Breaking News -- The 2014 Forbes Best Colleges and Universities rates USM at 553 out of 650 or stated a little differently in the bottom 15%

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Over the past several years, usmnews.net has published literally thousands of reports from current and former faculty who share my belief that USM has ineffectively and inefficiently employed far too much of its resources, both in terms of money and people. The purpose of usmnews.net is not to provide a public relations view. That is amply supplied by The University of Southern Mississippi's public relations department.

Chauncey M. DePree, Jr. Editor
marcdepree@gmail.com (Click here for editorial policy.)
More than 16,691,000 hits
"The fun money is private money. At Southern Miss, I've got state dollars and I've got Foundation dollars. It's real easy to tell them apart. I tell people I've got two checkbooks. I've got my booze account and my non-booze account. Out of the state money I'm pretty constrained what in I can do. ... Foundation dollars, that's when I take my money out of my booze account, I can pretty much do anything I want with it." D. Harold Doty, former Dean, College of Business, University of Southern Mississippi, current Dean, University of Texas at Tyler
In August 2011, Martha Saunders smiled as she presented Galaxy Tabs to selected students. Three senior adminstrators were suspended. Two are no longer employees of the University. Saunders subsequently declared herself "tired" and resigned as president. (For more reports re "Tabletgate", click here.)
August 7, 2014

Letter to the Editor and Editorial Comment -- Dear usmnews.net

Hiring More Administrators is the Same Old Nonsense Solution

Andy Thomason Says Let's Name Plagiarists And Their Silly Defenses

Idiot Administrators and Sports

Word from the Sports Blogs

What an embarrassment!
For readers who have requested quicker access to reports about Dr. Saunders' and now Dr. Bennett's airplane, please click here. A good place to start is Cost Per Flight Hour which includes links to the detailed cost and usage data obtained through open records requests.

usmnews.net
It's only human to be curious. And, what is hidden is the most tempting. Like the personal lives of those who lord it over us for so many of our most formative years: Teachers! The most influential among them are university professors. Like to peek in on how university faculty and administrators behave in their natural habitat? Listen in on their private conversations? Glimpse what they're really up to? Rufus McCoy instantly beams you to the exotic and secret world of academe. FREE to Amazon Prime members.
Saw Rigolleto at the Houston Grand Opera. Wow! Just as good as New York.

Marc DePree, Editor, usmnews.net
Academic Research
Other current research by Chauncey M. DePree, Jr., DBA is available at Amazon.com:

Plagiarism Is Now Ethically Acceptable, AACSB Affirms Copying Other Members' Submission Documents "Without Proper Citation"

Other current research can be downloaded free from SSRN (several projects are Top Ten downloads on SSRN):

"A General Theory to Test Social Reality"

"A Sound Foundation: The FASB Got Its Conceptual Framework Right, The IASB Didn't"

"An Evolution of Form and Content: A Practical Guide to Use of the FASB's Conceptual Framework"


"VIRGINIA TECH DANGER!"

Echoes of Mississippi Supremacists
at
University of Southern Mississippi
"VIRGINIA TECH DANGER!" is available at Amazon.
Ethics, Power, and Academic Corruption

By Chauncey M. DePree, Jr., DBA

The Gordon Cannon Doctrine of Plagiarism: Dr. Gordon Cannon, chemistry professor at USM, has surmised a foolproof method of determining whether a document is plagiarized. His method? He asked a few friends: Would you consider copying bureaucratic boilerplate plagiarism? Dr. Cannon did not provide the original or copied documents or any context to his friends. He merely asked, Would you consider copying bureaucratic boilerplate plagiarism? His friends' answered, No.

And indeed there is no plagiarism. None at all. Ever. Dr. Cannon's methodology proves that no document can be plagiarized. Simply ask a few friends without showing them the documents in question or providing any context: "Would you consider copying bureaucratic boilerplate plagiarism?"

With mathematical certainty, their answer will be: "Of course not."

If The Gordon Cannon Doctrine of Plagiarism seems absurd, you ain't seen nothin', yet. Read on.

Fiction
Click here for reports June, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, Hattiesburg American reported "'I'm always happy when the commissioner comes to campus because he normally brings us a good, healthy check," joked Bennett...". I have news for you Rodney.


June 11, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, The irony of your recent series [Speaking Out About the Rising Cost of Education] has not been lost on many of your readers.

June 19, 2014
"Ivory Tower" The Movie and the Review An excerpt of a review of "Ivory Tower" in The Chronicle of Higher Education by William Deresiewicz: "Few who talk about college in public understand it, and few who understand it talk about it...".

June 20, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, Here is a question I heard a few days ago: what is [IHL Commissioner] Hank Bounds' claim to fame? Answer -- he presided over the worst K-12 school system in the country...
June 24, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, How did one of the bogus journals (discussed in Gaming the System, An Investigative Series on Cob Faculty Research Credentials) get to be a B-level journal at the CoB?
June 26, 2014
Rain on the Parade? USM Rains on It Own Parade Review the two articles and ask yourself why USM did not report what the USM Foundation earned this year, a boom year in the stock market. What USM administrators don't say is often more important than what they do say.

