Good afternoon and welcome to the 2007 Fall Convocation. I’m Martha Saunders and I have been president here for 115 days.
Since coming on board in May, I’ve spent a great deal of time meeting and listening to as many Southern Miss constituents as possible. I’ve met with faculty, staff, students, alumni, employers, elected officials, board members and just plain fans of our university. These discussions have yielded useful information for me, as a new president, and for all of us who live and learn in this community of learners. I intend to continue this practice.
As we move closer to the 100th birthday of Southern Miss let us celebrate our past while designing our future – together.
I am happy to report that the state of the university is good. It is healthy. It is growing. It is changing.
Some representative examples of our progress follow.
Academic Affairs
Provost and Deans searches
We have launched national searches for deans for The College of Arts and Letters, The College of Education and Psychology and The College of Business. Also, upon the recommendation of Interim Provost Middlebrooks, I have approved the change of title for the vacant position of university librarian to that of dean of the university libraries. In so doing, we believe we will yield the strongest possible pool of candidates.
Access and Outreach
We have enhanced access to our programs with online courses and mini-sessions. Over the past two years, we have seen an increase of 45.9% in number of online course offerings and an increase of 45.5% in number of enrollments.
The number of students in our second full year of offering the mini-sessions is up from 1249 to 2320, an increase of 85.75%. The number of classes offered is up from 79 to 211, an increase of 167%.
Facility enhancements are influencing access as well. For example, the updating of equipment in the Audiology Clinic is enabling the College of Health to double the number of students in the Doctor of Audiology program.
Gulf Coast
We reopened the Gulf Park campus at Long Beach. The addition of film studies there is the first of several stages in creating a unique entertainment industry program there.
The IHL Board has acquired property acres at the Cross Creek Development in Gulfport with the intention of developing another campus to be managed by Southern Miss.
Also on the Gulf Coast, the College of Education and Psychology has established a new Center for Professional Development for children with low-incidence disabilities (such as deafness, blindness, autism, etc.) This center will serve as an outreach program for schools throughout the state.
Academic Quality
The quality of new freshman and transfer students is up as measured by ACT scores and GPA. We welcomed a record 47 Presidential Scholars to the Honors College this fall. This group includes National Merit Finalists with an average ACT score of 30. The overall ACT of freshman is continuing to trend up in recent years while ACT scores in the 2007 Honors College freshman class have jumped by one full point.
The College of Science and Technology produced one Goldwater scholar and two Goldwater honorable mentions out of only 400 awards nationwide.
More than 1,200 current members of the Mississippi Bar earned an undergraduate degree from Southern Miss, according to data compiled by members of Juris Sodalitas, our Legal alumni society – not a bad record considering we do not have a law school.
For 2007, the College of Science and Technology generated $43 million in external funding, an all-time record for the university. The Department of Biology is home to the largest external grant ever awarded to the University: $17 million for the Mississippi Functional Genomics Network, a competitively funded NIH project with the mission of enhancing biomedical research and training in the state of Mississippi.
The school of construction is home to the only doubly accredited B.S. degree in construction management in the country, holding accreditations from the Accreditation Board of Engineering and Technology and American Council on Construction Education.
Nursing student NCLEX test success rate (first-time pass rate) is now 96.7%.
Eleven undergraduate fashion merchandising students in Dr. Burgess’ special problems class produced eight research papers and submitted them to the Hawaii International Conference on Social Sciences. All eight papers were accepted.
The Curator of the deGrummond Children’s Literature Collection, Ellen Ruffin, has been elected to serve on the prestigious Newberry Award Committee.
Professional Development and Learning Support
Arts and Letters launched its first-ever, college-wide new faculty mentoring program this fall, with monthly events where experienced mentors are paired with new faculty to discuss all aspects of faculty life – from classroom management issues to how to prepare for tenure and promotion.
Two faculty and about a dozen students helped unearth a rare 18th century French colonial burial site at an NEH-funded dig in Biloxi in early summer.
Twenty-six Southern Miss students received scholarship awards from the Luckyday Foundation to participate in study abroad programming offered through International Education.
Diversity
The new Center for Black Studies, out of the College of Arts and Letters, will provide a forum for research, curricular revision and community service.
I am impressed with the way this university community embraces diversity. We are among the top 100 universities in America in creating minority graduates. Again, this is a tribute to all of you, and will require our continual commitment.
