A Message from the President

October 1, 2004

Dear Colleagues,

It has been several weeks since I have written a letter to you. It feels as if we have been moving about 100 miles per hour, and I don't foresee a decrease in speed coming anytime soon. I must admit though, I like to be busy. Through this letter I will try to update you on events that affect our university.

I yelled for all of you at the Southern Miss vs. Nebraska football game on Saturday, September 11. Our student-athletes made us proud. I came back to Hattiesburg hoarse from celebrating with the team. I want to congratulate Jeff Bower, his assistant coaches, the athletic department staff, the many fans who went to the game, and those who cheered on our team listening to the radio or watching on television or Internet. I also want to thank those of you who came to the Hattiesburg/Laurel Regional Airport to welcome the team home. It meant a great deal to the student-athletes, coaches and staff members who represent our university so well.

On Monday, September 13, Dr. David Potter, commissioner of the Institutions of Higher Learning, visited the Hattiesburg campus at my invitation. I wanted Dr. Potter to have an opportunity to hear about our accomplishments and challenges from our deans and vice presidents. We will, in the future, ask him to meet with us several times a year so that we can discuss issues of importance to Southern Miss. It is important that we have such meetings to ensure that Dr. Potter and our college board members will have a comprehensive understanding of the academic, operational, fiscal and physical issues that affect Southern Miss. Our meeting was very productive, and I believe Dr. Potter left our campus with a better understanding of our university. I look forward to continued visits of this type.

Last week I traveled to the Gulf Coast and met with several prominent business leaders. The purpose of the meeting was to present data to them on issues of enrollment, academic offerings and recruitment. It is important that the Gulf Coast business community have a full understanding and appreciation for our efforts to expand our Gulf Coast operations. They need to know we have done our homework, we know our target market, we are aggressively fine tuning our operations to better meet the needs of students from south Mississippi, and we need their assistance to be successful.

Speaking of growth, we are certainly seeing it in our enrollment numbers. Enrollment is reported by the IHL Board office staff in two ways, by duplicated and non-duplicated headcount. Duplicated headcount means a student is counted each time he/she enrolls for one or more courses at a different Southern Miss teaching site. For example, a student dually enrolled on our Hattiesburg campus and an off-campus location, like Jackson County, would be counted twice. Duplicated enrollment numbers can be useful because they provide a measure of resources needed for each location a student attends. The IHL Board recognizes that we need to know how many students are at each physical location so we can assure our facilities are equipped to handle the number of students being served. Non-duplicated headcount means that a person enrolling would be counted only one time no matter how many teaching sites he/she might attend.

Our duplicated enrollment numbers are as follows:

2003 2004
Total Enrollment 15,919 16,385 3% increase
Hattiesburg 13,345 13,477 1% increase
Gulf Park 1,738 2,037 17% increase
Other Sites 836 871

Our non-duplicated enrollment numbers are:

2003 2004
Total Enrollment 15,050 15,253 1.3% increase

We were very pleased with a 7.5 percent increase in new freshmen and a 12 percent increase in new transfer students. I extend my thanks to each of you because we all play a roll in recruitment and retention efforts. Keep up the hard work.

On Wednesday, September 22, I attended the inaugural meeting of Momentum Mississippi. Momentum Mississippi is an economic development initiative established by Gov. Haley Barbour for the purpose of job creation/economic growth throughout the state. The committee will utilize the recommendations of Blueprint Mississippi from which long-range economic development plans will be developed for every region of the state. Gov. Barbour stated that Momentum Mississippi recommendations will be included as part of his 2005 legislative agenda and will be a top priority for his administration.

I had to leave the Momentum Mississippi meeting a bit early so that I could make our university presentation to the Legislative Budget Committee. We took a bit of a different approach with the presentation this year, choosing to talk about the great return on investment the state receives from funding provided to The University of Southern Mississippi. We didn't request a specific dollar amount for programs or buildings; instead, we talked about the revenue generated as a result of our grant funding, enrollment growth, and economic development efforts. We fielded good questions from the legislators and look forward to working one-on-one with them in the upcoming legislative session.

On Thursday, September 23, 12 representatives from our state Legislature were on campus for their regular meeting and lunch. I took the opportunity, when I joined them for lunch, to talk about Southern Miss and our needs, to listen to their thoughts on the upcoming session, and to answer any questions they had about our university. It was a very nice, casual setting and I got to know several of the representatives much better. They were quite impressed with the hospitality they received and thanked us repeatedly for providing their accommodations. We were glad to have them on campus as we take every opportunity to bring legislators and other local and statewide elected officials to campus.

On Friday, September 24, I was asked to talk about our strategic goals at the Academic Leaders Workshop for chairs and directors. In addition to reviewing the goals, we discussed why the goals are important and how the academic units can help in assuring our success. For example, it is very important that we increase enrollment through recruitment and retention. Why? We need additional students in order to generate additional revenue since state appropriations are decreasing. Other goals include increasing external research funding, fostering social and economic development, continually improving and evaluating student learning, and using our resources wisely. I very much enjoyed the meeting and felt that much good dialogue took place.

