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Hurricane Damage May Send USM Gulf Park Packing
[VIDEO INCLUDED]
USM may not rebuild its hurricane damaged Long Beach campus. Two USM administrators confirmed that the university may be better off moving to a new location away from the Mississippi Sound. Brad Kessie talked with USM's Provost Dr. Jay Grimes and Associate Provost Dr. Pat Joachim about the university's post-Katrina decisions....

That's a great first step to getting a campus in every city and town with 6 or more people who want to take classes: USM-McLaurin, USM-Brooklyn, USM-Wiggins, USM-Perkinston, USM-Saucier, USM-Lyman, yadayadayada.

Before Katrina, I proposed: USM giving control of higher education offerings on the Coast back to the College Board. The Board would then establish a Universities Center. The center could seek upper level degree programs from in-state and out-of-state institutions to be delivered on a new campus at the Woolmarket exit just off I-10. Freshman and sophomore programs would revert to the community college. I proposed selling or leasing the very valuable Gulf Park and Huckleberry Hill properties to developers to build condos or other developments.

Another poster pointed out that the original Gulf Park College agrreement with the state stipulated that the Gulf Park Campus had to be used to support educational purposes. I think that the revenue that could be generated from this prime property through long term leases would satisfy the terms of the origingal agreement. It is something that should be investigated.

The Post-Katrina situation makes a proposal such as this even more worthy of consideration. It could be possible to obtain long term revenues from the land and USM would be relieved of the burden of trving to rebuild the Gulf Coast operation on its own.

There are those in Hattiesburg and elsewhere in the state that do not want further deveopment by USM on the coast. This would satisfy those individuals, give everybody a piece of the pie, and be less costly in the long run than USM trying to go it alone.

By the way, I do not have a parcel of property near the I-10 Woolmarket exit that is for sale.

Why is this argument so tired?  This decision affects the lives of faculty, staff and students at the Gulf Coast Campus.

My questions to those who would argue that moving the campus is the best course of action:

1.  What about about the faculty and staff that were hired from different parts of the country to teach at that location?  Now, not only are many of their homes destroyed but now you are taking away the beautiful campus that they all loved so much (and the thing that attracted them to the location to start with).

2.  As I recall at the "rah-rah" meeting a few weeks after the strom at the Long Beach stadium, there were several touching and tearful moments where we were promised that the coast campus would be rebuilt bigger and better that ever.  What happened to those promises?

3.  By moving the campus north of the I-10 and turning it into a hybird teaching complex where only upper division classes are taught by several universities, aren't you changing the needs of the University in regards to the faculty hires and indeed changing the working conditions of all of the faculty and staff?

4.  When making such a momentus decision concerning the campus, don't you think it would be wise to receive imput from the people that would be affected by the decision? 

It seems that there are plans in the works and decisions being made -- and all anyone on the coast had to go are rumors. 

 

I am here for you and will meet your Woolmarket needs. With Lace.

coastliner wrote:

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....you may want to check on who exactly owns the Woolmarket land that may be availabe for a new "Universities Center for the Gulf Coast."

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Don't tell me it's Shebby's old friend, the former owner of Albertson's and the old high school, Ray Sims.

Whose Move? wrote:

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some of us really need to make decisions about what to do with our families when the coast that we knew is gone.

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I can appreciate your concern for you and your family, but the distance from Interstate 10 to HWY 90 is not an unreasonable commute.

To take Coastliner's argument to its logical extreme, we really should eliminate all freshmen and sophomore courses at Mississippi's four institutions (including USM in Hattiesburg) since the two year colleges can deliver the curriculum at a lower cost to the taxpayers. In fact, it becomes hard to justify USM. Ole Miss and State have more resources and more prestige. We could eliminate most of the administration in Hattiesburg and let the campus be run from Starkville or Oxford (much as the Coast Campus was run from Hattiesburg). Either university would benefit from Southern's football program, while the faculty and staff of USM would be better paid (and likely treated better) than we are under the current circumstances. Another alternative would be to make USM the state's first virtual university (why have a physical cmapus at all?).

Whose Move? wrote:

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While the commute from 90 to I-10 may not seem that far, they are worlds apart.  The faculty.....were attracted because this was a research institution in a very nice community near the beach.

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It sounds like you find the beach more attractive than the research. As for myself, I would prefer to be a few miles away from the pawn shops, the not-so-tasty food at those casino buffets, and the ocean which is too shallow for swimming. Residents of Las Vegas prefer not to live on the strip. You, too, will get used to it.

Twice Shy wrote:

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coastliner wrote:
....you may want to check on who exactly owns the Woolmarket land that may be availabe for a new "Universities Center for the Gulf Coast."
Don't tell me it's Shebby's old friend, the former owner of Albertson's and the old high school, Ray Sims.