Budget and Facilities
New facilities projects include
- The opening of The Village for sorority women and scholarship-earning women;
- The Reed Green Coliseum Renovation;
- Pete Taylor Park Expansion;
- MM Roberts Stadium Expansion;
- The Trent Lott Center for Economic Development and Entrepreneurship;
- The National Formulation Science Laboratory at the new Commercialization and Innovation Park; and
- The Ogletree House Renovation and Annex.
This totals to more than $100 million in new construction.
Financial Highlights
Southern Miss maintained a strong financial position during fiscal year 2007, illustrated by a growth in total assets from $395 million to $455 million.
The majority of this increase relates to capital additions and improvements, Katrina relief and insurance recovery.
Looking forward, for FY 2008, we have a 6% increase in E&G funding over last year. This increase has funded the following:
- Merit raises and faculty promotions
- Fringe benefit cost increases for Southern Miss
- Facility insurance
- Utility increases
- Upgrade of library offerings
- New faculty positions to address accreditation issues
- Increases in graduate assistantship stipends
- Establishment of a graduate assistant insurance program
- Technology initiatives
We are looking for new models to maximize our financial resources while providing flexibility for planning.
Staff Accomplishments
The Southern Miss Power House restaurant received a 2007 Best Concept Award for “Best New Facility” from Food Management magazine and was featured in the July issue.
In August, the national Security Magazine featured campus safety efforts for residence halls with Dr. Chris Crenshaw, director of Residence Life.
Given the tragic events at Virginia Tech in the spring, we must adopt an aggressive approach to continual improvement in campus safety and civility; and, again, it will take all of us pulling together.
You will be learning more in the days and weeks to come about initiatives from staff in Student Affairs to enhance protocols in Emergency and Critical Incident Response, and a highly creative and innovative program out of our student Counseling Center called the campus "CARES" program that will help all of us in identifying, supporting and referring students in distress.
Again, these programs will need our involvement to be successful. Be looking for information from the Dean of Students office and the student Counseling Center soon.
Our Counseling Center is also one of only 35 nationally to receive a federally funded Suicide Prevention grant. This is clearly a university that cares about its students.
Research and Economic DevelopmentKey events influencing our progress in this area include
- Continuing recovery from Hurricane Katrina,
- Transition in Congressional majority,
- Transition in institutional presidents, and
- An average of $100 million of enterprise over the past two years.
Other notes:
- Faculty wrote 153 more proposals (a 25% increase) in the past year.
- The School of Ocean and Earth Sciences consistently ranks in the top fifteen nationally in funding for ocean-related research.
- Funding is available for seed and start-up research.
I learned from Dr. Burge this week that in the first two months of this fiscal year, we have already received $22.3 million in funding dollars, that’s $5.5 million more than this date last year. He told me not to get my hopes up for a banner year but I already have.
Dr. Burge has asked me to remind you that Southern Miss has no medical school, no engineering school, and very limited state funding in separately appropriated units, yet we sustain a $100 million per year research enterprise. Congratulate yourselves!
In one generation – from 1970 to 2007 – Southern Miss has done what no one gave it permission to do: become a comprehensive research university with faculty and programs that are demonstrably world-class.
Student Affairs
Student life at Southern Miss is rich and becoming more engaging all the time.
Last year marked the opening of the magnificent Thad Cochran Student Center. This state of the art facility spurred an increase in usage by students, faculty, staff and the community by a remarkable 52%. The Cochran Center projects an incredible image for Southern Miss and has become the true heartbeat of student life. Our students deserve no less.
With some lovely new residence hall facilities coming online, we must now turn our attention to the needed task of replacing much of our aging campus housing inventory. We will commence with a 900-bed addition north of 4th St. very soon and then begin to take some facilities off line as we move in the direction crafted by our new master facilities plan. New student housing will help us in recruiting and student retention, while keeping campus life vibrant and engaging.
Enrollment this fall has held close to level. As reported yesterday, a total duplicated headcount of 15,538 which is 138 students short of our reported number last year.
Graduate enrollment is up for the first time in several years. Gulf Coast enrollment is returning and the percentage of full-time students is trending up.
Though our enrollment has been adversely affected by Hurricane Katrina over the past three fall semesters now, it’s time to set new goals. We will need your thoughts on growth, quality and student retention and success.
Though our six-year graduation rate of 48% and a freshman retention rate of 75% places us ahead of peers with student bodies of similar characteristics, we MUST do better in helping students find success. To put it another way, it just doesn’t count unless they graduate.
This issue will take our combined efforts. Recruitment, retention and graduation of our students must be a priority for all of us.
