USM Plane - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Feb 19, 2005

USM Plane

Date: Feb 19, 2005

You are correct. But didnt' someone post that once the plane is purchased and registered, the tail numbers can be used to identify the owners?? If that's right, could the original poster refresh our memory?
It is really ridiculous that we have money to pay a pilot when there are so many pressing needs.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

I don't think that USM even need an airplane given that that the IHL has the entire university hanging in the wind.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Chicken Soup Lady
"You are correct. But didnt' someone post that once the plane is purchased and registered, the tail numbers can be used to identify the owners?? If that's right, could the original poster refresh our memory?
It is really ridiculous that we have money to pay a pilot when there are so many pressing needs."

Go to [url]http://www.landings.com/ and select "databases" in the box at the top (just below the ad). You can search by N-number, owner name, etc. No USM plane is in the federal database yet under "Southern Mississippi," "Southern Miss," or any of the people who've been mentioned recently on this board. The site says the database is updated monthly. We'll know soon whose names the university doesn't want us to see.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

That's http://www.landings.com/.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

i guess i am puzzled over the plane issue. the clarion ledger had a story about it and MSU and Ole Miss have access to plenty more planes than USM. I think MSU has access to 4. i read amy young's comments in the student newspaper and they revolve about $. true, we don't have lots of resources but if donors give $ and restrict it to certain purposes, it can't be used for other purposes. it can't go to the library. all universities have donors who give $ and restrict how it can be used. nothing novel or unusual about that. do we need a plane? don't know. but we had one about 12 years ago.

as to finding the plane's number. i'm glad people have so much time on their hands that they can track it down. like sitting out in Nevada looking for UFO's.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

SCM, is there a difference between "access" to a plane and owning a plane? (This is a serious question.) Also, USM advertised for a pilot. Who will pay this person's salary and benefits?
And if the cost of the plane, used for legitimate USM purposes, is less than the cost of commercial travel, then a good case for having it could be made. Where people are having problems is the question of why supporters would prefer to buy a plane than buy books, and also a suspicion that the whole business may not be as above board as it's being portrayed (now, why would we think that?)
In the long run, who benefits and how?

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"i'm glad people have so much time on their hands that they can track it down. like sitting out in Nevada looking for UFO's. "

That information will be found, stinky. And it shouldn't take much time.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

lvn--sure there's a difference between access and buying a plane (or a share). corporations do this all of the time. they don't have enough use to buy the whole plane, but they buy a portion to use when they need it. my point is that most if not all bigger universities have one or access to one. listened to ESPN today--the U of Miami basketball coach had an appendectomy (sp?) two days ago and is being flown today, by private plane or jet, to somewhere to coach his team's game, and then will be flown by the same plane to tallahassee to coach his team there. very typical for sports programs.

as to why donors want to give to planes and athletics instead of books, that's their choice. happens at every university across the country. nothing novel or unusual about this at USM, even if it does happen to be thames' sons or prominent attorneys.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

Actually, the plane was only partially purchased with restricted donor money. IIRC, about one-third of the cost had to be borne by the foundation (I'm assuming it wasn't general fund). Moreover, the maintenance, fuel costs & salary for pilot aren't covered by the restricted fund donation.

Cut to the chase. A lot of professional people buy planes. It's an ego thing to an extend & certainly certain businessmen & professionals such as lawyers have a "need" for a plane that can be explained to the IRS. I can name several lawyers who own planes who use said planes to go to ballgames (admittedly not USM ballgames).

Dentists do not, as a general rule, have a legitimate business-related need to own airplanes. But by "contributing" to a university for the purchase of the plane -- and again, IIRC, they will have access to the plane for their personal use -- the aforementioned dentists get their ego thing and their tax write-off.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

I have no problem with a university owning an airplane. But I do have problems with the secrecy attached to this matter at USM. The university affairs of a public institution, with the exception of personnel matters, should be transparently open.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"i guess i am puzzled over the plane issue. the clarion ledger had a story about it and MSU and Ole Miss have access to plenty more planes than USM. I think MSU has access to 4. i read amy young's comments in the student newspaper and they revolve about $. true, we don't have lots of resources but if donors give $ and restrict it to certain purposes, it can't be used for other purposes. it can't go to the library. all universities have donors who give $ and restrict how it can be used. nothing novel or unusual about that. do we need a plane? don't know. but we had one about 12 years ago.

as to finding the plane's number. i'm glad people have so much time on their hands that they can track it down. like sitting out in Nevada looking for UFO's. "

I did not say that the airplane money be used for other things. Donations can be directed at specific targets. I SAID that if the athletic foundation is so flush, then at least part of the student activity fees can be used in other areas. The president has that discretion.

