 sponsored research projects funded by agencies such as the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the National Endowment for the Humanities, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
LSU's athletics department fields teams in 21 varsity sports (9 men's, 12 women's), and is a member of the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) and the SEC (Southeastern Conference). The University is represented by its mascot, Mike the Tiger.
Louisiana State University Agricultural & Mechanical College had its origin in several land grants made by the United States government in 1806, 1811, and 1827 for use as a seminary of learning. It was founded as a military academy and is still today steeped in military tradition, giving rise to the school's nickname "The Ole War Skule." In 1853, the Louisiana General Assembly established the Seminary of Learning of the State of Louisiana near Pineville, Louisiana. The institution opened January 2, 1860, with Colonel William Tecumseh Sherman as superintendent. A year later, Sherman resigned his position after Louisiana became the sixth state to secede from the Union, on January 26, 1861. The school was forced to close on June 30, 1861, with the start of the American Civil War.
During the course of the war, the University reopened briefly in April 1863, but was closed once again with the invasion of the Red River Valley by the Union Army. The losses sustained by the institution during the Union occupation were heavy, and after 1863 the seminary remained closed for the remainder of the Civil War. Following the surrender of the Confederates at Appomattox Court House on April 9, 1865, General Sherman donated two cannons to the institution. These cannons had been captured from Confederate forces after the close of the war and had been used during the initial firing upon Fort Sumter in April 1861. The cannons are still displayed in front of LSU's Military Science/Aerospace Studies Building.
The seminary officially reopened its doors on October 2, 1865, only to be burned October 15, 1869. On November 1, 1869, the institution resumed its exercises in Baton Rouge, where it has since remained. In 1870, the name of the institution was officially changed to Louisiana State University.
Louisiana State University Agricultural & Mechanical College was established by an act of the legislature, approved April 7, 1874, to carry out the United States Morrill Act of 1862, granting lands for this purpose. It temporarily opened in New Orleans, June 1, 1874, where it remained until it merged with Louisiana State University in 1877. This prompted the final name change for the University to the Louisiana State University and Agricultural & Mechanical College.
On June 7, 1925, Oscar B. Turner, a professor of agronomy, was murdered by an axe-wielding assailant on campus. A panorama of the LSU campus in 1909
On April 30, 1926, the present LSU campus was formally dedicated, following the school's history at the federal garrison grounds (now the site of the state capitol) where it had been located since 1886. Prior to this, LSU utilized the quarters of the Institute for the Deaf, Mute, and Blind. Land for the present campus was purchased in 1918, construction started in 1922, and the move began in 1925; however, it was not until 1932 that the move was finally completed. After some years of enrollment fluctuation, student numbers began a steady increase, new programs were added, curricula and faculty expanded, and a true state university emerged.
In 1928, LSU was a small-time country school that generated little interest or attention in the state. Labeled a "third-rate" institution by the Association of State Universities, the school had only 1800 students, 168 faculty members, and an annual operating budget of $800,000. In 1930, Huey Pierce Long, Jr., the governor of Louisiana, initiated a massive building program on campus to expand the physical plant and add departments.
By 1936, LSU had the finest facilities in the South, a top-notch faculty of 394 professors, a new medical school, more than 6,000 students, and a winning football team. In only eight years, it had risen in size from 88th in the nation to 20th, and it was the 11th largest state university in the nation. Long financed these improvements by arranging for the state to purchase acreage from the old LSU campus, which adjoined the grounds of the new State Capitol building in downtown Baton Rouge. To the consternation of his critics, Long essentially diverted $9 million for LSU's expansion and increased the annual operating budget to $2.8 million.
LSU was hit by scandal in 1939 when James Monroe Smith, appointed by Huey Long as president of LSU, was charged with embezzling a half-million dollars. In the ensuing investigation, at least twenty state officials were indicted. Two committed suicide as the scandal enveloped Governor Richard W. Leche, who received a 10-year federal prison sentence as a result of a kickback scheme. Paul M. Hebert, Dean of LSU's law school at the time, then assumed interim presidency in Smith's place.
During World War II, LSU was one of 131 colleges and universities nationally that took part in the V-12 Navy College Training Program which offered students a path to a Navy commission.
