| Friday, July 26, 2019 |
| Mississippi State University Receives Seven Seals Award | |
 | The National Guard and U.S. Armed Forces reserves recently presented Mississippi State University's Division of Student Affairs with the Seven Seals Award through the Mississippi Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve. The award recognizes employers for providing support for the Guard and Reserve. MESGR previously presented MSU Vice President for Student Affairs Regina Hyatt and Assistant Vice President for Student Affairs Jeremy Baham with the Patriotic Employer Award in 2018 for their support of service members. MSU also received the Seven Seals Award in 2017. MSU's Division of Student Affairs also includes the G.V. "Sonny" Montgomery Center for America's Veterans, a facility in the campus' Nusz Hall that provides support for military-connected students at the university. |
| Misty Booth joins Mississippi Forestry Commission | |
 | Starkville resident Misty Booth joined the Mississippi Forestry Commission as the new urban forestry coordinator. As the urban forestry coordinator, Booth will oversee the agency's urban forestry program, including administration of the urban and community forestry challenge grant program and the Tree City USA program in Mississippi. She will also assist cities and private landowners with their urban forestry needs, as well as coordinate the MFC's urban forest strike team, which analyzes damage and provides assistance in restoring urban forests following natural disasters. Booth was a 1999 graduate of Mississippi State University and prior to joining the MFC, she worked for Mississippi State University and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. |
| Hotel sales tax revenues setting record pace | |
| When the city of Starkville's 2-percent hotel sales tax revenue arrived for month of January, the numbers would have made even a novice bookkeeper do a double-take. The state's department of revenue returned $75,675 in hotel tax money to the city, almost $60,000 more than the previous January and the largest single-month tax receipt ever. It was good news for Jennifer Prather, interim CEO for The Partnership, which receives all of the hotel tax revenue for the city's convention and visitors bureau. Even so, she wasn't over the moon about it. "That sort of thing happens (sometimes)," Prather said. "What happens is that some hotels don't turn in the tax money for a month or two, then all of the sudden in arrives and it's put into the next month's disbursement. You can't really read too much into it." That might explain what happened in January, but what has happened since is harder to explain and a definite source of optimism. "We are absolutely excited about what we're seeing so far," Prather said. |
| Bully Bloc Endorses Lieutenant Governor Candidate Delbert Hosemann | |
 | Bully Bloc announced on Thursday its support for Delbert Hosemann in his bid for Lieutenant Governor. "We've enjoyed a great working relationship with Secretary Hosemann over the years and look forward to continuing this relationship in promoting Mississippi's Institutions of Higher Learning," said Camp Murphy, Bully Bloc Chairman and Mississippi State University alumnus. "We are thankful Secretary Hosemann understands the contributions of our IHLs, in both education and research, toward the advancement of our State." Bully Bloc is a non-partisan group of friends and alumni of Mississippi State committed to electing political leaders who will make sure the interests of the university and higher education are advanced. "From super computers to the political and public policy powerhouse of the Stennis Institute, Mississippi State is poised to help move our State forward with its knowledge, resources, and innovative spirit," added Hosemann. |
| 'Enter hemp with extreme caution,' Kentucky farmer tells Senate panel | |
 | Farmers facing low prices and mired in trade uncertainty see hemp as the next big cash crop, but a Kentucky veteran of six hemp harvests warned it's a demanding plant to produce. "Enter hemp with extreme caution," Brian Furnish told the Senate Agriculture Committee on Thursday. Furnish and his brothers started raising hemp under a provision Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell got included in the 2014 farm bill. In those years, Furnish said he's dealt with weeds overtaking his hemp plants, limited options for seed that does well in Kentucky and the trial and error of figuring out the best time to put hemp seed in the ground. He told the committee in the early years he once replanted a hemp field seven times before he got plants. McConnell made a rare appearance Thursday to introduce Furnish and to say he hoped a new generation of Kentucky farmers will find hemp as lucrative as tobacco once was. |
| Historic bell tolls again on MUW's campus | |
| Mississippi University for Women President Nora Miller doesn't remember when the bell inside the Callaway Hall clock tower stopped chiming. She also doesn't know why it suddenly started ringing again. After what she guessed is more than 10 years of silence from the historic clock tower, Miller suddenly heard the bell while she was standing out on her porch one Sunday afternoon in March. "I thought, 'Oh, maybe it's one of the churches that just got out,'" she told The Dispatch. "But then I walked toward the sound and realized, 'No, it's the Callaway bell tower.' ... The bell rang about 17 times and then stopped. Then it rang again about a half-hour later. Ever since then, it's been running as if it never stopped in the first place." MUW Director of Facilities Management Jody Kennedy found a series of misaligned microswitches inside the clock's mechanism caused the bell to stop chiming on the hour. After fixing those, the clock is operating correctly and accurately. |
