Tuesday, February 19, 2019   
 
Supes vote in support of SMART paratransit expansion
The Starkville-MSU Area Rapid Transit (SMART) bus system will receive $50,000 from Oktibbeha County to help expand its routes into the county and serve more citizens. At its regular meeting Monday, the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved the measure following a presentation given by Mississippi State University Parking and Transit Coordinator Jeremiah Dumas. In his presentation, Dumas answered supervisors' questions and updated the board on future plans for the SMART system. The $50,000 will bring paratransit services county-wide, after Oct. 1, when SMART's next fiscal year begins. Dumas said the paratransit services offered by SMART were what was most requested in the county. Paratransit services allow the system to serve individuals beyond the reach of the system's usual routes, as long as they fit certain criteria. The process requires a doctor's note and other approvals.
 
Delta adds fourth flight out of Golden Triangle Regional Airport
Delta Air Lines will add a fourth round-trip flight out of the Golden Triangle Regional Airport, a move that bucks recent trends and reflects the growth of the area's industries, said GTRA Executive Director Mike Hainsey. Beginning on June 8, Delta will add a 1:15 p.m. departure to its 6:30 a.m., 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. flights. "Expansions into smaller airports has been almost non-existent in recent years," Hainsey said. "But we were able to convince Delta, because of our business climate, that there would be a great demand for an additional flight." Hainsey said that 80 percent of GTRA's traffic is business-related. "Our industries have been quietly expanding and that's creating demand," Hainsey said. "In our busy months we've been running 90 percent (occupancy). We believe the demand is there and thank Delta for making this move."
 
$3.4M grant to improve health of Coast black community
A $3.4 million grant has been awarded to help black families on the Mississippi Coast live healthier lives by embracing breastfeeding, healthy living and avoiding tobacco use. The five-year grant is one of 31 given to areas around the nation to reduce health disparities among populations with a high risk of chronic diseases, such as high blood pressure, heart disease, Type 2 diabetes and obesity, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The grant is from the CDC's Racial and Ethnic Approaches to Community Health program, known as REACH. It aims to improve lives by building stronger relationships between black communities, public health groups, health care providers and community-based organizations, said Roy Hart, chief executive officer of the Mississippi Public Health Institute. The Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center plans a survey to address knowledge, attitudes and beliefs about nutrition, breastfeeding, tobacco-free living and smoking among black mothers. Collaborators, partners and others will consider survey results and help design a long-term program.
 
Legislators offer mid-session update
Some of DeSoto County's state lawmakers this weekend provided an update on the legislative session's progress in Jackson. State Sen. Kevin Blackwell (R-Southaven) announced during his mid-session update released Friday that he would be running for a second term. Blackwell, representing Senate District 19, was first elected to the legislature in 2015, running unopposed in both the Republican primary and the November general election. "While I believe we have worked to help advance our state, there is still much work to be done," Blackwell wrote in his mid-session update. "That is why, with your support, I am running for a second term to hopefully continue the work we have started." Among the Senate bills Blackwell reported passage on was Senate Bill 2243, which would allow the president of the Board of Supervisors to declare a local state of emergency. On the House side, a weekly report for state Reps. Robert Foster, Jeff Hale, Ashley Henley and Steve Hopkins state the House version of the fetal heartbeat abortion bill was passed on an 81-36 vote after extensive debate on the House floor.
 
Coalition of states sues Trump over national emergency to build border wall
A coalition of 16 states filed a federal lawsuit Monday to block President Trump's plan to build a border wall without permission from Congress, arguing that the president's decision to declare a national emergency is unconstitutional. The lawsuit, brought by states with Democratic governors -- except one, Maryland -- seeks a preliminary injunction that would prevent the president from acting on his emergency declaration while the case plays out in the courts. The complaint was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California, a San Francisco-based court whose judges have ruled against an array of other Trump administration policies, including on immigration and the environment.
 