The Tulane vs. Southern Miss football game was exciting. More and more of our fans are donning gold for the games, which makes a strong visual statement for our players, the opposing team, and the opposing fans. I hope to see all gold in our stand for our first home game on October 7. Please come to the game and bring your families for an evening filled with great plays, music, entertainment and fireworks. Your support is crucial to the success of our athletic teams and thus to our university.

On Monday, September 27, at the regular meeting of the vice presidents and deans, Kay Wall made a presentation on university libraries. I am grateful to Kay for her leadership, and send my thanks to her staff for the good work they produce. A suggestion that surfaced after her presentation was to consider pooling our library resources with those of the University of Mississippi and Mississippi State University. By doing so, we may improve our educational opportunities while providing better access to our faculty and students. Kay has agreed to work through IHL to research the possibilities.

The Military Science Department hosted the deans, vice presidents, several faculty and staff members and me for lunch this past Monday. They shared the goals of their program and benefits for the students choosing to pursue academics via the Army ROTC. The presentation was quite impressive and highlighted two exemplary students who are currently in the program, cadets Amanda Scoggins and Matt Langford. I am honored to report that the Southern Miss Army ROTC detachment is the largest ROTC commissioning source in Mississippi, averaging 20 commissions per year. I commend the Army ROTC for its many fine accomplishments.

This past Tuesday was the first of this year's Tuesdays at Two with Thames gathering. I was asked several questions about the upcoming $12 million bond issue election, which will take place on November 2. The students were genuinely interested and seemed very supportive. I shared enrollment data for this fall (which I shared with you above), and the students were excited to know that we are growing.

I was asked about the banner on Wilber Hall. I explained to everyone that the banners located on five of our buildings on the Hattiesburg campus (Wilbur Hall, Elam Arms, Theatre and Dance Building, Johnson Science Tower and M.M. Roberts Stadium) are a compliment to our branding/advertising campaign, which began this summer. Almost a year and a half ago, we began our branding process with focus groups of students, faculty, staff and alumni led by GodwinGroup, an advertising firm in Jackson, Mississippi. We began to delve into determining what our university image should be. The result of the rather extensive process was a branding/advertising campaign titled "Freeing the Power of the Individual." Clearly, this slogan captured the spirit of what our university represents. We believe that the majority of our students choose Southern Miss as their university because we foster whatever path they choose here to further their education. We are not a cookie cutter institution that expects our graduates to be or act a certain way. Instead, we encourage individuality and foster leadership by giving our students information, choices and support. Two commercials were developed, with one focusing on the traditional freshman student and one on the professional student. Those commercials ran on television stations throughout south Mississippi, Mobile, New Orleans and the Florida Panhandle. To compliment the commercials, still images were used for print ads, billboards, building banners and light-pole banners, which will be placed throughout campus this semester. We expect this campaign to be used for two to three years, and thus far we have received wonderful feedback, with the exception of the banner on Wilber Hall, over which many of the women living in the rooms have voiced displeasure. We are looking at alternative locations for this banner.

I was also asked about progress with construction of the Trent Lott Center. I noted that the construction bids were much more than had been predicted by the architect and more than the amount raised for the project to date. Thus, we will continue to raise funds to accomplish the goal. Students also asked about the progress of the R.C. Cook University Union addition, which is proceeding on time and should be available for use during 2006.

I had the pleasure of meeting with officials from the University of the Americas located in Puebla, Mexico. They were at Southern Miss to explore exchange opportunities for students at their university and Southern Miss. Dr. Christopher Miles, assistant professor in the Department of Foreign Language and Literature and Dr. Yvonne Unnold, director of the Spanish in Mexico Program, scheduled time for me to meet with Ofelia Cervantes, dean of International Programs at the University of the Americas, and Mirna Iglesias, director of the International Center of Language and Culture at the University of the Americas. This is an academic protocol of much interest, and we are making sure our university evaluates all such opportunities of which we are aware.

On Thursday, we were on the Gulf Coast announcing a new initiative in economic development and a new partnership with the Mississippi Development Authority, the economic development arm for the state of Mississippi. Dr. David Butler, director of the International Development doctoral program at Southern Miss and a leading expert in the call center industry, announced the formation of Information Incorporated, a Mississippi University Research Authority company housed at the university, the National Association of Call Centers and the Call Center Research Laboratory. Dr. Butler's work in the call center field is a prime example of the cutting-edge research and development being accomplished at Southern Miss.

On October 1, Southern Miss hosted a Partnership in Education Workshop for area community colleges. Over 60 faculty and administrators attended, representing Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College, Southwest Mississippi Community College, East Central Community College, Co-Lin Community College, Jones County Junior College, and Pearl River Community College. We were pleased to share our academic successes with our education partners and discuss ways we can ensure a smooth transfer process for students.

As you can tell from reading my letter, we have been extremely busy over the last few weeks. I want to extend my thanks to all of you for making the beginning of our new school year a smooth transition, and I encourage you to keep up the good work.

Sincerely,

Shelby F. Thames