Areas of Impact
College of Science Mission
For more than a century, LSU’s College of Science has impacted students across the university, where nearly all undergraduates pass through our halls to take required math and science courses. And every day, more than 3,000 students, faculty, and staff within the college’s five academic departments and the LSU Museum of Natural Science make discoveries and conduct research that will answer important questions that improve lives.
The vitality of the LSU College of Science drives the overall strength of LSU by:
- teaching core science and math courses for nearly every undergraduate student
- offering collaborative spaces to support innovative, life-changing faculty and staff research
- serving as a cross-disciplinary hub for biological sciences, chemistry, math, physics and astronomy, and geology and geophysics
Infrastructure
To keep pace with our enrollment growth while meeting the demands for STEM experts and healthcare professionals, we must expand our campus footprint through new teaching and research space. The Our Lady of the Lake Health Interdisciplinary Science Building will instantly close more than half of our current gap in educational and lab space needs.
The College of Science produces more than half of Louisiana’s physicians. Amidst a national shortage, Louisiana lags in physicians per capita – an urgent need that only we can address. In fact, 80 percent of our students are majoring in Biological Sciences, and most are aimed for careers in the health sciences, necessitating preparation in modern labs with support from a robust faculty.
The Our Lady of the Lake Health Interdisciplinary Health Science Building will:
- Add 148,000 square feet of space for STEM education, responding to the 46 percent uptick in admissions applications to the college
- Increase lab space, which speeds times to graduation for STEM students (one-third of all LSU students) and meets the requirement for every LSU freshman to take a lab course
- Eliminate $23 million in deferred maintenance backlog
- Renovate space for food science
- Insert new energy-efficient utility lines, replacing 60-year-old lines
Recruitment & Retention
LSU has defied national higher education projections by welcoming our most academically qualified, most diverse, and largest classes for four consecutive years. We are on track to continue this growth, reflected in the College of Science’s nearly 50 percent uptick in enrollment.
Almost one-quarter of all student credit hours at LSU are taught within our college,
and we typically teach roughly one-third of total instruction for freshmen and sophomore
students. As students progress through their degree programs, our college’s role is
essential. Notably, all engineering majors take our chemistry labs, all petroleum
engineers are heavily immersed in our geology classes, and all pre-health students
take our biology courses. LSU’s new Interdisciplinary Science Building is requisite
to meeting the demands of our trajectory.
Industry Engagement
The Our Lady of the Lake Health Interdisciplinary Science Building offers established
and new industry partners the opportunity to anchor their campus presence as global
leaders in areas including energy, STEM education, and scientific discovery. Leadership
gifts recognized through named spaces within the building will instantly elevate these
partners’ campus presence. Together, we can serve as a national model for industry-university
collaboration while achieving advancements in industry-shaping research and technology
and strengthening the STEM talent pipeline.
Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage
The College of Science is LSU’s leader of scientific discovery and research, positioned to be a global innovator within the area of carbon capture, utilization, and storage. Within the Our Lady of the Lake Health Interdisciplinary Science Building, LSU will create a new destination for CCUS education and research by turning Louisiana’s industrial legacy, expertise, and geography (e.g., coastal and deltaic formation) into a “living lab” for alternative energy – all while strengthening the STEM talent pipeline.