14 March 2006

Dear USM Faculty and Staff:

This day, and this letter, have been a long time coming.  Since the installation of Shelby F. Thames as President of Southern Miss in May of 2002, the campus there in Hattiesburg has been engulfed by crises and controversy.  Throughout these struggles, many of you have found yourself at odds with your President on many issues.  Anger has boiled over into hatred through the controversies.

Well, it is my duty to write to you today to explain something about the back channels of higher education in this state.  A little over 70 years ago, a young boy was born in the Pine Belt.  At that time, a group of Ole Miss graduates known as "The Firm" got together with that boy's parents and arranged for his future.  That future would entail putting a young but expanding educational institution in "its place."  The group and its descendent membership financed the boy's education.  The sent him to Tennessee to get a PhD and they called him back to serve his community as "the good scientist" at the local university they hated so much.  They were, however, just waiting for "the right time."

Over the years the (now) young man's reputation grew steadily.  It grew so much that he threatened the academic power structure, and they banished him to the Institute.  It was there that members of "The Firm" would make contact with him, teaching him the inner workings higher education administration.  It was also at that point that "The Firm" installed a President that would serve the young man as a role model, a sort of guru from afar, for a task he would be called upon to complete in later years.

In 2002, "the right time" had come.  "The Firm" and its descendent membership completed the circle by having Dr. Shelby Thames, that young boy from long before, installed as President of Southern Miss.  I don't need to recount the events of the 2002-present period for you here.  You know all too well.  Let me just say that I knew of this plan and was powerless to stop it, as were (and are) any of you.  Its tentacles stretched from Pass Christian to Tupelo, from Cleveland to Natchez.  In its grasp have been governors, doctors, lawyers, politicians and more.  I joined out of necessity.

The culmination of this ordeal is that I must announce herewith that Ole Miss will soon assume leadership in the arts, english, psychology, business, history and a number of other academic areas.  The search for your next president, set to begin in the fall, will be conducted by a professional "Firm," and without participation by you.  It will be a closed endeavor, set to produce a preordained result. 

I do want to assure you that tenured faculty will continue to have employment at USM, just not happiness.  The latter will be reserved for the faculty in Oxford, and all the alumni of that great institution. 

Thank you.