(September 30, 2010) A Brief History of Saunders’ “Lease” of Airplane N777AQ During a Recession Part 10 Why Is There So Little Trust In Leaders? Does President Saunders mean her budgets about expenditures such as her airplane will be open and honest? That her representations will be transparent so that we won’t need to pry information loose with a Mississippi Open Records request? And that we will get all of the information with the first request and not have to return a second time, and perhaps a third time for obviously missing documents. And, oh boy, watch out for administrators who talk about “more flexible models.”

ARTICLES CONCERNING
MARTHA D. SAUNDERS' AIRPLANE - AIRFARCE ONE

For more articles and editorials concerning Dr. Saunders's airplane please click here.

(October 4, 2010) QUESTION: WHAT SHOULD A TRIP TO GREENVILLE, NC COST? And was the purpose of the trip to attend a football game? $35,579.10

(October 5, 2010) Dr. Lyman & “Mr. Kemp” A Guest Editorial At the 1-Oct-2010 USM faculty senate meeting, USM provost Robert Lyman stated that “Mr. Kemp” – referring to The Hattiesburg American’s higher education reporter Ed Kemp – had done a number of “jobs” on USM in his reporting of the latest financial crisis to shake the 100-year old institution.

(October 5, 2010) A Voice of One? More Questions About the 1-Oct-2010 Faculty Senate Meeting The quote below comes from the final portion of the 1-Oct-2010 USM faculty senate meeting: “The house is burning down, and we’re spending too much time on committee reports. Whereas today we should’ve debated . . . a fierce debate on what we want the administration to know.”

(October 6, 2010) QUESTION REVISITED: WHAT SHOULD A TRIP FROM HATTIESBURG, MS TO GAINESVILLE, FL COST? Usmnews.net is revisiting our report of the trip to Gainesville, FL. Since the initial publication, usmnews.net received additional information that should have been included as part of our original Mississippi Open Records request. Although the original response to the Mississippi Open Records request was represented to be complete, usmnews.net reporters and investigators were able to identify significant gaps and inconsistencies in the information. A follow-up request for “the rest of the story” produced additional documents, including pilots logs. Based on this additional information, produced by the University several weeks later, we are now supplementing these reports.

(October 13, 2010) 31st & Pearl Martha Saunders on University Foundations When USM president Martha Saunders stated that the main rationale for leasing a Beechcraft King Air from the USM Foundation was to avoid paying U.S. commercial airlines for university-related air travel, and to instead begin paying ourselves for the same, she effectively opened wide a door that has heretofore been swollen shut.