September 2009 Archives

This came in yesterday's mail.  Great compliment to our students and fans.

Dear Dr. Saunders:

I attended the University of Virginia-Southern Miss game last weekend.  It was certainly an exciting game, although my Wahoos eventually got worn down by your team.  The fact of the win or the loss is not the reason for this letter.

I did want you to know that I was extremely impressed with both the school spirit of your students and alumni, but more particularly in their appropriate response to college football and the competition.  Before the game, Virginia had a small tent with some pretzels, nuts, etc.  One of the tailgating Southern Miss fans decided that we were certainly suffering, invited us to their much larger tent, and offered us barbecue ribs, barbecue chicken, briskets, and all the trimmings.  They went above and beyond in offering hospitality.

After the game we were stopped by at least a dozen students or alumni who paused to say "good game" etc.  I thought this was particularly impressive considering the general attitude the you see in students and fans at some schools in the Southeastern Conference.

Congratulations on presiding over a school that sees college sports in the proper perspective.

Yours very truly,

KARL W. BOYLES

One of the best things about the Kansas game was the ride home.  Just as we were landing, the flight attendant told us that she had worked a lot of charters for athletic teams and that our guys, by far, were the nicest and best behaved.  She said, "They're well brought up!" 

Congratulations to our coaches and team for setting good examples on and off the field.

I was in Kansas on Saturday, cheering for the Golden Eagles.  Read below about the great turnout at Saturday's Heartwalk.  It seems like there is no limit to the generosity of the Southern Miss family.

Martha,

Saturday mornng, I arrived at Pride Field at 6 AM to help set up for the Heart Walk.  Gary Kimble was already there with a big group of Phi Kaps moving tables, chairs and other heavy items.  Susan Bone and several of her colleagues were also hard at work.  As the sun came up, more and more of your faithful, generous staff, faculty, and students began to appear.  We had a really nice turnout -- it seemed even larger than last year.

On Thursday night (Bank Night for the Heart Walk), Southern Miss turned in almost $15,000!  Donations were still flowing in Saturday, so I am guessing that our total will be over $17,000.  This amount more than doubles what Southern Miss folks donated last year!   The students were really much more involved this year thanks to the leadership of lots of Student Affiars folks. 

It is always so heartwarming to see how generous our Southern Miss folks can be when they embrace a very worthy cause.  You and I are fortunate to work with so many wonderful people. 

See you in the morning,

Mary Dayne

I heard a great presentation yesterday from Vafa Kamali, Director of University Research Centers.  He met with the Executive Cabinet and provided information about K-Series Career Development Awards.  These NIH sponsored awards give support to research initiatives for graduate students, new faculty and senior faculty.  These are exciting opportunities.

Vafa and his small but energetic CREATeS staff have evolved into a successful "proposal factory" in a very short time.  As a result of their work, over the past 13 ½ months USM has received $14.6 million in external funds as a result of grant applications developed, facilitated and improved.

For more information, contact vafa.kamali@usm.edu.

According to my edition of The Drawl, our first President, Joe Cook, had a personal motto, Get there on time and stay to the end, which pretty much became the campus slogan during his tenure.  Nearly a century later, it was gratifying to see our students embodying that behavior at Saturday's game.  They came early, they stayed until the end, and they cheered the team on to victory. 

I think Daddy Cook would have been pleased.

Congratulations to Dr. J Kim, a research scientist in Biological Sciences, who has been awarded a 3-year, 7-figure($), R01 grant from NIH. These are the very hardest competitive dollars to garner.

I receive a report monthly on the University's sustainability efforts.  The action of the UCCC seems especially noteworthy.  Many thanks to Larry Lee for his continued good work.  Read below:

University Climate Commitment Council

The University Climate Commitment Council met on August 27, 2009 to continue discussing climate action planning.  At this meeting, the UC3 agreed for the Office of Sustainability to take a unilateral approach to developing the Climate Action Plan (CAP) as opposed to writing the plan through subcommittees.  The Office of Sustainability will consult with the various subject matter experts on campus as needed as it develops and writes the plan.  The UC3 agreed that this approach was the most pragmatic given the time constraints of when the plan has to be completed.

The Climate Action Plan will develop, in order, the areas listed below:

1.      Environmentally responsible purchasing policy.

2.      Curriculum development.

3.      Transportation plan.

4.      Energy (in conjunction with energy partner) plan to include demand, modes of supply, technology development, and emissions projections.

By addressing the four (4) topics above, the Climate Action Plan can then address (as required) strategies to reduce, mitigate, and offset carbon emissions with a goal of climate neutrality by 2050.

Once the plan is written, it will be submitted for UC3 for review and feedback.  Once approved by the UC3, it will be submitted to Cabinet for review and feedback.

I had "the budget talk" with the extended cabinet yesterday.  The primary objective of the meeting was to make sure that the campus leadership is clear about our progress toward budget reductions so that they, in turn, can answer the questions of their constituents.  The text of my talk will be posted on our website in Fall Semester Buzz, but part of it bears restating.

We are NOT going to let our budget define us this year.  It would be an insult to the good work that surrounds us.

Enrollment is up.  Retention is up.  Research funding is up.  Private fundraising is up.  The only thing down around here is the economy, and plenty of smart people at Southern Miss are figuring out how to deal with that.

As I left the meeting yesterday, I remembered the words of Winston Churchill (who had his own share of troubles in 1941) when he spoke at Harrow School:

Do not let us speak of darker days; let us rather speak of sterner days.  These are not dark days:  these are great days--the greatest days our country has ever lived; and we must all thank God that we have been allowed, each of us according to our stations, to play a part in making these days memorable in the history of our race.