Proposed Shreveport, LA Mergers
Ongoing discussions of university mergers in Shreveport, LA have resurfaced at a recent meeting of the Louisiana Postsecondary Review Commission. Potential mergers include a combination of LSU-Shreveport and the LSU Health Sciences Center, or LSU-Shreveport with Louisiana Tech University. These discussions have been initiated by politicians and commission members. So far, university officials have been non-committal on the possibilities, and not endorsing any specific options. Like the recent merger discussions in Mississippi, impetus for these mergers has come from outside the institutions, not within – a key indicator that typically does not bode well for merger formalization and implementation. Also of note is that the possibility of the LSU-Shreveport merger with the LSU Health Sciences Center would be a “mission-complementary” merger, as outlined and recommended by Martin and Samels (1994), in that it would add a medical school to the comprehensive university. Alternatively, a combination of LSU-Shreveport and Louisiana Tech would involve combining institutions with duplicative programs, again a model that can prove difficult to formalize successfully.
Recent articles on the subject are listed below:
Shreveport Mayor urges possible LSUS, LSUHSC merger (Shreveporttimes.com)