July 2006

To the Southern Miss Community:

Yes, it’s hurricane season again. Even as we recover from Katrina, we continue to press forward this summer on many fronts. The Hattiesburg campus is buzzing with students, campers and visitors. In recent months we’ve made significant progress on many fronts.

Southern Miss, the Gulf Coast and the Gulf Park campus

Dr. Meredith hosted two community meetings with coastal leaders, announcing plans for Southern Miss to return to Gulf Park while seeking 150 acres to build a new campus. Gulf Park will remain a viable entity in the Southern Miss approach to deliver higher education to the Gulf Coast.

At the June meeting of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning (IHL), the board officially passed resolutions regarding Gulf Park and the building of a new campus for Southern Miss on the Coast.

With the projected growth of the Gulf Coast in the next decade, Meredith commented that he didn’t want to look back in 10 years and regret not having facilities large enough to support the kind of growth projected for the coast and for Southern Miss.

Some other notes include

• Several of the existing buildings are salvageable and three other buildings will probably be designated as “historic”, thereby requiring massive amounts of dollars, as Meredith said, to repair them to a state of use.
  
  
  
• More property at the interim Gulfport location has already been purchased by Southern Miss to accommodate additional parking, offices and classrooms. Even with this intent to move forward on the coast, Meredith noted, it may be up to five years in the current location before new facilities would be completed.
  
  
  
• Efforts are currently underway with FEMA and insurance companies to collect dollars on the damaged sites. Regardless of these efforts, it will take considerable additional funding for renovation at Gulf Park as well as for an additional campus.

Dr. Meredith was strong and clear in his intent to have Southern Miss be the university to continue to serve the coastal counties. He praised the administration, staff and faculty for their efforts following the hurricane and noted that it was a remarkable feat to be back in class following a disaster of this magnitude. Board members, and specifically Virginia Shanteau Newton, stated the IHL’s unwavering support for higher education for the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Her comments were empathetic and clear. State legislators remarked repeatedly their support of Southern Miss and people of the Gulf Coast, insuring the delivery of higher education.

Academic Excellence – Top Freshmen for 2006 and more!

It is an especially exciting time here at Southern Miss when we will be welcoming 35 Presidential Scholars to our campus this fall.

• This is the largest group of Presidential Scholars ever. The previous largest number awarded was 14.
  
• We have nine National Merit Finalist in the group.
  
• The average ACT score of the is 32.

Presidential Scholarships are full, four-year scholarships that includes fees, books and other items and activities. We are proud to support an exceptional level of entering freshmen this year.

We have also added new scholarships for high achieving students that were affected by hurricane Katrina, the Beckman Presidential Scholarships.

• Endowed recently for $1 million by the Arnold and Mable Beckman Foundation. Scholarship support is up to $50,000 per student over four years.
  
• Students must major in biology, chemistry, biochemistry or polymer science and engineering.
  
• Students must have been impacted by Hurricane Katrina.
  

We are grateful to the Chair of the Board of the Beckman Foundation, former US Ambassador, George L. Argyros, for his generosity and personal commitment to this outstanding scholarship program so that we won’t miss a generation of future scientist due to the hurricane.

We are proud of our student, faculty and staff achievements! Here are just a few highlights:

• Southern Arena Theatre (SAT) at The University of Southern Mississippi celebrates its 30th anniversary season that runs June 29-Aug. 3. The season is made up of three plays running in repertory, meaning all three productions run throughout the season in rotation. For the anniversary year, however, SAT will offer more performances and venues by including extra matinees and a show in the Martha R. Tatum Theatre. We are proud of the artistic heritage of excellence that the theatre department and SAT has brought to the university for the past 30 years. Bravo! For more information go to http://www.usm.edu/pr/releases/2006/jun/sat1.htm or to www.usm.edu/arts.
  
  
  
• A new initiative at The University of Southern Mississippi jointly developed with the Forrest County district attorney’s office aims to help area law enforcement agencies better collaborate on cold cases and track illegal firearms, while training future professionals. The Criminal Analysis Tracking System, or CATS, involves, among other things, implementation of computer software that will provide a framework for analyzing cold cases. You might call it Southern Miss CSI. Read more here.
  
