(September 4, 2009) 5 to 25 How Everything that Can Be Good at a University is Bad at Southern Miss The 3-Sept-09 USMNEWS.net report entitled Is Saunders Losing Control? highlighted the simple fact that USM’s external funding has fallen off by 10.8% since current USM president Martha Saunders took the institutional reins in mid 2007. That fact exists despite Saunders’ 31-Aug-09 proclamation (before her extended cabinet) to the contrary, and things promise to get worse given the 3-Sept-09 announcement that USM vice president of research and economic development, Cecil Burge, will be retiring at the end of December-2009. With these bits of bad news, reporters at USMNEWS.net decided to check on how things are progressing at USM with regard to the fourmost commonly examined metrics of a higher educational institution’s overall health.

ARTICLES CONCERNING
MARTHA D. SAUNDERS, PRESIDENT
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI

For more articles and editorials concerning Dr. Saunders please click here.

(September 9, 2009) Judge Rules Suit against Saunders and University of Wisconsin at Whitewater to be Decided by a Jury Litigation seems to follow President Saunders. While Chancellor at the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater [“UWW”], she supervised removal of long time Dean Howard Ross from his position based on false claims that Dr. Ross had misappropriated university resources and misused university funds. “The judge ordered a trial on [Former College of Letters and Sciences Dean Howard] Ross' claims that he was singled out by a racist auditor and later demoted because he is black.” [Associated Press]

(September 10, 2009) GH Chatter The number of USMers who think Saunders may be on the block herself, and as a result of several cases of mismanagement, seems to grow by the day. Some are also commenting that it is interesting that her previous top-level administrative stints in academe lasted just a few years. Her recent stay atop the University of Wisconsin at Whitewater seems to come to mind. Speaking of that, did you know she had legal issues there?

(September 17, 2009) USM Enrollment Up, But Not By As Much As Claimed Comparing USM and IHL Totals To hear the Martha Saunders administration tell it, USM’s total enrollment has risen from 16,008 students (Fall 2008) to 16,668 students (Fall 2009). Of course, as explained in Jana Bryant’s 11-Sept-09 presser entitled “Southern Miss Announces Largest Enrollment in University History,” the numbers used to come up with the 4.1% increase in enrollment are the dreaded “duplicated enrollment” or “duplicated headcount” that USM officials are so fond of, and that counts enrollees at USM-H and USM-GC as separate students, without regard to whether or not that is the actual case.

(September 13, 2009) Consider Dr. Saunders, in this time of financial crisis in which people are losing jobs and you have called on the IHL to increase the tuition burden on our students, what have you done to reduce administrative bloat? Since your public statements are silent on the issue, may we assume you have done nothing?