June 30, 2014
Well, Skip, Who's Taking Your Place Tomorrow? As previously reported, "The University of Southern Mississippi invites applicants for a full-time, 12-month, tenure- track faculty position as director of the School of Accountancy in the College of Business...Starting date is July 1, 2014...".


July 1, 2014
What's up with Former Provost Bob Lyman? When usmnews.net sees a pattern in searches, there is usually something up. Typically, someone is looking to depart Southern Miss. Recently, we began to see searches like the following:
July 7, 2014
What? No One Applying? The position of Director, School of Accountancy at the University of Southern Mississippi has been open and unfilled since September 18, 2013

July 8, 2014
School of Accountancy Still Doesn't Know How to Present Itself on Internet Skip Hughes is shown as the Director. However, Gwen Pate is shown as the Director here: http://www.usm.edu/business/faculty-and-staff. Well, what's new? Incompetent website as usual. Skip is no longer listed as a faculty member.


July 9, 2014
Nothing Like Sneaking Out of Town Where'd you go, Skip? Kind of disappeared. What happened? When visiting USM's webpage "About the Director" all the sudden that page says, "Access denied." Just yesterday it reported Skip as Director of School of Accountancy.

July 10, 2014
Skip, When Did You Include Gwen as a Coauthor on the Recent Article? Did She Do Anything To Earn It? At the Kansas State Academic Conference, February 2013, the following presentation was made by then-Director of School of Accountancy Skip Hughes:

July 11, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, For those of your readers who may have missed it, Southern Miss' athletic director Bill McGillis announced his intention to waste more money. He is looking to "upgrade" Reed Green Coliseum [where the Golden Eagles play basketball]. Since few people attend the games, what purpose is served?


July 14, 2014
Dear Editor, Back in 2011, you reported on the hiring of TWO co-head softball coaches at USM. Well, since then, these coaches have had a significant problem with retaining their softball players. Many have quit mid-season, with more, never returning after summer break.

July 16, 2014
July 21, 2014
I'm your cupcake or Selling Losses for Cash is not a Notable Achievement In the Sunday Hattiesburg American, Jason Munz, Southern Miss Sports Writer proclaimed that among "the more notable Golden Eagle accomplishments during the past year include:

July 22, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, You've frequently said that The Hattiesburg American is a public relations arm of Southern Miss. After that bizarre article [McGillis sees bright future after year one at USM], I have to agree with you.
July 23, 2014
What Exactly Does Harold Doty Do? If you search the UT Tyler website, it appears he does nothing. Given the massive number of administrators, why not at least rationalize their activities. Say something. After all, UT Tyler is not a top secret organization like the CIA.

July 25, 2014
Edward Nissan, Ph.D. A very long-time coauthor of Farhand Niroomand is Edward Nissan. Edward Nissan, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus of Economics Dr. Edward Nissan is a professor emeritus of Economics in the Department of Political Science, International Development, and International Affairs at The University of Southern Mississippi.
July 29, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, I have a question. Whenever I go the Chicago, I drop by the University of Chicago and take a book from the shelf. Sometimes I even read a few pages. Harvard's libraries are really cool. They make a great place to read The Wall Street Journal.
July 30, 2014
After All the Years of Working Together, Does Niroomand Go Along With Nissan's (Mis?)Representation? What is Farhang Niroomand's role in his frequent and long-time coauthor's, Edward Nissan's, representations that he was a "visiting as academic scholar in 2011" at the London School of Economics?
July 31, 2014
Dakhlia! What are you up to now? Sami Dakhlia once taught at in the College of Business at Southern Miss. As the locals say, Dakhlia wasn't from around here.
August 1, 2014
What an embarrassment! The 2014 Forbes Best Colleges and Universities report is out: Of the 650 schools rated by Forbes, in terms of Mississippi, Millsaps College is #333, Ole Miss is 359, Mississippi State is 365, Jackson State is 462, Mississippi College is 522 and USM is 553. That puts USM at the 15th percentile-bottom of the barrel,
August 4, 2014
Word from the Sports Blogs Rodney Bennett swing and a miss. . . by 2nd St. Eagle " Sat Apr 12, 2014 9:29 am . . . article in sun herald this morning talked about a meeting he had with students and faculty at gulf park campus.
August 5, 2014
Idiot Administrators and Sports The real sport of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries is watching idiot university administrators "leading" their schools' corrupt sports programs into the crapper. Here's another:

August 6, 2014
Andy Thomason Says Let's Name Plagiarists And Their Silly Defenses Andy Thomason of the Chronicle of Higher Education says let's name plagiarists and reveal their silly defenses. Thomason offers a few of his own examples.

August 7, 2014
Hiring More Administrators is the Same Old Nonsense Solution Rodney Bennett recently provided the following critique of his Gulf Coast critics and a defense of his proposals. We've heard it all before many times. At what point in history do we ignore any leader who offers the same tired ideas? You decide.

August 8, 2014
Dear usmnews.net, The word around the water cooler is that now that Gwen Pate has become Director of the SofA [School of Accountancy], Mary Morgan Anderson is once again hopeful that she may become a full professor. As you probably know Anderson's father [Jerry Morgan] was chairman of the accounting department when Southern Miss supported Pate's doctoral program.