Bernie Sanders says he's running for president again
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., confirmed Tuesday he will seek the Democratic nomination to the presidency in 2020 to Vermont Public Radio. A formal announcement is expected later today, VPR News reported. Sanders said he wanted to share the news first with Vermont voters. "What I promise to do is, as I go around the country, is to take the values that all of us in Vermont are proud of --- a belief in justice, in community, in grassroots politics, in town meetings -- that's what I'm going to carry all over this country," Sanders told the station. Sanders announced the news on Twitter just after 7 a.m. ET and posted his first campaign video on YouTube. With Sanders entering the fray, the field of possible Democratic candidates includes at least seven senators.
 
Florence Mars: Bearing Witness to Jim Crow in Mississippi With Uncompromising Candor
Lillian Smith did something 70 years ago that was unusual for a white writer: She delved into the world of southern gentility to reveal the bigotry, both casual and virulent, that lay beneath. In her controversial book, "Killers of the Dream," she unflinchingly lay bare racist sensibilities, taboos and behavior --- of her neighbors, family and herself. She used her status as a privileged insider to expose and detail the paradoxes and complexity of racism. "The mother who taught me what I know of tenderness and love and compassion taught me also the bleak rituals of keeping Negroes in their 'place,'" Ms. Smith wrote. Inspired by "Killers of the Dream," Florence Mars, a white woman from Mississippi's landed gentry, did with her camera what Ms. Smith accomplished with her pen: She made visible, with uncompromising candor, the racial nuances, injustices and contradictions of the South. Her photographs are the subject of a new book by James T. Campbell and Elaine Owens, "Mississippi Witness: The Photographs of Florence Mars" (University Press of Mississippi), which includes more than 100 images, most unpublished until now.
 
For a Dissatisfied Public, Colleges' Internal Affairs Become Fair Game
The academy has long set itself apart from the rest of the world, as a place of open inquiry and critical thinking. That autonomy is part of what has given higher education authority and influence. Increasingly, though, the public has little patience for it. You see it in lawmakers' threatening college budgets when they object to a course, legal action to force campuses to host unwelcome speakers, and freedom-of-information requests to expose internal college decision-making and potential bias. Proponents of these steps say they are necessary to protect the public interest. For many in higher education, they are an unwelcome intrusion, an attempt by outsiders at micromanagement. The skirmishes reflect deeper schisms around higher ed and reveal a generation of lawmakers and professors politically further apart than ever. The high level of conservative dissatisfaction could be particularly problematic for public colleges, since nearly two-thirds of statehouses are under Republican control (although Democrats made some gains in 2018).
 
Black History Month March to protest Confederate symbols
Several black student organizations have come together to host the Black History Month March at noon Thursday. The march will begin at Lamar Hall and end at the Confederate statue in the Circle. "The purpose of this protest is to call attention to the issue of the Confederate statue that sits at the heart of our campus," said Jarrius Adams, a member of the UM Gospel Choir. "This statue is not just stone and metal. It is not just an innocent remembrance of a benign history. This statue celebrates a fictional, sanitized Confederacy, ignoring the deaths, ignoring the enslavement, ignoring the terror it actually stood for." While the Black History Month March has been planned for months, it falls days before the Mississippi Stands Rally is set to take place. Two groups -- Confederate 901 and the Hiwaymen -- plan to march from the Square to the Circle on Saturday to protest the removal of Confederate symbols on campus.
 
Confederate rally draws responses from U. of Mississippi administration, student groups
University of Mississippi administration and student groups are responding to a neo-Confederate rally scheduled for Saturday afternoon with events planned throughout the week and on the day of the march. Confederate 901 and the Hiwaymen, neo-Confederate groups not based in Mississippi, will organize in Oxford on Saturday afternoon to protest the removal and contextualization of Confederate symbolism in the university community. "This is an event to draw the line in the sand!!! For over a decade the administration and faculty have completely disregarded and disrespected the traditions of a once great southern university," the event page states. "Enough is enough!!" The university announced Monday afternoon that it will hold a "Community Conversation" on Wednesday to address the protests planned for later in the week and "how they fit into a larger context in today's higher education landscape, and how the university is preparing for events at the end of the week."
 
