Today I had the pleasure of visiting the campus of Mississippi School for Math and Science in Columbus, my second visit to campus in a week. This residential high school for Mississippi’s best and brightest in the sciences gives the Honors College and Southern Miss a wonderful batch of freshman recruits each fall, and I want to keep them coming. Last week, Southern Miss President Martha Dunagin Saunders, Dr. Joe Paul, vice president for student affairs, and I spoke to an assembly of the entire MSMS student body. Today I was back for the MSMS college fair, which gave me the chance to visit one-on-one with many students who were interested in Southern Miss.
I made the road trip with Bentley Anderson, one of our admissions counselors; Andre Heath, assistant to the dean in the College of Science & Technology; and Bret Calhoun, assistant director of the School of Polymers and High Performance Materials. This will be one of a number of recruiting trips we’ll take over the course of the semester. (My HoCo colleague Stacey Ready is headed to Jackson Prep Tuesday night, for example.) It makes for a late night on the road every now and then, but one of the best parts of the dean’s job is getting to talk to recruits about the great programs at Southern Miss.
That’s Bentley, by the way, in the top picture above. And no, I didn’t take the smaller picture while driving; Bret did the honors.
