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(June 8, 2009) The Mermaid President USM president Martha Saunders had some bad news to deliver USM faculty at the 5-June-09 Faculty Senate meeting. There she told those gathered that USM has many "underwater endowments" that will remain a problematic issue into the near future. Of 739 scholarship endowments at USM, Saunders told the Faculty Senate that 435 (or 58.9%) are underwater endowments at the current time. She also stated that the USM Foundation awarded 620 academic scholarships during 2008-09, but that in 2009-10 it would be able to award only 200 scholarships. This drop of 420 represents a fall of 67.7% from 2008-09.

(May 28, 2009) Another Million The Asbury Foundation has just given William Carey University, USM's cross-town academic rival, another $1 million donation. According to Ed Kemp's article in The Hattiesburg American, the AF has now given WCU $2.4 million since 1984. This gift essentially puts WCU on par with USM's recent $6 million gift from the anonymous donor who supported a number of female-led American universities a few months ago. According to USM officials, about $5 million of that gift will go to student scholarships. Sources tell USMNEWS.net that these student beneficiaries will most likely come from the existing USM student body, meaning that 5/6 of the gift will be used in a way that fails to give USM any competitive boost. That leaves $1 million, which president Martha Saunders stated will be used for squishy and mostly undefined strategic initiatives (related to retention). Sound like pillaging to you?

(June 12, 2009) Underwater Professorships The recent USMNEWS.net report, The Mermaid President, indicated that most of the student scholarship endowments held by the USM Foundation are currently "under water," and that as a result the USMF will be able to award only 200 scholarships in 2009-10, down from the 620 of 2008-09. That bit of "very bad news" is now compounded by the information discovered by USMNEWS.net reporters that the CoB's professorship endowments are under water as well, and will not be funded during 2009-10 either.of 67.7% from 2008-09.