NEW ADMINISTRATIVE UNIT TO HANDLE FACULTY DATA ESTABLISHED AT SOUTHERN MISS

HATTIESBURG--A new administrative unit will be created at the University of Southern Mississippi to handle the vast volume of data the school gathers yearly about its faculty.

Modeled after the National Intelligence Agency created in 2005 by the Bush administration, the new department will be responsible for gathering, coordinating and analyzing data gathered from the approximately 900-member faculty on both the Hattiesburg and Gulf Coast campuses.  It will be called the Faculty Intelligence Unit (FIU).

The FIU will be charged with “stitching together the quilt work of intelligence we are constantly collecting about our faculty,” said USM President Shelby Thames. 

“We’ve had different colleges and administrative units, and others, collecting data for years,” said Thames.  “Most of this information has been from reports requested by deans, the provost’s office, and lately by the assistant to the president for accreditation, articulation and planning.  Of course, two years ago we began analyzing the content of faculty emails too.  This new unit will help us make sense of all of this,” he added.

The first task of the FIU will be to facilitate cooperation from the various Southern Miss entities collecting this data, explained Thames.  “Frankly, we’ve had some sharing problems among these different units,” he said. 

The second task will be to sort through old data.  Thames admitted that mountains of data, mostly from old Faculty Activity Reports, have remained unused since it became a requirement for faculty members to submit the FAR three years ago.  “Imagine our surprise when we discovered none of the FAR information mattered at all in any of our personnel decisions,” he said.

The unit will be set up using a $2 billion grant from the Office of Homeland Security.  A national search for someone to head the unit will begin immediately.  His or her title will be risk manager.

On another matter, in response to concerns raised by some faculty that Southern Miss President Shelby Thames may use his last year in office to seek revenge on faculty members who have opposed his administration, the USM chapter of the AAUP has adopted a warning system similar to the Department of Homeland Security’s Terrorist Alert System.  The warning system will alert faculty to activities by the Thames administration that could have potentially harmful effects.

“We will monitor administrative communications,” said AAUP president Amy Young.  “If you see a red light coming from a window in the LAB, fire off a couple or three emails to the IHL and then head for cover.” 

College of Arts and Letters Dean Elliot Pood said that the window would definitely not be in his suite of second-story offices. 

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