There is an earnestness and school spirit here among our students that is truly admirable. Our students are engaged in the classrooms, library and labs as well as in campus life. We have more than 280 thriving student organizations. We are leaders in our state and region in community service learning.
Community service learning courses delivered by faculty rose by 24% last year, and the number of students participating in these courses increased by 71%. The number of community service hours logged by our students increased by 50%.
According to the highly regarded National Survey of Student Engagement, Southern Miss ranks above the average of its Carnegie peers in every category of student engagement. Most notably, in the categories of
- "Active and collaborative learning",
- "Student-faculty interaction", and
- "Supportive campus environment".
As we move forward, we should aim not only to be ahead of our peers, but among the national leaders in student engagement. This is one way we continue to “free the power of the individual” as a strong compliment to our academic instruction.
We enroll more Mississippians than any university in our state, and we have the opportunity to help this state by creating more and more quality graduates.
Athletics
This could be one of the best years yet. Construction projects are in full swing as noted earlier. Private funds have been donated to build tennis courts on campus and the project will start shortly.
Football was a preseason pick to win Conference USA and ranked 24th nationally. Across the board, all of our teams are looking for banner years.
Sporting News recently ranked Southern Miss number one in C-USA in fans, pregame atmosphere, and voted "The Rock" as the toughest place to play.
Our student-athletes graduation and academic progress rates continue to be among the best in the nation.
President’s Office
The Provost Search is underway. With Vice President Joe Paul at the helm of a strong search committee, we are expecting to be interviewing candidates as early as February.
I have restored the position of vice president for advancement to assist us in much-needed private fund development. Honors Dean David Davies has agreed to chair the search committee. We are hoping to launch this search by the end of the month.
We have a new executive assistant to the president for External Affairs. This is the position held by Dr. Ginn for many years. I was delighted to appoint Chad Driskell, an alumnus, to this position. Chad has been working in government relations for the Mississippi Bankers Association for the past 11 years and will begin his duties on Sept. 24.
So, what next?
In spite of all this good news, we are not without challenges. Situations vary from program to program, but there are some realities that we all share:
- Our state and country needs more quality college graduates. Nationally and locally, our educated population is aging. Yet we know that our economic fortunes are tied to a high level of educated individuals. At Southern Miss, we are doing our part, but we can and will do more.
- We cannot realistically expect significant increases in support from the state. There are too many needs for too few dollars. Still, we have a right to expect our fair share of public resources.
- Tuition is at a tipping point. We are already seeing the impact of rising tuition on students from the two lower economic quintiles. We must find ways to keep college affordable.
- The climate for federal funding is changing. We have built a strong base through our research initiatives, but we must be vigilant in our efforts to identify and secure crucial federal funding.
Fortunately, our problems have solutions – but we’re going to have to get creative and we’re going to have to pull together.
I have some ideas of my own as to how we might proceed, but I think the university will be better served if we spend a little time together in reflection. Starting this month, I will be hosting a number of campus dialogues to create inspired action – and I invite you to participate.
For the rest of September and October, small groups of about 30 or so faculty, staff, students, alums and community leaders will meet together to discuss the strengths of Southern Miss and our hopes and dreams for her. We will identify a handful of “energy areas” around which we will build our plan for the future.
I will update you on our progress and a final report will be ready by mid-November. At that point, we will move into more traditional planning with an anticipated result of measurable goals – a compass, if you will – for more detailed tactical decision making. We will establish benchmarks of clear indicators to measure our progress.
The real work of the planning will occur at the unit level, with every department on campus being asked to identify appropriate strategies and tactics to move us forward.
I urge you to participate. Dates and registration opportunities for these core dialogues will be on the Southern Miss Web site tomorrow, but for today, we have some old-fashioned sign-up sheets waiting for you in the administration building during the reception afterwards.
Well, I think this is probably enough to get us busy and focused on the future, so I’ll move to close.
As I prepared my remarks for you today, I wanted to leave you with some strong words of inspiration so I consulted with some of my friends on Facebook. Here are some of their recommendations:
First, a quote from Teddy Roosevelt:
“Do what you can with what you have wherever you are.”
Another, “Be not a slave of your own past—plunge into the sublime seas, dive deep, and swim far, so you shall come back with self-respect, with new power, with an advanced experience, that shall explain and overlook the old.”
- Ralph Waldo Emerson.
“They always say that time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself.”
- Andy Warhol.
Some pithy advice from the Star Wars character, Yoda:
“Do or do not. There is no try.”
But my favorite is from the song “Anthem” by Leonard Cohen:
"Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in."
Thank you for listening today. Have a great year!