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Senator Who owns the land near the Woolmarket exit?

Twice Shy wrote:

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coastliner wrote:
....you may want to check on who exactly owns the Woolmarket land that may be availabe for a new "Universities Center for the Gulf Coast."
Don't tell me it's Shebby's old friend, the former owner of Albertson's and the old high school, Ray Sims.

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I hear it's a powerful state senator from the Gulf Coast. Don't know whether he wants to sell or not. It is reported that there is enough acreage for a good sized campus. Don't be surprised if this is where a campus is built.

Googler wrote:

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ear to the ground girl wrote:
I hear it's a powerful state senator from the Gulf Coast. Don't know whether he wants to sell or not. It is reported that there is enough acreage for a good sized campus. Don't be surprised if this is where a campus is built.

Is it Tommy Gollott?
http://www.ls.state.ms.us/senate/gollott.htm

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good job googler, those tax records and those satellite photos of property are very reveling.

So, it looks like it will be a Woolmarket center of some type.

Gimme Gimme Gimme wrote:

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What you want? Did you say want? Do you think employee wants should be the defining criterion for relocating a university?

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The only factors that should determine the location of the new campus should be (1) ability to obtain land, (2) convenience of the location to the population centers, and (3) accessibility via existing infrastructure. The USM faculty has been spoiled for too long, especially those in the arts and letters, science, and education. Faculty at USM in these areas historically make above-average salaries for their disciplines, have above-average facilities, and have their opinions carry above-average weight in discussions.

Administrators need to stop taking faculty input into consideration in these types of decisions. Asking faculty for its input is like asking students what they want to study in a particular course. Of course the student will opt for the least inconvenience for himself or herself, and that is exactly the sentiment being expressed by "Whose Move?". Why should you have to move? You chose to live in a certain place under the illustion that your workplace would be there forever. That, as it turns out, was a fallacy. You are now faced with an issue that crops up for many in the "real world": your job has relocated. When my job moved from Hattiesburg to Jackson, I had a choice: retain residence in Hattiesburg or move to Jackson. Both had pro's and con's, but living in Hattiesburg meant driving to Jackson daily. I did it. People do it all the time. You're being asked to drive an extra 15 miles and you're crying about it. Cry me a river. You sound like a spoiled brat who only got 95% of the toys on your 5-page Christmas list.

Been There, Done That wrote:

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The USM faculty has been spoiled for too long, especially those in the arts and letters, science, and education. Faculty at USM in these areas historically make above-average salaries for their disciplines, have above-average facilities, and have their opinions carry above-average weight in discussions.

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Sorry, what?  USM faculty in letters are actually at the bottom of the pay scale even iin terms of the southeast regional averages, let alone the national ones.  I can't speak for arts, sciences, and education, but others can. 

Administrators need to stop taking faculty input into consideration in these types of decisions. Asking faculty for its input is like asking students what they want to study in a particular course. Of course the student will opt for the least inconvenience for himself or herself, and that is exactly the sentiment being expressed by "Whose Move?".

Wait!  Administrators at USM have notoriously left faculty input out of decisions.  They can hardly stop doing something they aren't doing.

Why should you have to move? You chose to live in a certain place under the illustion that your workplace would be there forever. That, as it turns out, was a fallacy. You are now faced with an issue that crops up for many in the "real world": your job has relocated.

You obviously live in a different world from academe, but not one that is necessarily more real.  Business folk are generalists who can move at any time in their career.  Professors are specialists who need to find a job within a year or two of the Ph.D. and find it difficult if not impossible to move after that, because most institutions want to hire a new Ph.D. and make that person part of that particular family.  Universities are based on the lifetime commitment of the monastery, from which they grew, not the momentary demands of the marketplace.  In fact, please understand that the university is the professors.  You can have a university without non-academic administrators.  You can even have a university without students.  But you can't have a university without learned folk.  Much of what I have been saying has been said before on this list, and perhaps someone can supply links to earlier discussions to get you up to speed on the issue.

When my job moved from Hattiesburg to Jackson, I had a choice: retain residence in Hattiesburg or move to Jackson. Both had pro's and con's, but living in Hattiesburg meant driving to Jackson daily. I did it. People do it all the time. You're being asked to drive an extra 15 miles and you're crying about it. Cry me a river. You sound like a spoiled brat who only got 95% of the toys on your 5-page Christmas list.

Actually, it would be refreshing for us at USM to feel as though we'd gotten anything on our "Christmas list" at all.  Your comments about our situation are uninformed, though it is refreshing to read such an articulate post.

Happy New Year in any case,

Jameela