ARTICLES CONCERNING
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MISSISSIPPI'S
FINANCIAL PROBLEMS
(October 14, 2009) GH Chatter The chatter in the hallways at JGH has it that last Wednesday the CoB staff was told
that the budget situation was dire and getting worse. It was very likely that 4 to 6 staff people would be terminated by
November 1st; the decision would be made on Friday. Not 2 days later College departmental administrators were told
that other cuts were made instead of cutting staff to achieve budget goals. Why not convene the staff? Isn’t that good
news in a time of nearly all bad news?
(October 19, 2009) “Mission Creep”? During the current hard times, President Saunders finds money to spend on new
projects she wants. Are the projects well considered or are they evidence of wasteful, ill-conceived “mission creep”
discussed in a Chronicle of Higher Education article by Charles Miller? First, consider one of the many new Saunders’
spending initiatives the IHL reported from its October 14-15, 2009 meeting:
(October 29, 2009) GH Chatter Their recent public relations barrage has some chatting about the TMers' prospects for
landing on USM's cut list in the coming months. With IHL Commissioner Hank Bounds' doomsday reports, some real
cuts are going to have to happen sooner or later. It's clear to many CoBers that MIS and FM (fashion merchandising)
are probably at the top of the list today. TM (tourism management) is working hard to stay no higher than third, where
they probably are now.
(November 16, 2009) June 30th Looking ahead to June 30th, what is going to happen if the 5 Economics “retirees” do
not retire? As has been reported here previously, no one on either side was willing to commit to this “agreement” in
writing: the “retirees” would not submit letters of retirement without assurances that the University would not renege
on their part and fire the remaining economics faculty members and the University would not commit to that in
writing without the letters of retirement.
(November 16, 2009) Whither productivity? Dr. Lyman has been dutifully informing the Southern Miss constituents
that he, Martha, and the school itself will no longer actively defend low-productivity academic programs
(November 19, 2009) GH Chatter Speaking of potential legal issues, there was some recent chatter about what a The
Hattiesburg American reader noted way back when the CoB economists were publicizing their plan to have the 5
senior professors retire so that the 4 mostly junior professors continue on at USM. The reader noted (online) that the 4
economists staying behind were all foreign-born.