How Donald Trump inspired this student-driven library display at Southern Miss
How could a news about President Donald Trump dropping his umbrella or a thrift store find on white trash food lead to exhibits about the magic of umbrellas or the culture of Southern cooking? They could if they catch the interest of student curators at the University of Southern Mississippi's University Libraries' Special Collections. "About five years ago, we had all these exhibit cases we had to fill and it gets difficult," said Jennifer Brannock, curator of Rare Books and Mississippiana in Special Collections. "I decided to start a program where we would have student curators get a case and each would do an exhibit on one topic." Brannock puts out the word to professors on campus and usually gets interest from library science, English and history students. They have to go before a judges' panel of university librarians, who decide if their topic is unique and can be supported with the varied materials in Special Collections. "There was an article about Donald Trump dropping his umbrella getting on (Air Force One)," said Karlie Herndon, a doctoral student specializing in children's literature. "I thought about 'Alice in Wonderland' -- the first image is of the rabbit holding an umbrella."
 
Auburn University to build $94.5 million culinary education center, hotel
Auburn University is moving forward with a $94.5 million culinary science center which will include a teaching boutique hotel and restaurant. The Tony and Libba Rane Culinary Science Center is expected to open in 2021. The university's Board of Trustees gave the greenlight for the 142,000-square-foot project last week, which will accommodate the state's only professionally accredited hospitality program. Construction at the corner of East Thach Avenue and South College Street will begin in April, the school said. The center will be the first revenue generating academic building on Auburn's campus. Auburn University President Steven Leath said the campus and community will "reap the benefits of having such a dynamic destination for food, hospitality and instruction so close to home." The center will have six upper-level residences for long-term leasing.
 
Auburn University trustees tackle campus parking
Auburn University President Steven Leath shared with the university's board of trustees what he referred to as "a huge burden" last week. "This is probably the single most important issue on the minds of our faculty, staff and students," Leath told the board. "There's not enough parking." Leath, Chief Financial Officer Kelli Shomaker and Associate Vice President for Facilities Dan King spoke with the trustees at length during a Thursday work session about the issue of parking on campus. "Let me set the stage," Shomaker said. "We have total enrollment of 30,440 students that come to this campus, 84 percent of them living off-campus, so they need some mode of transportation to the institution. "We have 5,100 employees, 49 percent of which live outside of a 5-mile radius of campus. So for those 30,000 students and 5,000 employees, we provide right now an existing infrastructure of 13,000 parking spaces." On Friday, the board approved project initiation and engineer selection for the first of multiple campus parking expansion phases.
 
$1.5 million initiative goes to upgrade labs across UGA's campus
Labs and research support spaces across campus will be getting an upgrade, thanks to a $1.5 million presidential initiative that seeks to build on the university's dramatic growth in research activity. Presidential renovation funds have been distributed to nine schools and colleges and will be used to upgrade labs and replace core equipment that enables faculty members to conduct research and be more competitive in seeking grant funding. Proposals were solicited from deans and chosen based on links to college and university strategic priorities, as well as implications for faculty recruitment efforts and grant funding opportunities. "To advance the research mission of the university and attract and retain outstanding faculty, we must support state-of-the-art facilities that assist the faculty with their groundbreaking work," said UGA President Jere W. Morehead. "I am pleased the institution has been able to help several faculty with critical needs, thanks to this initiative."
 
Louisiana community colleges too costly, state's higher education chief says
Louisiana students are paying more than the regional and national averages to attend community colleges and the issue needs to be addressed, Higher Education Commissioner Kim Hunter Reed said Monday. Families here pay 21.1 percent of their income when enrolled in the two-year schools compared to 17 percent in other Southern states and 18.2 percent nationally, according to data compiled by the Southern Regional Education Board. "The bottom line is this: If you can't afford it you can't achieve it," Reed told the Press Club of Baton Rouge. Affordability at community colleges is especially significant amid new state goals for education attainment. The state Board of Regents wants 60 percent of the population to have a credential by 2030 compared to 45.7 percent today.
 
