financialissues19

(July 1, 2008 ) Perks for Buds IX The McCarty Professorship Dr. Chang Hsieh is a Professor of MIS and the McCarty Professorship holder for many years. This professorship is awarded for a two-year term. Hsieh has held onto this prize for several terms in a row. The assumption is because of a lack of genuine competition for it since Don Davis retired. As usual, there is more at work here than that.

(August 10, 2008) Textbook Bad Press CoB Once Again Finds Itself in Middle of an Ill-Timed Controversy "Outraged yet resigned to the inevitable, [USM] students will shell out big bucks this week for textbooks that they probably can't sell back." With this quote, the higher education reporter for The Hattiesburg American, Valerie Wells, began her 10-Aug-08 article entitled, "Fingers pointed as price of books continues to rise." According to Wells' article, textbook prices have risen "an average of 6 percent per year," and they "nearly tripled from December 1986 to December 2004."

(August 12, 2008) Do You See What I See? by Joe Hall Valerie Wells’ 10-Aug-08 news item for The Hattiesburg American entitled “Fingers pointed as price of books continues to rise,” and the related USMNEWS.net essay, Textbook Bad Press, are already raising some eyebrows across the USM campus. As stated in an editorial in the 12-Aug-08 issue of The Hattiesburg American, “[a] number of pernicious trends are at work to keep textbook[. . . prices] at almost ridiculous levels . . .”

(August 12, 2008) Perks for Buds XIII (Not) Working 8 to 5, What a Way to Make a Living Once upon a time, CoB administrators were typically in the building from 8:00 to 5:00, Monday through Friday, except for the obvious things like lunch. Many did not do much, but they were here to sign forms for faculty, staff, and students, and make a decision if it could not be avoided. Donnie Daniel, a former Finance chair, was infamous for walking to the convenience store to get a newspaper most afternoons, especially in the summer. He would sit in his office and read the paper, drink coffee, and wish he was hunting or fishing somewhere else; but he was here.

(August 19, 2008) CoB News, 19 August 2008 URGENT: Get Your CoB Golf Shirt Now! On 14-August-2008, CoB faculty and staff received an e-mail marked "URGENT." The subject line of that e-mail read "CoB Golf Shirt Orders," and the e-mail message was from Meredith Cothern, the CoB's new development officer. That e-mail is inserted below.

(August 22, 2008) CoB News, 22 August 2008 USM Textbook Scandal Expands to Online Fees The Hattiesburg American higher education reporter, Valerie Wells, continues to produce interesting investigative reports on activities at USM. With her 20-August-08 story entitled “Online fees add to costs,” Wells digs further into student fees controversies that have been plaguing USM for the past several days.