| Armed Ole Miss Students Posed With an Emmett Till Memorial Sign. They Went Unpunished by the University. | |
 | A photo of University of Mississippi fraternity members holding guns and posing before a bullet-riddled Emmett Till memorial sign was deemed "offensive and hurtful" by a campus official, but the university declined to suspend or punish the students because the image did not violate Ole Miss's code of conduct. A spokesman for the university, Rod Guajardo, wrote in a statement that the incident had occurred off-campus and was not part of a university-affiliated event. As originally reported by ProPublica, in partnership with the Mississippi Center for Investigative Reporting, a Kappa Alpha Order fraternity member named Ben LeClere posted the photo to his private Instagram account in March. The image, taken at night in front of a sign marking where Till's body was found, shows LeClere holding a shotgun while another fraternity brother holds what ProPublica identified as an AR-15, a semiautomatic rifle. John Lowe squats between the two. All three are smiling. |
| At Lindbergh High, family and friends remember Ole Miss student found shot to death | |
| As the sun set Thursday evening, nearly 100 people gathered in the parking lot at Lindbergh High School around a flagpole embellished with candles in remembrance of 21-year-old Ally Kostial. Kostial was a 2016 graduate of Lindbergh High and an incoming senior at the University of Mississippi whose body was found Saturday morning about 30 miles from the campus. A preliminary autopsy report revealed that she died from "multiple gunshot wounds," according to the Oxford Eagle, a newspaper that serves the Ole Miss and Oxford, Mississippi, area. But Thursday night, as the crowd passed around a microphone and described Kostial as a "beautiful soul" and someone with a positive attitude, the focus was on Kostial's life. "She was always smiling, laughing and happy," said Casey Hendrickson, 22, one of Kostial's best friends. |
| Ole Miss offers counseling sessions in wake of student murder | |
| With summer school still in session and the fall semester a month away from commencing, the University of Mississippi is offering walk-in grief counseling sessions to students, faculty and staff. Ole Miss vice chancellor of student affairs, Dr. Brandi Hephner LaBanc, released a statement to the University community in the wake of Kostial's death. "Over the weekend, we lost a vibrant member of the Ole Miss family, Alexandria 'Ally' Kostial. The University of Mississippi community is deeply saddened by the news of Ally's passing, and our hearts go out to her parents, friends, and classmates," LaBanc's statement read. The University Counseling Center is offering walk-in grief counseling between the hours of 11 a.m. and 3 p.m. to students, faculty and staff in need of additional support, or those in need of services can schedule an appointment by calling 662-915-3784. |
| Transit proposal would connect Jackson neighborhoods, colleges, entertainment districts | |
| Planning is underway for a new transportation project in Jackson. "Oneline is a project that looks to connect all the means of transportation, all the modes of mobility that the city wants to employ," said Mayor Chokwe Antar Lumumba. The proposal is for a 5-mile transportation corridor that will connect several Jackson neighborhoods through pedestrian walkways and bike lanes centered around a rapid transit bus system that stretches from Fondren through downtown to Jackson State University. It would connect JSU, Millsaps College, Belhaven University, UMMC and Baptist Hospital to each other. "You've got plenty of colleges all around here and the opportunity for these students to connect and do things on each other's campuses, or visit other campuses, is very important," said John Sewell, with Millsaps College. "Anything that we can have in the city of Jackson that can give our students a new transportation option to get around the city is certainly welcome, especially our international students, who often come here and don't have a vehicle of their own." |
| LSU students saved professor after sudden cardiac arrest; EMS calls response 'phenomenal' | |
 | A trio of LSU students are getting credit for saving the life of Boyd professor of math James Oxley. "Not just my life. My career," Oxley told reporters Thursday. "You lose seconds on these kinds of situations and you lose brain function." Oxley, 66, was swimming laps at the LSU University Recreation building on July 5 around 6 p.m. when he suffered cardiac arrest. The veteran swimmer stopped in mid-stroke, fell across the lane ropes and began gasping for air while two other swimmers hauled him out of the pool. Kati Estes, a lifeguard and junior at LSU, got to Oxley first and provided the initial round of rescue breathing. Isabella Alvarez, another lifeguard and senior from New Orleans, reached Oxley and used a radio to call for EMS -- code red. Evan Young, a senior from Mandeville and aquatics supervisor, arrived on the scene, saw the professor had a shallow pulse and did CPR compressions. |
| FBI director Christopher Wray spotlights Texas A&M's cybersecurity efforts | |
 | FBI Director Christopher Wray, in an appearance before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington, D.C., earlier this week, praised the Texas A&M University System for its work to help other academic institutions with their cybersecurity efforts, and for its collaboration with the bureau on matters of national security. U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, expressed during the hearing that he harbors concerns about universities protecting vital information with potential national interest. "One concern that I have, particularly in the academic sector, is their leaders tend to be -- in some instances -- less aware of the scope of the threat and less sophisticated and savvy than some, in, say, the Fortune 100 world in terms of means of defending against espionage and theft of intellectual property," Cruz said. In the midst of a larger exchange, Wray said that the FBI has done "some very good work with Texas A&M recently to try to raise awareness in the university space." |