U. of Missouri reports tuberculosis case on campus
A student at the University of Missouri diagnosed with active tuberculosis left campus voluntarily and the campus is working with the Columbia/Boone County Department of Public Health and Human Services to identify individuals who have come in contact with the student. In a news release issued Monday, the university praised the student for cooperating with the effort to limit the spread of the disease. "The safety of our students is our top priority," Gary Ward, interim vice chancellor for Student Affairs, said in the release. "We are fortunate to have excellent health resources and experts in this area who are skilled at handling these types of diseases. Tuberculosis can only be spread by individuals with active cases and only through the air, not by touching surfaces or sharing food or drink.
 
Proposal for payroll withholding sets off debate on student loan system
Student advocates have for years complained about the complex set of options borrowers must navigate to repay their student loans. Student loan borrowers are faced with a dizzying nine repayment plans based on their income, in addition to a standard 10-year loan-repayment plan. There's a growing consensus that Congress should reduce those options to one income-based option on top of the standard plan. Senator Lamar Alexander, the chairman of the Senate education committee, would go one step further, calling for loan payments to be automatically deducted from borrowers' paychecks. Alexander put forward the idea this month as part of a package he portrayed as an attainable plan for tackling the burden of student loan debt through legislation to renew the Higher Education Act. Although Alexander is motivated to pass a law thanks to his pending retirement, reaching a deal in a divided Congress is still widely seen as a serious challenge; many Democrats and advocates for students have clamored for ambitious, and expensive, federal solutions to college affordability.


SPORTS
 
Mississippi State's Tanner Allen named national player of the week
Mississippi State's Tanner Allen enjoyed a whale of a weekend at the plate and has been named one of Collegiate Baseball's National Players of the Week. The sophomore first baseman went 7 for 13 with three doubles, two home runs, 13 RBIs and five runs scored in the Bulldogs' three-game sweep of Youngstown State. Allen accounted for 16 total bases on the weekend and walked once. He set new single-game highs for RBIs (6), runs scored (3) and tied his personal best with three hits during the opening series.
 
Mississippi State's Teaira McCowan in the mix for Leslie Award
Mississippi State's Teaira McCowan is one of 10 semifinalists selected for the Lisa Leslie Award, which is presented annually to the top center in the nation. McCowan has recorded 60 double-doubles over the course of her career, including 21 this season. The 6-foot-7 senior from Brenham, Texas leads the Southeastern Conference with 13.7 rebounds, 2.6 blocks and shooting 64.9 percent from the field and ranks fifth scoring 17 points per game. McCowan is the lone SEC player represented as a Leslie Award semifinalist. Finalists will be selected next month.
 
Derrick Zimmerman living out dream as college coach
It's not unusual for a family business to be passed down from one generation to the next. In Derrick Zimmerman's case, that family trade just so happens to be basketball coaching. Zimmerman's father, uncle and brother are all in the profession and he, too, has taken up coaching since his playing career ended. Zimmerman is serving in his first year as a graduate assistant on Ben Howland's staff at his alma mater, Mississippi State. "I'm like a kid living out a dream," Zimmerman said. "Being able to come back and help out the program and be part of the basketball staff is like living out a dream." Zimmerman enjoyed quite the career at MSU from 2000-03 as a two-time All-SEC selection. He helped the Bulldogs' advance to the postseason three times while winning the 2002 SEC Tournament and the 2003 Western Division title.
 
Athletic chiefs from UA, ASU, UALR and UAPB urge rule edits for sports bets
Four athletic directors from state universities joined forces to suggest edits to the sports betting rules proposed by the Arkansas Racing Commission in its draft rules for licensing and overseeing casinos. Four team logos were splashed across the top of a letter signed by athletic directors Hunter Yurachek of the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville; Terry Mohajir of Arkansas State University; Chasse Conque of the University of Arkansas at Little Rock; and Melvin Hines of the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff. The athletic directors identified two key areas that require extra attention from the commission: enacting protections that restrict certain persons and types of wagers that carry a greater risk of student-athlete exploitation and collegiate game integrity, and enhancing communications among casino licensees, sports books, the commission, and in-state colleges and universities and their governing bodies.
 
