Thoughts from afar - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Feb 5, 2005

Thoughts from afar

Date: Feb 5, 2005

We've been found out.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

There was a time not too long ago that you could browse the pages of US News' rankings and see USM nationally ranked in fields such as creative writing, music, nursing, and polymer science. Now, we are nowhere to be found. I think the "Good old days" are only a decade ago.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: asdf
"I think the "Good old days" are only a decade ago."

The "good old days" were in the mid- 80's. And they could have been "gooder" were it not for the fact that many competent administrators were purged, and not always mercyfully.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

Actually, USM isn't much of a teachers college any more, is it?

What bugs me is that NEY seems to think that Shelby is the forward-thinker around here. Yeah. If I follow NEY's logic, what Shelby is doing right is trying to close the damn place down.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Past to the Back
"What bugs me is that NEY seems to think that Shelby is the forward-thinker around here."

Past to the Back,

That part bothered me also. But other than that, I believe that most of what NEY said was right on the mark.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

Yankee, you are essentially correct in your observations, but I do think you underestimate some of the positives of the past, many of which were intangible. Given the limited resources and prestige of USM, people were attracted and retained by the air of civility of the place and the town. At some level I think President Lucas understood that. He also pushed and supported areas that had nationally low salaries and a surplus of candidates like the humanities and fine arts. This allowed for a modicum of excellence.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

As another outsider, I think NEY was WAY too harsh. The people of Southern Mississippi deserve a good, solid university, and in USM before SFT, they had a good school that seemed (from an outsider's perspective) to be becoming even better. It was a university that had excellent potential. In my own field (English) USM had a sterling reputation, thanks in no small part to the presence of people like Gary Stringer and Noel Polk. (I was also, of course, aware of the English department's creative writing contingent.) Are the people of Southern Mississippi supposed to be content with a teachers' college? Are they not allowed to aspire to have a good, decent university in their midst? How are the big national universities extending their brands in ways that can help the people who live in Southern Mississippi and who may not be able to go off to college outside the state (or even in the northern section of the state)? Speaking as a transplanted Yankee myself, I have to say that NEY sounds (to my ears at least) a bit too condescending. And I am not sure how SFT is doing ANYTHING that will enhance USM or help the people of Southern Mississippi. Instead, he is destroying a fine school -- one that could be even finer if he would leave or return to making plastic.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

yankee and geezer--i also agree with both. been here over 20 years and came from universities not in the south. it's been the tension between the realities of USM and the civilities of the town and USM that have made it a good and depressing experience.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Geezer
" ....... people were attracted and retained by the air of civility of the place and the town."

It was much like a comfotable plantation with a big white house on the hill.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Past to the Back
"Actually, USM isn't much of a teachers college any more, is it?

What bugs me is that NEY seems to think that Shelby is the forward-thinker around here. Yeah. If I follow NEY's logic, what Shelby is doing right is trying to close the damn place down."

I believe I called him a buffoon (corrected from the original) which in the Northeast is usually not associated with implying that someone is forward looking. However in a red state it may a different meaning.

buf·foon ( P ) Pronunciation Key (b-fn)
n.
A clown; a jester: a court buffoon.
A person given to clowning and joking.
A ludicrous or bumbling person; a fool.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

ney--i got it the first time. agreed with most of what you said.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Underground Railroad
"It was much like a comfotable plantation with a big white house on the hill. "

One had to exercise a modicum of civility when they visited the big white house or when one of the house staff fanned out into the plantation's fields.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

quote:

Originally posted by: New England Yankee
The members of the faculty have more to worry about than the man they affectionately refer to as "Shelboo"

Now that's a bit unnerving.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

Out of curiosity, what university in New England are you located? It might put your comments in perspective.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

Whether any or all of what New England Yankee says about USM is correct is not important. What is important is Yank's perception of USM. I doubt that Yank pulled those perceptions out of thin air. I fear that his perceptions are shared by many others. We would be ill advised not to at least listen.

Date: Feb 5, 2005

Today I read an Associated Press item in which Morgan Freeman explained why he chose to live in Missisippi: "I'm a major, internationally famous motion picture star. I can live where I want to."

