JOHN CLARK, ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF FINANCE
(November 4, 2008) Clark to Chair FRELS? A Look at What “Yes” Might Mean for Other Parts of the CoB It is an
understatement to say that the prospect of having to spend $900,000 per year using external personnel to staff the
chairperson’s office of each of the six new CoB departments in new CoB dean Lance Nail’s 2008 reorganization plan
is daunting. Because of the financial strains faced by Mississippi, such a plan is DOA to say the least. That means
that Nail and his associate dean Joseph Peyrefitte are going to have look inside the CoB to find leaders for these
divisions, and that possibility has a number of CoBers concerned, and possibly rightly so given the recent report
indicating that MIS professor Donna Davis will likely become the inaugural chair of Business, Economics and
Management Information Systems (BEMIS).
(December 9, 2008) CoB News, 9 December 2008 Clark's Role? One has to wonder just how involved CoB associate
professor of finance John Clark is with the scandals involving the USM Foundation that have plagued USM in recent
months, particularly the planegate episode. As Director of the CoB’s Center for Financial Services, Clark often works
closely with officials at the Foundation. As such, Clark may well have played a role in the Foundation’s purchase of
the Beechcraft King Air 200 airplane that the Foundation will be leasing to USM.
(March 10, 2009) Will John Clark Go as Far as Paris this Year? On “Senior Night” in Norman, Oklahoma, Oklahoma
women’s basketball star Courtney Paris told the home crowd (see below) that the OU Sooners would win the 2009
NCAA Championship. She didn’t stop there. Paris said that if the 3rd-ranked Sooners failed to bring home the title
she would repay OU the cost of her basketball scholarship, which is estimated to be $64,000.