The athletic foundation employees are PAID by the university - the state of Mississippi. So, one question we should ask, like Iowa, is how private is private?

I still maintain that we need books in the library so our library won't be out of date before we need a plane. We must also recognize that tuition is going to go up signficantly AND federal financial aid is reduced for each student. Plus, some students feel that their degrees are devalued or will perhaps be worthless. But, we have a plane (and presumably we were going to hire a part time USM pilot).

Amy Young

Amy Young

Date: Feb 19, 2005

that Clay and Scott Thames are attached to this purchase of the plane. Thus, the secrecy. Their intent is to make this university as private as possible.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

Here's a sort of litmus test:

Would this exact deal be ok with Aubrey Lucas as president? With Fleming? With Khayat? Why or why not??

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: The Taxman
"Actually, the plane was only partially purchased with restricted donor money. IIRC, about one-third of the cost had to be borne by the foundation (I'm assuming it wasn't general fund). Moreover, the maintenance, fuel costs & salary for pilot aren't covered by the restricted fund donation. Cut to the chase. A lot of professional people buy planes. It's an ego thing to an extend & certainly certain businessmen & professionals such as lawyers have a "need" for a plane that can be explained to the IRS. I can name several lawyers who own planes who use said planes to go to ballgames (admittedly not USM ballgames). Dentists do not, as a general rule, have a legitimate business-related need to own airplanes. But by "contributing" to a university for the purchase of the plane -- and again, IIRC, they will have access to the plane for their personal use -- the aforementioned dentists get their ego thing and their tax write-off."

Taxman, I think you're right. Also believe that the 1/3 amount was over $300,000. I'm not against the concept of a plane. I am, however, sick to death of the hypocracy that accompanies the less than full disclosure announcement of the plane purchase and pilot search in the same week that the legislature and the university administration threaten the deepest education cuts in memory.

Pretty soon all the boondoggles add up to real money.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

amy--last time i heard, the athletic foundation isn't flush with money. like most things at USM, they make do. but if two donors say they are willing to buy (or whatever word people prefer to use) 2/3 of a plane and if the university is willing to buy 1/3, then so be it. i'm not a big athletics supporter but i'm also a realist. we had a plan here 15 years ago when the library holdings were as miserable as they are now. didn't make sense then either. but MSU with access to 4?

Date: Feb 19, 2005

USM has had "access" to a plane. Warren Hood let USM use his plane to bring in Itzhak Perlman.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

hood's isn't just a plane, it's a jet. saw it fly over tatum soccer fields once. whew!

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"amy--last time i heard, the athletic foundation isn't flush with money. like most things at USM, they make do. but if two donors say they are willing to buy (or whatever word people prefer to use) 2/3 of a plane and if the university is willing to buy 1/3, then so be it. i'm not a big athletics supporter but i'm also a realist. we had a plan here 15 years ago when the library holdings were as miserable as they are now. didn't make sense then either. but MSU with access to 4? "

Doesn't MSU have some type of aeronautic engineering facility or something?

Date: Feb 19, 2005

they do have such programs. but the clarion ledger article indicated their planes were for athletic and others uses.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

Okay, take me through this one more time . . . .

How come we've got to keep up with Joneses on having a plane, but we're not keeping up with the Joneses with getting books for the library?

Date: Feb 19, 2005

according to the CL article we're behind the jones in both the plane and library area. student fees don't go to the athletic foundation.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: Credibility gap
"Okay, take me through this one more time . . . .
How come we've got to keep up with Joneses on having a plane, but we're not keeping up with the Joneses with getting books for the library?"

