So we can throw money away on a plane and give freebies to NY companies, but we can't buy books for the library?

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Originally posted by: Jimmy Brown
"the state promised to make university equipment and laboratory space available at virtually no cost."

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The agencies that funded my research had to pay overhead. These guys get it "at virtually no cost?"

My laboratory space was tiny and primitive.

I had to purchase supplies and equipment out of my own pocket.

I didn't know usm had surplus laboratory space.

 

Didn't this company move here in July 2003 from California?  I think this is old news. 

Is the the GE connection significant?

An $850,000 grant with Auburn?  Is USM collaborating in that?

On a different note, has anyone read Prey?

Outrageous!

My archaeology laboratory has been condemned by USM safety.  There's mold and a weak spot in the floor that someone (like a student!) could fall through.  When my chair asked for space for my lab, after months, he received email from Cynthia Moore that I should get a grant to rent lab space off campus!

Of course, in archaeology one cannot get any grant or contract without FIRST having a lab.  This has yet to be resolved.

No quarter!

Amy Young

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Originally posted by: Crighton Fan
  I think this is old news

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The news itself may be old, but the article is from yesterday's New York Times. There is quite a bit in the NYT article that I had not previously heard.

Amy,

But if you were to get a grant and rent space off-campus, USM wouldn't get the overhead on the use of the space.  And the upper administration wouldn't like that...

Of course the bigger lesson is that universities have to make considerable investments to be competitive for grants in the first place.  And how is USM going to be able to do that, except in a handful of established areas.

Kickback,

This evening, when I'm not writing three different job-related things, I'll go through the L and P archives and link to that "uneasy truce" item.  Good that you thought of it--the mood on this Board is highly reminiscent of certain periods last summer, with heavy trolling and lots of squabbling amongst the regulars.

I'm increasingly convinced that there's an uneasy truce on the Board as well.  Seeing Klumb on WDAM last Thursday (thank you, Sad Eagle, for those clips) convinced me that Roy is definitely not a happy camper, and that there are enough anti-Thames forces on the Board to make things difficult for him--though not enough to censure him and fire his guy Thames immediately.

Robert Campbell

PS. The Hybrid Plastics deal, as described in the NYT, looks downright corrupt to me.  But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it's perfectly legal in Mississippi.

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Originally posted by: Robert Campbell
"PS. The Hybrid Plastics deal, as described in the NYT, looks downright corrupt to me.  But it wouldn't surprise me to learn that it's perfectly legal in Mississippi."

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It is perfectly legal in Mississippi.

This is a major economic development breakthrough, too, as we see from the article:

"Hybrid has just 14 employees locally and sales of under $5 million..."

So, in order to secure 14 jobs, the State of Mississippi condones giving free lab space (which Hybrid's CEO says would have cost $25M to build) to a company with less annual sales than John Grisham makes off a typical book. Yeah, it makes real good economic sense.

But we shouldn't holler about it. Probably most of the folks who read this board consider the Nissan plant to be a big feather in the state's cap. But Phil Pepper himself admitted in my presence that the state would never recover its costs to secure the Nissan deal.

Economic development in Mississippi is almost entirely about perception & not reality. This is sad, but the state's image is so rotten that the only way to "improve" it is to pay businesses to locate here. <SIGH> That's the rationale.

"The only thing that I did wrong..."

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Originally posted by: Jimmy Brown
"Heading South, Looking for an Edge
Two brief sentences from the article:
"Besides offering a bargain-basement location, Hattiesburg lured Hybrid with the promise of a close relationship with the University of Southern Mississippi's highly regarded polymer chemistry department. Hattiesburg became irresistible when the state promised to make university equipment and laboratory space available at virtually no cost.""

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Cutting edge applied research....

The USM GGP Linguistic Group has determined that the new name for the university on Hardy Street is going to be SFT/ Hudsons Treasure Hunt U.....That explains the Albertson's/ Nursing School and Furniture Showroom. We can add the archaeology lab over by the old Starbucks zone--they used to have a microwave and cappucino in there. Amy, can you get a carbon date on that 70%-off couch???? Meanwhile we can take people's vitals while they dig through the piles of bargain ottoman (Empire?) cushions... It's a blood pressure control group and world civ class in one stop shopping!

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Originally posted by: Spandex is an Economic Bad
"So we can throw money away on a plane and give freebies to NY companies, but we can't buy books for the library?"

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For what it's worth,  Hybrid Plastics is based in Orange County, California, not NY. And as someone pointed out already, this is very old news.  I think the Hybrid facility in Hattiesburg opened in September 2004.  I wonder why it took so long to make the  NYT, which as we all know, has an abiding interest in south Mississippi.

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Originally posted by: Invictus
"But we shouldn't holler about it. Probably most of the folks who read this board consider the Nissan plant to be a big feather in the state's cap. But Phil Pepper himself admitted in my presence that the state would never recover its costs to secure the Nissan deal. Economic development in Mississippi is almost entirely about perception & not reality."

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I've had a somewhat different view.

Part of the Nissan deal involved grabbing people's land (under an expansive interpretation of eminent domain) and turning it over to Nissan.

The Insitute for Justice and the NAACP got together to fight the confiscation of a family farm that was to be given to Nissan.  They won.

A big case that originated when the city of New London, Connecticut, used eminent domain to seize an entire neighborhood and turn it over to corporate clients, went through oral arguments yesterday, in front of the US Supreme Court.

Robert Campbell