Date: Feb 6, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Mississippian in Exile
"Today I read an Associated Press item in which Morgan Freeman explained why he chose to live in Missisippi: "I'm a major, internationally famous motion picture star. I can live where I want to." "

Sure, Mississippi is a great place if you're super-wealthy. But if you have to depend upon the state to educate your children and provide the services that the remaining 99% of the population needs, you're out of luck. And if you depend upon the state for your livelihood, you're really screwed.

Date: Feb 6, 2005

"None of the main stream disciplines has any major reknown beyond 200 miles. Some professors occasionally show up on the regional or national radar, but not enough to boost the departments. The two that are known, Polymer Science and Marine Science are cute poster children but don't count on the national rankings of a university. The 'teacher college' mentality is seen across the university with limited scholastic contribution by most of the faculty and focus on process rather than advancement."

Sorry, New England Yankee, but I must disagree, and I hope readers of this list will accept my comments below as my effort to speak the truth about our own accomplishments, as tacky as self-praise might appear in any other situation. In English, for instance, we are nationally and internationally known. Even with the loss of Gary Stringer and Noel Polk, our publishing clout is considerable. We've got award-winning authors in the faculty and among our graduates. The publications out of our office include the Garland Shakespeare, Mississippi Review and Robert Frost Journal. My colleagues have been influencing their various fields of speciality as long as I've been here. I've had major figures in medieval and Renaissance literature praise my colleagues to me. Of one, I was told, "He did the best paper at the conference. No, one of the best papers I've ever heard." Another colleague so impressed other big-name types at another conference that they were desolate that she wasn't coming. I'm not up on my colleagues' speaking schedules, but I know that I am slated this year alone to speak in a national conference in Nashville, to do a workshop here at our own famous Children's Book Festival, to chair two panels at nationally attended conferences, to deliver two lectures in Eastern Europe, and to present papers at the International Milton Symposium in Grenoble (France) and at the International Society for the History of Rhetoric in Los Angeles; I'm on the board of the second as North American representative. I'm also working diligently on a section of the Milton Variorum Project, and have accepted a role in an Oxford University Press series as well. My own first monograph seems to be doing well. In all of these endeavors, I'm always trying to keep up with my impressive colleagues. USM English is on the map, believe me.

Actually, it's difficult for me to believe that you could be competitive in your own field and then also have the time to assess the impact of every academic department at this university. Your claim sounds a bit unsupportable. In fact, I can't help but wonder if your post was even partially motivated by disappointment at not getting a job here. It's still a promising place, still worth fighting for. If you were so motivated, I'm sincerely sorry for your disappointment but ask you, please, to turn to more constructive comments, such as your commitment to the ideal of the University, an ideal that is particularly under fire here, and your intention to write those persons who might act if they realized how widely the adverse publicity has spread.

No quarter. (No BS, either.)

Jameela

Date: Feb 6, 2005

We are making a big mistake to ignore things like the US News ratings of USM and other outside views of USM such as were expressed by New England Yankee. The fact that we have a superb English depatment can not be generalized to include the university as a whole.

Date: Feb 6, 2005

I suspect that most of us who have been at USM for a long time are well aware of the problems and limitations here. We have stayed for a variety of reasons: job shortages in our particular area, support and appreciation for our work, wonderful colleagues, our spouse's career (often non-university), the satisfaction of making a difference in the rural south, and simply the comfort of living here. Unfortunately, these joys no longer outweigh the problems and limitations.

Date: Feb 6, 2005

NEY,

I think you are being way too hasty in your judgment of the USM situation, on several levels.

Shelby Thames as an individual is a local phenomenon. I doubt that Thames could have become a university president anywhere outside the Hattiesburg area. But the type that Thames represents is not local at all. A colleague of mine at a private second-tier university in the Northeast (the kind of institution you seem to be predicting is going to take over) describes the current president of that institution as a flaming narcissist who has succeeded in replacing the provost and some of the deans with weaker versions of himself. I'll bet you've heard similar stories from places in the top 100 on the US News list.