That's the point, isn't it? stinky cheese man sees no problem with this strategy. It seems to me that the Payne family gave some big bucks for a new business school and the president at the time talked them into changing the specification of the payment to build the student recreation center, the Payne Center. It can be done--designated funds can be redesignated IF the president chooses to attempt it.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"amy--last time i heard, the athletic foundation isn't flush with money. like most things at USM, they make do. but if two donors say they are willing to buy (or whatever word people prefer to use) 2/3 of a plane and if the university is willing to buy 1/3, then so be it. i'm not a big athletics supporter but i'm also a realist. we had a plan here 15 years ago when the library holdings were as miserable as they are now. didn't make sense then either. but MSU with access to 4? "

SCM:

I think you are right if indeed two people just stepped forward and volunteered to foot 2/3 of the plane -- it is their money and why should the university refuse it?

BUT . . . as we all know much of the way money arrives at specific places is because there are conversations over dinners, at conferecnes and meetings, on golf courses, etc. where needs are suggested and the direction of money is influenced and steered. We'll never know how mucvh money might be being redirected from academic areas because it is being steered into other areas of greater interest to administrators. Having not only watched this in action, but also finding myself occasionally used to help provide steering, I'm pretty confident this idea wasn't just hatched spontaneously but rather evolved. An administrator has it in her/his power to suggest alternative ideas for support -- or to say, gee, we'd love to take half that money and use it for a plane and half of it to buy a room in the library with your name on it for special geology collections . . . . or better yet . . . how about you match your plane contribution with a scholarship contribution . . . . etc.

We don't know that this is not going on, it is true. But given the way money is rapidly disappearing in some academic areas while reappearing in non-academic areas I'd be suprised if it wasn't.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

stephen--i'm not naive about how these deals go down. word was aubrey couldn't ask people for money. our '85 fundraising campaign was an embarrassment. aubrey didn't like money going to designated projects--liked it going go a general fund so he could direct it as he saw fit. i also subscribe to the chronicle and read enough about how fund raising, both for academics and athletics, takes place--the good side and the dark side. i also give money to my alma mater and USM--a substantial sum to USM in fact. know how it takes place. diversion from academic areas to non-academic area. don't know. diversion is a strong word with certain implications. but it takes some proof to convince me that it's any worse than it's been for 20+ years.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

What almost everyone here is dancing around, I'll say clearly: Shelby Thames doesn't care about academics. He doesn't care about accreditation. He doesn't care about students. He doesn't care about faculty.

What he does care about is using his appointed position to give kick-backs, sweetheart deals, and boondoggles to friends, supporters, and those he wishes to impress.

If he were really concerned with "moving the university forward," he would direct every cent he could direct toward academics. Period. Instead, he continues to do the things that make him popular to USM's widely ignorant (note: not unintelligent) group of alumni and other supporters. They want better athletic teams, better athletic facilities, and better amenities for those times when they come back to visit. They want to be able to tailgate at Pride Field before going to their skybox in the Rock, or they want to be able to tailgate at Nitchampburg before going to "the Coliseum" (as it is now called by John Cox) to watch a basketball game. Thames can sell anything along these lines to USM alumni because that's what they want -- a visible symbol that they aren't second-class when compared to Ole Miss and Mississippi State.

Our alumni are ignorant because WE have failed to get our message out. WE have been called "whiners," "complainers," "malcontents," and even "inmates" who want to choose the next warden. What did we do about it? Nothing that touches Average Joe. We've got to make it real for them. We've got to put this chaos in terms they can understand. We have to get their attention.

Somebody mentioned a boycott, which was quickly shut down because "we don't want to hurt our students that work at restaurants" and because "boycotts are too hard to sustain." What can be done, then?

stinky cheese man apparently represents the majority of USM's alumni/boosters who either cannot or do not care to place academics first. If the USM athletics department were shut down today, the university would continue to educate students tomorrow; if the university were shut down today, there would be no athletics tomorrow or ever again. That's the message we need to send out -- lose accreditation and you lose football. It works when high schools face budget cuts and citizens refuse to vote for tax increases -- you threaten athletics, band, cheerleading, etc., and you get a tax passed that will support schools. You have to hit them where it hurts.

