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Middleton Library to remain open 24 hours a day during finals week, page 4.
a look at different sports teams’ Academic Progress Rate, page 5.
Get clothing ideas to expand your summer wardrobe, page 6.
THE DAILY REVEILLE WWW.LSUREVEILLE.COM
VolumeÊ 114,Ê IssueÊ 141
Friday,Ê MayÊ 7,Ê 2010
BUDGET CUTS
Tuition reform passes committee By Xerxes A. Wilson Senior Staff Writer
The Great Outdoors BRIANNA PACIORKA / The Daily Reveille
A mule pulls down a fence Jan. 15 to inaugurate the opening of the Rural Life Museum’s visitor center.
Rural Life Museum celebrates 40th anniversary, commemorates with open house May 16 By Ryan Buxton Senior Staff Writer
As years fly by and students move further into the technology age, the University offers a place where time stands still Ñ the LSU Rural Life Museum. The museum celebrates its 40th anniversary this year. Since its founding in 1970, the outdoor museum has been a gateway to historical Louisiana. And the attraction is popular. The museum receives about 60,000 visitors each year, with a recent record-breaking 20 percent increase in participation, said David Floyd, Rural Life Museum director.
Ò It gives students a chance to see how their ancestors lived,Ó said Tonja Normand, the museumÕ s development director. Ò What we show is from the perspective of how the rural plain people lived.Ó The grounds cover 25 acres on a 450-acre parcel of land and feature 32 historical buildings such as slave cabins and a plantation overseerÕ s house, Normand said. The museum will commemorate its anniversary May 16 when it holds an open house. Admission will be free, and guests can tour the new visitor center that was recently completed after about a year of work. The center cost about $5 million to build and was funded through donations, Normand said. It
features a theater and updated restrooms. Floyd said the goal was to create a comfortable building that supported the historic appeal of the museum. Ò We wanted to be stealthy and very low key,Ó Floyd said. Ò We didnÕ t want to interrupt the historical structure.Ó The center was constructed with materials found throughout rural Louisiana, like tin and old wood. One wall is made of logs dating back to 1840, Floyd said. But the center is only meant to ANNIVERSARY, see page 15
See more pictures from the Rural Life Museum in a slideshow at lsureveille.com.
University administrators, faculty and student leaders witnessed the GovernorÕ s plan for tuition reform clear its first political hurdle of the legislative session Thursday. An amended version of House Bill 1171, also known as the LA Grad Act, passed through the House Education Committee without opposition Thursday. Authored by Rep. Jim Tucker, R-Algiers, the bill would give universities the authority to raise their tuition and increase autonomy to manage university functions like travel regulations and procurement. The University must meet retention and graduation goals benchmarked against Southern Regional Education Board peers to be granted the planÕ s advantages. The bill passed without opposition, but much debate centered around the timeframe in which universities can reap the benefits of the measure. In its original form, the legislation would have allowed LSU Baton Rouge to increase its tuition by 10 percent for the coming school year. Tucker amended the bill, LA GRAD, see page 15
ENVIRONMENT
Crews ready oil containment box By The Associated Press ON THE GULF OF MEXICO (AP) Ñ Crews prepared Thursday to lower a 100-ton box they hoped would cut off most of the crude spewing from a blown-out well in the Gulf of Mexico, the urgency of their task underscored by oil that started washing up on delicate barrier islands. If the concrete-and-steel box they plan to plunge a mile into the ocean works, it could collect as much as 85 percent of the oil leaking from the ocean floor. The technique has not been tried before at that depth.
Ò Hopefully, it will work better than they expect,” first mate Douglas Peake told The Associated Press aboard the ship that brought the box to the site. The AP is the only news organization with access to the containment effort. It wonÕ t solve the problem altogether. Oil has been leaking since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20, killing 11 workers. Crews are drilling a relief well to take the pressure off the blown-out well at the site, but that could take up to three months. More than 200,000 gallons of
oil a day are pouring from the well, creating a massive Keep sheen that has been floating on the Gulf up-to-date for more than two with the weeks. As it moved oil spill at: closer to land, http://www. crews were frantically laying boom lsureveille. and taking other com/oil-spillsteps to prevent it recovery. from oozing into delicate coastal wetlands. A pinkish, oily substance was OIL, see page 15
GERALD HERBERT / The Associated Press
A worker is carried in a personnel basket Thursday in preparation to lower the containment vessel over the oil leak at the site of the Deepwater Horizon rig collapse.