What makes U. of Tennessee's new $1.25M turf baseball field unique
The pitcher's mound features the only dirt that remains on the field at Lindsey Nelson Stadium. The Tennessee baseball team debuted its turf field in fine fashion last weekend, sweeping a three-game series against Appalachian State. Although the new playing surface is a game-changer for the program, what happened on the dirt stole the show of the Vols' opening weekend. The new field had an immediate impact given the rainy conditions last weekend. Vitello figures if the Vols still had their old surface, their three-game series would have become a Saturday doubleheader of seven-inning contests. Three games totaling 27 innings would have been reduced to 14 innings. "Every little bit helps this early in the year," Vitello said. "We need innings, and we need repetitions." The project cost $1.25 million, according to documents obtained by The News Sentinel via a public records request. The project was funded entirely through private fundraising, athletics department spokesman Tom Satkowiak said.
 
AD Scott Woodward: Biggest challenge for Aggie athletics is building on success in SEC
The move to the Southeastern Conference has been good for the Texas A&M football program on and off the field. The Aggies are 60-31 and have finished in the nation's Top 10 for attendance six straight seasons, including the Top 5 four times. Building on that success is the biggest challenge facing A&M's athletic department in the next 5-10 years, athletic director Scott Woodward said. "And I mean that both literally and figuratively," Woodward said. "We want to make sure that we take care of our players. And that we do the best that we can to make sure that they're safe and that we can analytically analyze how we are doing these things and how we're making the game even more safe, so I think that's a big piece of it." The second part of the challenge is making sure A&M can fill Kyle Field, which was expanded to 102,733 during a $485 million, two-year renovation. "Hey, are people coming?" Woodward said. "And why are they coming? And what excites and motivates them to come?"
 
Vanderbilt to name building after former athletics director David Williams
Vanderbilt will name its Student Recreation and Wellness Center after former athletics director David Williams, who died Feb. 8 at age 71. Chancellor Nicholas Zeppos referenced the plan while speaking at Williams' funeral Friday, and a university news release confirmed it Monday. Zeppos said he presented a resolution on the building name to the Board of Trust on the morning of Williams' death. His retirement party was scheduled for later that night. Vanderbilt also has commissioned a portrait of Williams by Simmie Knox, the first black artist to paint an official presidential portrait. He painted the portraits of Bill and Hillary Clinton in 2004. Knox's portrait of Williams will be part of the Vanderbilt Trailblazers portrait series, which is displayed in Kirkland Hall. The series currently has four portraits, including Vanderbilt alumni Perry Wallace, Rev. Walter R. Murray Jr., Rev. James Lawson and Bishop Joseph Johnson.
 
College students are still taking a knee against racism
In 2016, a silent protest, a knee to the ground, spurred a movement -- and set off a backlash -- that has lasted years. Colin Kaepernick, then a quarterback for the San Francisco 49ers, first took a knee during the National Anthem at a preseason game, a quiet demonstration against systemic racism and police brutality in the United States. The decision earned him years of condemnation, including from President Trump, who repeatedly called on National Football League team owners to stop the movement. But activists on campus noticed Kaepernick's display, too. Other NFL players followed his lead. It trickled down into the higher education sphere, where students -- both athletes and not -- and even professors, knelt, inspired by Kaepernick's mission. Two and a half years later, such protests have largely ceased. Few players still kneel in the professional league, and few students do. But often, those campus athletes have taken a small act and run with it, using the momentum and the attention from a controversial demonstration and channeling it into action.



The Office of Public Affairs provides the Daily News Digest as a general information resource for Mississippi State University stakeholders.
Web links are subject to change. Submit news, questions or comments to Jim Laird.
Mississippi State University  •  Mississippi State, MS 39762  •  Main Telephone: (662) 325-2323  •   Contact: The Editor  |  The Webmaster  •   Updated: February 19, 2019Facebook Twitter