miscellaneous52

For more articles and editorials concerning miscellaneous issues and thoughts, please click here.

(May 30, 2011) . . . breaking news . . . Did Greene’s Detractor Threaten to use “Campus Pull”? HATTIESBURG – Ed Kemp’s 30-May-2011 article for The Hattiesburg American entitled “Prof’s suspension shows holes in university policy” provides a few new details surrounding the Martha Saunders administration’s recent suspension of USM political science professor Kate Greene.

(May 31, 2011) Dear usmnews.net, Thanks for the editorial concerning the end of the Anita Davis led USM Faculty Senate. Let us hope Dr. Davis’ replacement isn’t even more of a spokesman for the Saunders’ administration. (As Alexander Pope observed, “hope springs eternal in the human breast”.) I fear that shared governance is about to go the way of the extinct species of your choice.

(June 1, 2011) Privacy Of continuing interest to visitors of usmnews.net and the Chronicle of Higher Education is a recent article entitled "Why Privacy Matters Even If You 'Have Nothing to Hide' (http://chronicle.com/article/Why-Privacy-Matters-Even-if/127461/)

(June 3, 2011) Dear usmnews.net: Am I crazy or does it seems like everyone outed on your board for what they have done to faculty members or the university ends up getting promoted, lauded, and/or getting a big pay raise? If so, do you have a waiting list to get on for such treatment?

(August 11, 2011) Nepotism at Italian and American Universities A few days ago, usmnews.net received an email from Concerned Citizen addressing nepotism at the University of Texas – Tyler. A few days later, a research project entitled, “Measuring nepotism through shared last names: the case of Italian academia” was announced. Before you read the email from Concerned Citizen, it is instructive to consider an excerpt from the Italian experience.

(September 19, 2011) . . . breaking news . . . USM Remains in Bottom Tier of U.S. News Ranking HATTIESBURG – With the release of the 2012 edition of Best Colleges from U.S. News & World Report, USMNEWS.net has learned that USM remains in the bottom tier of national colleges and universities in the United States.

(September 20, 2011) Special Report Tar Balls USM Relying on Controversial Sources of Money At the 8-Sept-2011 Fall 2011 Convocation, USM president Martha Saunders boasted about a couple of new grant successes. One of these is a $2.2 million grant received by USM to study the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Saunders also noted that another $6 million is forthcoming from British Petroleum (BP) of all places,