Similarly, Mississippi has a particularly bad history with regard to higher education. But the trend toward defunding state universities (and steering the remaining state appropriations into community colleges rather than research-oriented institutions) is nationwide. Even high-tax blue states like Massachusetts are undergoing a similar dynamic.

Again, Thames has followed a nationwide trend in "pumping" administration for its own sake. No university is going to perform better when its faculty:administrator ratio keeps dropping, yet so many keep being drawn toward the unannounced ideal of the administrative university.

It is hard in today's world of endless marketing hype for faculty members and administrators to size up themselves, their departments, and their institutions in a realistic fashion. A few weeks ago, I tuned in Channel 13 out of Asheville, NC, and saw a commercial claiming that Western Carolina University provides a "world class education." You might as well retire the phrase from your vocabulary, after hearing it used that way. Realism about our situation at Clemson (a 2nd-tier university in a very red state with a relatively small percentage of wealthy alumni whose administration nonetheless desperately wants 1st-tier status) is only intermittent. But when we are thinking clearly, we are able to recognize what makes our department good, and what would make it better; what makes our college good, and what would make it better; and so on up the line. Presumably the folks at USM can be realistic without concluding that their institution is doomed to go down the crapper, in a state too mired and benighted to deserve any universities at all.

I think most academic bloggers have ignored USM, or ignored the story except when something bubbles up into the Chronicle of Higher Education, because they share your view that the crisis is happening to a low-prestige institution in a backward state, so how could it be relevant to them? (During the flare-up over Thames' attempt to get rid of Frank Glamser and Gary String, one very sniffish Ivy Leaguers' blog actually announced that what was happening to USM wasn't worth paying attention to.)

All I can say is, if you think that some of the more power-hungry administrators at universities in other parts of the country aren't watching the Thames regime closely, to see what he and his crew are able to get away with, you don't understand university administrators terribly well.

Robert Campbell

Date: Feb 6, 2005

Sorry... Gary Stringer

RC

Date: Feb 6, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Jameela Lares
""None of the main stream disciplines has any major reknown beyond 200 miles. Some professors occasionally show up on the regional or national radar, but not enough to boost the departments. The two that are known, Polymer Science and Marine Science are cute poster children but don't count on the national rankings of a university. The 'teacher college' mentality is seen across the university with limited scholastic contribution by most of the faculty and focus on process rather than advancement."
Sorry, New England Yankee, but I must disagree, and I hope readers of this list will accept my comments below as my effort to speak the truth about our own accomplishments, as tacky as self-praise might appear in any other situation. In English, for instance, we are nationally and internationally known. Even with the loss of Gary Stringer and Noel Polk, our publishing clout is considerable. We've got award-winning authors in the faculty and among our graduates. The publications out of our office include the Garland Shakespeare, Mississippi Review and Robert Frost Journal. My colleagues have been influencing their various fields of speciality as long as I've been here. I've had major figures in medieval and Renaissance literature praise my colleagues to me. Of one, I was told, "He did the best paper at the conference. No, one of the best papers I've ever heard." Another colleague so impressed other big-name types at another conference that they were desolate that she wasn't coming. I'm not up on my colleagues' speaking schedules, but I know that I am slated this year alone to speak in a national conference in Nashville, to do a workshop here at our own famous Children's Book Festival, to chair two panels at nationally attended conferences, to deliver two lectures in Eastern Europe, and to present papers at the International Milton Symposium in Grenoble (France) and at the International Society for the History of Rhetoric in Los Angeles; I'm on the board of the second as North American representative. I'm also working diligently on a section of the Milton Variorum Project, and have accepted a role in an Oxford University Press series as well. My own first monograph seems to be doing well. In all of these endeavors, I'm always trying to keep up with my impressive colleagues. USM English is on the map, believe me.
Actually, it's difficult for me to believe that you could be competitive in your own field and then also have the time to assess the impact of every academic department at this university. Your claim sounds a bit unsupportable. In fact, I can't help but wonder if your post was even partially motivated by disappointment at not getting a job here. It's still a promising place, still worth fighting for. If you were so motivated, I'm sincerely sorry for your disappointment but ask you, please, to turn to more constructive comments, such as your commitment to the ideal of the University, an ideal that is particularly under fire here, and your intention to write those persons who might act if they realized how widely the adverse publicity has spread.
No quarter. (No BS, either.)
Jameela"

