ARTICLES CONCERNING
LANCE NAIL, DEAN
(September 21, 2009) 31st & Pearl The Egocentric Dean Judging by multiple accounts of the 18-Sept-09 "State of the
CoB" address, the CoB's current dean, Lance Nail, is from the same "all about ME" generation as past dean Harold
Doty. That genesis took the former CoB leader all the way down to the University of Texas – Tyler, where he now
resides. Where will it take Nail? No one knows for sure, but a consensus is building that it will be out of the CoB
within two years from now.
(September 30, 2009) The Davis Departure: What does it mean for the CoB? When Donna Davis retires on June 30th,
even if she has a phased retirement deal in place, it will alter her participation in the CoB. This is major news because
she has been a force in the Lance Nail administration. Except for a few weeks when she was at odds with the dean’s
office over the infamous Sonia Gaines-Littles email to the faculty and staff, Donna has been a constant planner,
worker, supporter, and cheerleader for the Nail team.
(October 5, 2009) 31st & Pearl The Rule of 72 With Donna Davis' retirement from the CoB's decision sciences group,
the organization (the CoB) has now lost 72 faculty since the Harold Doty administration commenced in 2003. Here's a
thought: If you've lost 72 faculty (in an academic setting as small as USM's CoB is) since 2003, there is something
fundamentally wrong with the way the organization is being managed. Of course, itfs not too difficult for those who
experienced Harold Doty's leadership from 2003-07 to buy into this thought. It might be at least a little difficult for
some of the Lance Nail-ites to do so, however.
(October 12, 2009) CoB News, 12 October 2009 “Beleaguered Nail,” by 31st & Pearl Columnist CoB dean Lance Nail
must be feeling the sting of losing another battle with the CoB’s economists, who were recently saved from Nail’s
budget-cutting by the Martha Saunders administration of USM. Now comes the bleakest of pictures, painted at USM’s
fall 2009 convocation by Mississippi IHL Commissioner Hank Bounds
(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 29, 2009) GH Chatter As expected, there has been some chatter about CoB dean Lance Nail being out looking
for a new job (as dean elsewhere). Should that happen, it will be interesting to see if Nail puts together a large file
folder containing "his side" of various stories involving his time as CoB dean.
