miscellaneous24

(September 16, 2008) USM's Next Controversy? A New Look at the Fraternity House Hazing Incident Near the end of the 5-Sept-08 press conference regarding the recent fraternity house hazing incident on the campus of USM, a reporter informed USM officials that the mother of the hazing victim, Melanie Besancon of Waveland, told her (the reporter) that the Kappa Sigma fraternity event, during which the hazing episode occurred, also involved the USM chapter of Kappa Delta sorority. Without hesitation, both Joseph Paul, USM Vice President of Student Affairs, and Martha Saunders, USM President, denied the charge.

(September 17, 2008) 31st & Pearl By George The autumn of EFIB chair George Carter’s career is probably not going the way he thought it would several years ago. Sure, he’s back “in the administration game,” but things are so different now from the way things were in the ‘70s and ‘80s that being back in the game is likely little consolation for Carter.

(September 17, 2008) How do we Know Enrollment Didn’t Go Down? More on the “Duplicated Headcount” Nonsense Just today USM officials released news that USM’s enrollment had increased by 3% this fall semester 2008. According to Jana Bryant’s 17-Sept-08 presser, the total “duplicated headcount” at USM now stands at 16,016 students, 13,093 of which are undergraduates.

(September 18, 2008) CoB News, 18 September 2008 More “Jungle Rules” Fallout? As CoB finance professor James Lindley so eloquently explained to former USM provost Jay Grimes during a CoB-wide convocation on 10-April-2007, when college-level administrators see the university’s central administrators choosing to disregard the rules, college-level administrators will soon begin to make the same choice. This on-the-mark “Lindley Logic” extends on down the line, from college-level administrators to professors, and then from professors to their students.

(October 3, 2008) CoB News, 3 October 2008 New “Assistant Deans” Coming to CoB The e-mail posted below was sent from the CoB dean’s office earlier today. It was sent in response to news received by Lance Nail that the existence of two “new assistant dean positions” in the CoB was not known by all CoB faculty and staff. The existence of these two new positions was announced by Nail at the CoB’s 2008-09 fall convocation several days ago.

(October 20, 2008) 31st & Pearl Friends Win Benefits The recent story about new CoB Professor of Practice Michael J. Gade highlights a disturbing trend in the CoB's hiring practices in recent years. That practice concerns the hiring of friends and associates of other relatively recent CoB hires, and we got a good glimpse of what was to come with it when, shortly after the ECO hired Akbar Marvasti, EFIB chair George Carter and former CoB dean Harold Doty pulled Marvasti's friend Ray Canterbery out of retirement to (mysteriously) join the CoB as a scholar-in-]residence.