financialsituation11

(September 10, 2009) GH Chatter According to chatter, many believe that the reason behind there being no official announcement about the "ECO plan" is that USM president Martha Saunders wants all of the media hype over the situation to die down before bringing it up again. If accurate, then all of the fuss the economists are now making about the situation is working to ensure that the uncertainty they face is prolonged.

(September 10, 2009) 31st & Pearl On Borrowed Chatter In case you hadn’t noticed already, USMNEWS.net’s GH Chatter series has been on overdrive lately, all in an effort to stay on top of the stories circulating about the CoB’s economists.

(September 11, 2009) How Good are the CoB Economists? A Look Back Across the Recession and Financial Crisis for Answers By now USMNEWS.net readers are well aware that USM notified its constituencies back in August-2009 that the institution was seriously considering eliminating all of its b-school economics majors and the 9 tenured/tenure-track faculty who accompany and service them. That decision, we were told, was the result of the economic fallout from the recession that has hammered Mississippi and the rest of the country for some time. USM began implementing multi-million budget cuts back in the fall of 2009, and is expected to face cuts of up to $12 million over the next few months.

(September 13, 2009) Consider Dr. Saunders, in this time of financial crisis in which people are losing jobs and you have called on the IHL to increase the tuition burden on our students, what have you done to reduce administrative bloat? Since your public statements are silent on the issue, may we assume you have done nothing?

(September 14, 2009) GH Chatter Chatter surrounding USM associate provost Bill Powell hosting the AAUP-USM new year kickoff party is quite lively. Some are saying Powell, as an agent for the Saunders administration, shouldn't be trusted by AAUPers and other USM faculty. Others are saying that Saunders should no longer trust her agent.

(September 15, 2009) Nail to Address Faculty in a “State of the CoB” Meeting SoCoB Meeting to be Held on 18 September 2009 Via a recent e-mail message, CoB dean Lance Nail has called a CoB-wide faculty meeting for Friday, 18- Sept-09. According to Nail, “. . . we need to have a faculty meeting to discuss the current state of the college . . .” Nail’s e-mail went even further, stating that “[t]his week should bring clarity to our budget situation for the current and future fiscal years that I hope to share with you . . .”