It's all a matter of perspective. When you don't care about academics, then you don't care what happens to accreditation, library funds, etc. It's time that we as academics learn to fight in a way that can yield victory.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:
Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
" word was aubrey couldn't ask people for money. "

Whoever spoke that "word" must not have attended graduation on a regular basis. As I recall, the graduates were hit upon for $$$ from the git go - right from the podium. Am I wrong?

Date: Feb 19, 2005

perspective, please--you must be relatively new to this board. the cheese man is well known. i am a 20+ year faculty member with two children going to school at USM. they are being taught by what i consider to be an excellent faculty. (as an aside, you learn to appreciate your colleagues more when they teach your children.) i'm not one of those "alumni/boosters who choose either cannot or do not care to place academics first." by virtue of my role at this university, i put academics first. i also practice critical thinking and try to bring some perspective and institutional memory to this discussion board. i also have certain "connections" that i gather information from (they don't know it though). I assume that when you use the word WE you mean you are a faculty member here. good, i'm behind the support of academics. practice every it every time i teach, publish, and serve. but a plane doesn't rise the the level of my concern frankly.

Date: Feb 19, 2005

aubrey always hit up folks at graduation. sadly, he couldn't hit up bigger donors at other functions. (i couldn't either, but i don't aspire to be a university president)

Date: Feb 19, 2005

quote:

Originally posted by: stinky cheese man
"stephen--i'm not naive about how these deals go down. word was aubrey couldn't ask people for money. our '85 fundraising campaign was an embarrassment. aubrey didn't like money going to designated projects--liked it going go a general fund so he could direct it as he saw fit. i also subscribe to the chronicle and read enough about how fund raising, both for academics and athletics, takes place--the good side and the dark side. i also give money to my alma mater and USM--a substantial sum to USM in fact. know how it takes place. diversion from academic areas to non-academic area. don't know. diversion is a strong word with certain implications. but it takes some proof to convince me that it's any worse than it's been for 20+ years. "

No -- I didn't mean to imply that you were. Only that no one had discussed that possibility on the thread. The "gift" of the plane was referred to as tthough it were something completely removed from the politics of gifting.

I accept that there are those who believe that an excellent atheletic department can enhance the reputation of a university by providing name recognition, etc. And I think where a university doesn't already have a singular and strong identity, that can be true. With only a few exceptions, the argument that an excellent athletic team returns direct funding to a university simply doesn't wash when you look at the stats-- so the reason to invest in intercollegiate atheltics at the (hopefully) temporary cost to other areas of the university is the belief that eventually name reconition will draw in other monies, that IA will help provide a kind of large scale universal identity to which students, faculty, and alums can attach themselves and form an extended and active community that will encourage giving and other kinds of investment.

The problem is that this administration's way of going about making these choices, like so many things it does, does not involve the university community as a whole. So there is no real deeper logic for these investments in airplane, skyboxes, etc. that are shared with the larger community. In other words, we have never gotten a speech that said: " here are my five main goals for the next five years. One of them is to expand the regional and national reputation of the university by making it more visible as dramatically as possible. I believe that by investing our short term money in IA facilities, coaches and athletes we can be competetitive, building up our name recognition and our community identitity which we believe will then lead to more loyalty to the university and more recognizition that will draw in giving and investment which will then be turned into money for the academic side. If are competetive for a national championship in football or basketball, that enhances our ability to raise support for academics."

Now, I don't know that I completely agree with this (at least for us because it is built on a shakey premise that the investment in IA will inevitably yield a team that will be consistently competitive at the national level) . . . . but it at least has a connected logic. But we NEVER get that argument, and we never get any articiulation of the linkage between the investment in athlestics and academic investment. So we don't know if that is the plan, or they have gauged the risks as well as the rewards, or if this is all a thing to pump up a few administrative and alumni egos. We don't know -- because we simply aren't consulted OR even informed.

That is why the plane freaks people out -- not because it is innately a bad idea, but because no one will say why in difficult time it is a GOOD idea, when there are so many other things that need tending to.

This administration does not have a good history in planning things -- it tends to act and then scramble to fix the disasters it has created afterward, I have yet to think of an initiative it has embarked on that hasn't been a disaster or hasn't been born dead. Who can believe that this plane really is part of a long range plan instead of a one night over a few drinks "cool" idea that makes us feel like the big boys as long as it lasts?