| Students to Keep Pressing Congress for Higher Education Update | |
| Ten student advocacy groups are teaming up to push for a reauthorization of the main federal higher education law, even as lawmakers are turning their focus to other bills. The groups have individually advocated for various groups of students, including veterans, low-income students, parents and adults returning to school. By forming a coalition, the groups hope to add power to their message to lawmakers, said Kermit Kaleba, federal policy director with the National Skills Coalition. "Part of the goal is to create some urgency around making some changes to federal policy that can help those students be more successful in today's economy," he said. "There are things that need to happen sooner rather than later." |
| Gender gap in STEM fields could be due to girls' reading skills, not math ability | |
 | Why don't more girls grow up to become scientists and engineers? It's not that they're bad at math, a new study argues. It's that they're even better at reading. This comparative advantage in reading is the primary reason why women are outnumbered by men in technical fields, according to a report published this month in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The study authors, economists Thomas Breda of the Paris School of Economics and Clotilde Napp of the French National Center for Scientific Research, came to this conclusion by analyzing survey data from 300,000 high school students in 64 countries around the world. "We tried to understand the reasons why we observe so much segregation between girls and boys in terms of fields of study," Breda said. |
SPORTS
| Samantha Ricketts introduced as Mississippi State softball coach | |
| Samantha Ricketts has a plan in place for Mississippi State softball. The newly-anointed Bulldogs head coach is focused on hiring a pitching coach, using new-age analytics to revamp player development and eventually molding the Bulldogs into a Super Regional contender. Ricketts, who replaced former MSU coach Vann Stuedeman shortly after her departure on July 16, had been an assistant coach at Mississippi State since 2015. This will be her first head coaching gig. "I don't have to get to know the team again, I don't have to go out and find my own recruits, because I recruited these girls," Ricketts said at her introductory press conference Thursday at Mississippi State's Golding Family Media Center. Ricketts, the sixth head coach in MSU history, announced she plans to retain assistant coach Tyler Bratton and will keep him as the third base coach in games. As an assistant, Ricketts primarily worked with State's hitters and she said she plans on continuing to do so. "That's what I love," Ricketts said. |
| Samantha Ricketts officially introduced as Mississippi State head softball coach | |
 | Having developed some of the greatest hitters in Mississippi State history as an assistant coach, Samantha Ricketts added another accolade on Thursday as she was officially introduced as the Bulldogs' sixth head softball coach at a press conference on campus. Ricketts, who was All-American player at Oklahoma, served as MSU's assistant coach from 2015-18 focusing on hitting and recruiting before being promoted to associate head coach on July 30, 2018. The San Jose, California, native has been a part of one Women's College World Series appearance, six NCAA Regional berths and two NCAA Super Regional appearances during her coaching career. "I think for me my biggest goal is that I want to be a consistent presence for this team," Ricketts said Thursday. |
| After outcry from new $28M football facility, GoFundMe started for new LSU library | |
| A GoFundMe campaign has been launched to raise $20 million for a new library at LSU. "It is time the alumni of Louisiana State University took matter into our own hands," organizers said. The effort surfaced on the same week that the current structure -- Middleton Library -- was cited as an example of campus neglect at the same time LSU announced the opening of a nearly $28 million, privately-funded athletic nutrition center and football locker room. Middleton has suffered from water leaks and other problems for years. It is become sort of a symbol of capital needs at the school amid years of paltry state assistance during financial problems. The fundraising effort was started by Ginger Gibson Burk, a 2008 LSU graduate who lives in Arlington, Va. and works in Washington, D.C. |
| 'Tell Me How That's Justice': A Senator Takes On the 'Immoral Amateurism' of College Sports | |
| On a college basketball court in February, an 18-year-old's shoe ripped open. Normally, that's no big deal. Except the teenager was Zion Williamson, the Duke University phenom. And the shoe was a Nike product. Everything went haywire. "Shoegate" got relentless media coverage, and the next day, Nike's stock finished down 1.1 percent -- roughly equivalent to a $1.1-billion loss, The Atlantic reported. Essentially, a teenager upset an industry, at least for a little while. It's the perfect example of how corporations exploit the "unique and immoral amateurism of college sports," argues Sen. Chris Murphy, Democrat of Connecticut, in a report he issued in March as part of a series of investigations into college athletics. Murphy's second report, released on Thursday, focuses on what he calls the "lack of academic integrity across college sports," which "may be the most insidious piece of a broken system." |
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