SH, 7/14/05: Career college opens - USM Forum -- Message Board

Date: Jul 14, 2005

SH, 7/14/05: Career college opens

Date: Jul 14, 2005

Another casino management program. Jobs in that field must be plentiful on the coast.

Date: Jul 15, 2005

Maybe USM could unload that coast campus and all of its programs to Virginia College. Perhaps VC would even pick up some of the coast faculty. This would give USM a real chance to divest itself of the portion of faculty that are, in most instances, least qualified, least willing to do research, and least interested in what goes on with SFT. Also, it would get rid of certain rinky-dink programs that shouldn't even be offered.

Date: Jul 15, 2005

info wrote:

SH, Jul. 14, 2005 http://www.sunherald.com/mld/sunherald/news/local/12127467.htm Career college opens here Virginia College begins registration BILOXI - Beginning in October, South Mississippi residents will have another place to further their education in such programs as office management, health and medical, criminal justice and casino management. Virginia College, a career college, will offer associate's, bachelor's and master's degrees, but the focus is on courses linked to specific careers....

Damn! First it was U. of Phoenix and Wm. Carey, now we have to compete with Virginia College.

Date: Jul 15, 2005

ReMax wrote:

Maybe USM could unload that coast campus and all of its programs to Virginia College. Perhaps VC would even pick up some of the coast faculty. This would give USM a real chance to divest itself of the portion of faculty that are, in most instances, least qualified, least willing to do research, and least interested in what goes on with SFT. Also, it would get rid of certain rinky-dink programs that shouldn't even be offered.

Atavism and the Argonauts

Date: Jul 15, 2005

Joker wrote:

First it was U. of Phoenix and Wm. Carey, now we have to compete with Virginia College.

Joker, you'd be lucky to have a degree from William Carey. It's rapidly becoming the college of choice for the southern part of our state.

Date: Jul 15, 2005

ReMax wrote:

Also, it would get rid of certain rinky-dink programs that shouldn't even be offered.

I've been saying that for years.

Date: Jul 15, 2005

First Alligator: "I'm symbiotic."

Second Alligator: "You're symbiotic."

Date: Jul 15, 2005

ReMax wrote:

Maybe USM could unload that coast campus and all of its programs to Virginia College. Perhaps VC would even pick up some of the coast faculty. This would give USM a real chance to divest itself of the portion of faculty that are, in most instances, least qualified, least willing to do research, and least interested in what goes on with SFT. Also, it would get rid of certain rinky-dink programs that shouldn't even be offered.

Yeah, this is a great idea. Get rid of the campus in the only part of the state that's growing. Keep everything in America's dynamic, forward-moving center of intellectual life--Hattiesburg. Give me a break. The for-profit sector is moving into the coast because they see an unserved market. A market USM could have owned outright if they had not treated the coast as some red-headed stepchild.

Do you really know what goes on at the coast? Been on T&P committees? I doubt it. If you had been, you'd know that faculty on the coast are doing great work. I've seen dossiers of some impressive and productive scholars come up for tenure. Authors of books published by leading university presses, winners of university awards for excellence in basic research, winners of national awards. I'm looking at the faculty list right now and I see Ph.D's from Illinois, UC-Santa Barbara, UC- Davis, Groningen, Tulane, Texas, Indiana, Columbia, Oxford, Maryland, Iowa, Vanderbilt. I'd call those pretty darn good schools. Where'd you get your degree? I dare you to post it.

Been on search committees for both campuses? I have and I know how tough it is to "sell" Hattiesburg to faculty candidates who have families. Don't get me wrong, the 'burg is a good town to live in after you been here a while and learn its charms--friendly, affordable, decent schools in the suburbs--and it is getting better each year--but its shopworn, hard-on-it-heels, shabby chic air doesn't make a good first impression. Its tough enough to get a top candidate interested in Mississippi in the first place. When they get here for the on-campus interview, they often are disappointed it isn't like Oxford.

Try recuiting for the coast campus. I have. Good public schools and affordable living at the beach. I've picked up candidates at the Gulfport airport and seen jaws drop when we take them to the campus or drive down beach blvd through Pass Christian on to Bay St Louis (where many faculty live) for dinner on the Gulf. A powerful recuiting tool.

The coast campus has been abused by USM administrators for a long, long time. Way before SFT.

I recall that Horace Fleming understood what the campus needed, and it was under his administration that the library and classroom buildings were constructed.

Didn't the community colleges file a lawsuit to prevent Gulf Park from offering freshman-sophmore instruction. I think that was motivated by fear of competition.

We need dorms down there and more autonomy for the campus to run its own affairs instead of running everything through deans and chairs up here.

How hard would it be to recuit students from the midwest to come down, pay out-of-state tuition and go to college on the beach. The campus is a real strength for the entire University. How many other university campuses in America overlook the sea? I can think only of Pepperdine. I think we could have 4,000 or more students down there if we invest in the physical and human resources. Kenbot's online BS ain't gonna cut it.

Gulf Park is really the hub for what is going on at the Marine Sciences lab, Stennis, Keesler, and the Jackson County center.

There's lots of talk on this board about how the IHL doesn't want USM to grow--how the board is dominated by Ole Miss and State advocates. I have no special knowledge about that, but it seems to me that a strong presence on the coast will build three constituencies for our University: our graduates, voters and politicians in H'burg, and the coast political bloc.

Oh, and one more thing. Back when I was working with Fleming's Future of the University committee (or whatever its name was), I learned that the state doesn't own the campus outright. It can only be used for educational puposes. Otherwise, it reverts back to the Gulf Park College for Women trustees. Yup, they still exist. That means we can't sell the campus to a condo developer and open something in an office park on I-10.

Date: Jul 15, 2005

USM-H'burg prof wrote:

faculty on the coast are doing great work. I've seen dossiers of some impressive and productive scholars come up for tenure. Authors of books published by leading university presses, winners of university awards for excellence in basic research, winners of national awards. I'm looking at the faculty list right now and I see Ph.D's from Illinois, UC-Santa Barbara, UC- Davis, Groningen, Tulane, Texas, Indiana, Columbia, Oxford, Maryland, Iowa, Vanderbilt.

My, my. Why, then, are there so few tenured senior faculty members on the coast?

Date: Jul 15, 2005

USM-H'burg prof wrote:

Try recuiting for the coast campus. I have. Good public schools and affordable living at the beach. I've picked up candidates at the Gulfport airport and seen jaws drop when we take them to the campus or drive down beach blvd through Pass Christian on to Bay St Louis (where many faculty live) for dinner on the Gulf. A powerful recuiting tool.

I've also picked up job candidates at the Gulfport airport and I've have seen their eyes pop open with shock and awe. But it only lasts for a little while. Visitors soon discover that the Mississippi coast waters do not lend themselves to swimming. They enter the casinos at any hour and see women with cigarettes dripping from their lips while they drop quarters in a slot machine on the right and one on the left for hours on end. They see foul mouthed men with scrawny legs and sand between their toes standing around the hotel lobbies. They gag on casino buffets in the absence of those great mom and pop restaurants that once were abundant on the coast but were put out of business by the casino restaurant industry. None of the visitors I picked up at the airport ever once asked to go in one of those 24-hours-per-day pawn shops that have sprung up. It becomes abundantly clear very early in their visit that that no town between Bay St. Louis and Ocean Springs has the ameneties normally afforded by college towns. The transit service is just fine, if all you need is a trip from casino to casino. Get off the main drag and things deteriorate rapidly and dangerously. It's beginning to resemble the worst part of Atlantic City. I no longer plan to retire to the Mississipi coast. It didn't use to be that way.