  
  
• Ten years ago, Janice Hansen began working for The University of Southern Mississippi as a fiscal systems analyst with the Mississippi Enterprise for Technology at the John C. Stennis Space Center. She enrolled in two or three classes each semester but quickly realized her school load, coupled with working full time and raising two teenage children, was not feasible. She remained committed to earning a degree, completing one class each semester. Fast-forward to May 12, 2006, when Hansen walked across the stage at Reed Green Coliseum in Hattiesburg to accept her Bachelor of Science degree. Read the story on this steadfast employee.
  
  
  
• University of Southern Mississippi President Shelby Thames, left, talks with Lt. Gen. Carl Strock, right, commander and chief of engineers for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and Southern Miss distinguished lecturer Buford Blount, center, a retired U.S. Army Maj. Gen. who commanded the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, the lead force in defeating the Iraqi army and capturing Baghdad, on the Hattiesburg campus. Faculty representatives from the School of Construction and the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials briefed Gen. Strock on how the University of Southern Mississippi can provide support for U.S. military missions through products created in its polymer science laboratories, as well as an online degree that can be accessed anywhere by its personnel. Gen. Strock also talked about the Corps’ work to date on Hurricane Katrina recovery. Read more here.
  
  
  
• The University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast campus was selected as one of 40 two- and four-year colleges and universities nationwide to receive the 2006 HP Technology for Teaching grant, which is designed to transform and improve learning in the classroom through innovative uses of technology. During the 2006-07 academic year, grant projects through this program will impact more than 4,000 students nationwide. Read the story here.
  
  
  
• We are very proud of our student-athletes and their scholastic achievement! Southern Miss was recognized by the American Football Coaching Association at its annual Academic Achievement Awards. Six institutions achieve a rate of 90 percent graduation rate or better: Southern Miss, Boston College, Duke, Northwestern, Southern Methodist University and Notre Dame. Now that’s good company to be in and something to cheer about! We are proud of the work that Richard Gianinni, athletic director, and our coaching staff are doing with all of our student-athletes. Read more news from athletics here.
  

Building a powerful future

Here’s an overview of the building projects happening on campus:

• The Power House restaurant is now open. Beautiful, historic and exciting, this new venue is located in the heart of the campus adjacent to the court yard and library. When it was built in 1936, the Power House was just that – it provided all of the power for the college. Now, the Power House has been transformed into a restaurant that seats 230 diners. We hope you’ll visit it when you are on campus!
  
  
  
• The Thad Cochran Center, a magnificent student center that extends beyond the current union structure. It is named for our esteemed statesman, Sen. Thad Cochran, in apt gratitude for his attention to the many academic and university projects through the years. His national influence and financial support for Southern Miss has been unwavering and is deeply appreciated. Look for the Cochran Center to be open for the fall semester. The food service for the students will move from the Commons to the new “Fresh Food Company” in the Cochran Center as well as the Barnes and Noble bookstore. It is sure to be a star attraction on our campus for future students and alumni alike.
  
  
  
• When you come to a football game this fall you’ll be sure to notice the Trent Lott Center for Economic Development coming out of the ground, facing Hwy 49. This center is a tribute to the leadership and business development that Sen. Lott has exhibited to advance Mississippi. We are proud to have named this center for entrepreneurship after Lott and will continue to provide further updates as it nears completion.
  
  
  
• This month we are groundbreaking on an exciting student housing effort: The Village. Designed to house sorority women and senior women students, Southern Miss is advancing our approach to student housing with a modular design. The Village is located behind fraternity row in the most eastern part of where Pine Haven housing was previously located. Set to open in about 15 months, sororities will move out of Wilbur (Panhellenic) Hall, which will be upgraded to become a new freshman residence hall.
  

Summertime is busy

Students are back on campus for the summer semester, and we are welcoming thousands of campers to the Hattiesburg campus. Last week we had our first “Preview” session for entering freshmen and transfers. It’s an exciting time! We embrace our new students and their parents into the Southern Miss family and can feel their enthusiasm as they prepare for this next step in their lives.

We are looking forward to an important fall semester when we hope many of our students will return to Hattiesburg and coastal teaching sites to continue their education interrupted by Katrina. Financial assistance and Katrina funds are still available. With 67 degree programs available on the coast and excellent academics offered in Hattiesburg, we ask that you encourage your family and friends to pursue their academic and career goals by enrolling at Southern Miss this fall.

Here at The University of Southern Mississippi, we are offering vivid, powerful learning experiences this summer and year-round.

Sincerely,

Shelby F. Thames
President