Released August 1, 2003

SOUTHERN MISS COLLEGE OF HEALTH COINS
NEW MOTTO TO CLARIFY GOALS, COMMITMENTS

HATTIESBURG - The administration of The University of Southern Mississippi's College of Health (COH) is leaving no doubt as to its commitment to students, faculty, the university and its educational mission.

The College of Health has adopted a new motto, RESOLVED, INC. The motto is an acronym for eight key areas of focus interim dean Dr. Joan Exline and her staff believe will help define the college as it moves into the future.

"It (coming up with the motto) is a great opportunity," Exline said. "We're moving into a new location, we're a new college. So it made a lot of sense to sit down and figure out what we are going to do, and how it is we are going to go about doing it."

Laura Malone, assistant to the dean for the COH, said that coming up with the new motto was a staff-wide affair.

"It was very collaborative," Malone said. "The meeting began with us trying to describe what we wanted the dean's office of the College of Health to represent, and then we just started brain-storming different things we wanted to provide to our students, staff and faculty.

"We came up with words that are important to us, to describe who we wanted to be. It was a real team effort."

Each of the letters in RESOLVED, INC hold a specific meaning for COH students, faculty and staff: R-Resourceful; E-Efficient; S-Student friendly; O-optimistic; L-Loyal; V-Visionary; E-Energetic; D-Dedicated; I-Innovative; N-Notable; C-Caring.

The "S," which stands for student friendly, is of particular note because it speaks to another new approach being taken by the COH, that of extending office hours to run from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., and keeping the college's office open during lunch.

"We feel that we have a lot of nontraditional students who need to reach us during the noon hour and after work," Exline said, "and some of the graduate classes don't begin until 6:30 p.m.

"We are going to test this, and see if it makes us more accessible, especially with those groups."

Malone added, "Ideally what we wanted to do was provide students with more options."

The new hours will go into effect Aug. 14.

Another letter, "V," for visionary, can be directly applied to an upcoming improvement in how the college serves students.

"We're looking at some new things," Exline said. "One of those new things will be the Student Resource Center. We're creating a setting where students can visit and learn about careers and degree programs in the COH. Because often they know they want to do something in health care, but they don't have a clue what.

"There hasn't been a central place for them to get information before, so they had to go to each of the different departments."

The Student Resource Center is scheduled to open Oct. 1, Exline said.

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