But for someone outside English (and Mississippi), how could they know this about the English department? It is not ranked as one of the top 100 English Graduate programs (in total score or peer rating). Five years ago it was apparently 86th in the country (I did a quick internet search) but it has since fallen off the charts. Don't blame this guy for what most New Englanders don't know either and you can't get mad at him (or them) for that.

Date: Feb 6, 2005

Well, Hmmmm, it's always possible that I've overreacted, but I was rebutting NEY's apparent claim to extensive knowledge about the impact of each department at USM. Logically, an absolute claim can be rebutted by identifying an exception. And do recall that our reputations are our greatest asset, so to attack our influence is to threaten our market value.

One thing is sure--I've got a more hair-trigger ego than I thought, and self-knowledge is always good. Does anyone remember that old classic Star Trek episode when Scotty the ship's engineer only got upset when someone badmouthed the Enterprise?

Mea culpa!

Jameela

Date: Feb 6, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: hmmmm
" But for someone outside English (and Mississippi), how could they know this about the English department?...Don't blame this guy for what most New Englanders don't know either and you can't get mad at him (or them) for that. "

One thing that hinders people from knowing USM is the fact that they don’t know USM exists. People that I have worked with for years still think I came from U of Miss (They probably don’t know Ole Miss either, but just assume every state has a U of State). I do the same thing. I can never remember if one of my colleagues went to UC San Diego or San Diego State. When you are not familiar with a region, such differences escape us. It just occurred to me as I was writing this that Ole Miss and State should be particularly worried about problems at USM. People outside the southeast are simply going to remember that a university in Miss is having accreditation problems and will not distinguish which one.

Date: Feb 6, 2005

At my new school, I've completely dropped the "Southern" from the Miss when people ask where I was before I came to my new school. Even when I say "Southern Miss" they assume it is U Miss/Ole Miss. I still work in the Southeast. Even people one or two states over have no idea of the difference. Unfortunately, MS is not highly regarded even in a region that is not highly regarded by most of the country. Just reporting, I love and live in the South and have many good friends in and around MS from my time at USM, but this is just the perception from even regional outsiders, MS's neighbors.

Date: Feb 6, 2005

My two cents on this thread: when I tell people what happened last year at USM and about the continuing crisis, they tend to shrug and say, "well what do you expect in Mississippi?"
But in my new state, the equivalent of the IHL wanted to put "encourage entrepenuership" into my new University's strategic plan. Shelby is the extreme version of what is happening in education everywhere. Mr. New England can sit up there and feel superior, but I suggest he join AAUP now and start fighting for what he believes in, or it will happen to him too.
Remember that Neville Chamberlain though if they just gave Germany Poland than everything would be okay. Mississippi is Poland.

Date: Feb 6, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: foot soldier
"My two cents on this thread: when I tell people what happened last year at USM and about the continuing crisis, they tend to shrug and say, "well what do you expect in Mississippi?" But in my new state, the equivalent of the IHL wanted to put "encourage entrepenuership" into my new University's strategic plan. Shelby is the extreme version of what is happening in education everywhere. Mr. New England can sit up there and feel superior, but I suggest he join AAUP now and start fighting for what he believes in, or it will happen to him too. Remember that Neville Chamberlain though if they just gave Germany Poland than everything would be okay. Mississippi is Poland. "

Actually Chamberlain gave up the Sudenland to Hitler. Hitler used the blitzkrieg and a deal with Molotov to take out the Poles. Hope that this is not indicative of the training we give students at "Northern Mississippi"

Date: Feb 6, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: foot soldier
"... Mississippi is Poland. "

Now you did it Foot Soldier. You just insulted all of us poles.