| Thursday, January 20, 2022 |
| Mississippi bee specialist shares tips on beekeeping | |
 | Mississippi State University (MSU) Extension Service bee specialist said people interested in beekeeping should take time to answer some important questions and develop a plan before beginning such hobby. One of the best ways people can learn about the hobby is to join a beekeeping group, said Jeff Harris, Mississippi State University Extension Service bee specialist. "Local beekeeping clubs often have members with many years of beekeeping experience, and they are absolutely a great way for you to learn about the hobby before you begin," Harris said. Beekeeping can be done in cities and rural areas, but Harris recommends checking local ordinances and laws before beginning, no matter the location, because rules vary. Some places may limit the number of hives a person can have, and some states may have laws regarding hive registration. The next step is to think about the everyday logistics of beekeeping, including where the hives will be kept and when the hives will be worked. "Even if there are no laws restricting beekeeping, all new beekeepers need to consider where they want to keep their bees," Harris said. "The most problematic issues can be with neighbors in urban and suburban settings who fear your bees. Honeybees can be safely kept in these areas, but careful consideration about how best to protect your neighbors, and therefore, future problems with you, should be a priority." |
| Record-high fertilizer prices likely mean small crops for farmers across Mississippi in 2022 | |
 | The Mississippi State Extension Service recently released a study on how farmers across the Magnolia State must adjust to fertilizer prices going up to almost triple the cost. "Mississippi is such an agricultural state," says Jeff Hays, a long-time member of the farm supply business. "Anytime you see our production drop, it goes everywhere. From your production, your co-ops, your tractor dealers, to fuel suppliers. Everybody's impacted." Which is what is happening as fertilizer prices approach record highs. "Fertilizer is such a major input for their crops," Hays says. "They can probably survive one season borrowing off the soil, but you can't go two seasons." Due to the ongoing supply chain disruption, the price of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potash, the main chemicals used in fertilizer, have been going up since the spring of 2021. "Sometimes we're seeing double, sometimes we're seeing two-and-a-half times the price of a year ago," Hays says. Hays says that's the case at Lowndes Farm Supply, where he has been the manager since 2010. He says a bag of fertilizer that would've sold for $11 in 2021 is now going for about $19.95 in 2022. |
| SOCSD superintendent announces retirement | |
 | Starkville-Oktibbeha Consolidated School District Eddie Peasant announced Wednesday he will retire from his position June 30 after a 30-year career in education. Peasant was selected in 2017 as the district's superintendent. During his five years at SOCSD, he has overseen the completion of the Partnership Middle School on Mississippi State University's campus, implemented academic houses to provide high school students with career-ready guidance and oversaw the process of a modified school calendar, which will launch during the upcoming school year. SOCSD Board of Trustees President Sumner Davis said Peasant has emphasized excellence in students every day on the job and continuously found new and innovative ways to improve academic achievement. "He has done a lot of behind the scenes work to help ensure that our students have the best environment to learn anything that they can," Davis said. " ... He's worked very hard to try to engage not only our school community, but the community at large, to answer concerns and questions they might have." The process for hiring a new superintendent will begin soon, Davis said. In his retirement, Peasant plans to pursue a career in higher education, working to continue the development of education in Mississippi. |
| John Grisham's literary legacy to be honored with historical marker at county courthouse | |
 | One of DeSoto County's most famous residents may soon get a historical marker on the courthouse square. The Board of Supervisors received a request from DeSoto County Tourism officials asking for their support and help in placing a marker to recognize the local roots of best-selling author John Grisham. Grisham, the author of more than 30 legal thrillers which have sold more than 300 million copies worldwide, once practiced law inside the old county courthouse and wrote his first novel "A Time to Kill" in his spare time during breaks between cases and debates in the Mississippi legislature where he represented DeSoto County. Kim Terrell, executive director of DeSoto County Convention and Visitors Bureau Tourism Association, said the marker to Grisham will be the county's first Literary Trail marker. "Mississippi has the Blues Trail markers, of which we have five. We have the Country Music Trail markers, of which we have one. And we have the Freedom Trail Markers of which we have one here for James Meredith," Terrell said. "So this will be our first Writers Trail marker." Terrell said they are proud of Grisham's connection to DeSoto County and even more excited that he chose to have the marker erected in Hernando. "We had hoped that he would agree to have it here because that's where he started his first book," Terrell said. "The marker will talk about his history with us and how the courthouse is the spot where he wrote it." Grisham worked a number of blue-collar jobs including laying asphalt on a road crew before deciding to enroll in Northwest Mississippi Community College, where he had dreams of becoming a baseball star. He changed majors three times in three semesters before finally earning a degree in accounting from Mississippi State University. |
| Lumber Rebound Awakens Timber Market From Long Slumber | |
 | Record lumber prices and cardboard production are starting to lift southern timber prices from their yearslong slump. Wet weather has helped, too. A lot of woodlands are too mushy to log, putting a premium on trees that can be harvested from dry ground. Analysts, foresters and timberland owners say it is still too early to call an end to the timber bust and recovery is uneven, absent in areas far from mills. But the average price in the South for pine trees used to make lumber hasn't been higher in more than a decade. Saw timber rose to $26.44 a ton during the fourth quarter, according to TimberMart-South, a pricing service affiliated with the University of Georgia's forestry school. Though saw timber prices have bounced 18% from the 50-year lows of summer 2020, they remain well below the $40-plus that big logs fetched two decades ago. "Prices are trickling up," said Jody Strickland, chief business officer at F&W Forestry Services Inc. "All these weather events we've been having and the shortage of labor have led the mills to have trouble keeping inventory." The hot housing market and weather-related problems producing lumber in British Columbia pushed southern yellow pine two-by-four prices to records this week around $1,500 per thousand board feet, according to lumber pricing service Random Lengths. Meanwhile, cardboard boxes have never been more in demand, thanks to the rise in e-commerce during the pandemic. The American Forest and Paper Association said this week that U.S. production of containerboard, which is used to make shipping boxes, reached a new high in 2021, up 5.6% from the year before. |
| Coast casinos have record year, bringing in over $1.6B in 2021 | |
 | Last year was the most profitable one that casinos on the Mississippi Gulf Coast have ever seen, bringing in more revenue than in years past. Coast casinos once again shattered revenue records for 2021, according to the annual gross gaming report release the state's Department of Revenue. Statewide, Mississippi casinos brought in nearly $2.7 billion last year. Of that, the coastal casinos contributed to more than half of the total revenue, earning more than $1.6 billion. The amount brought in by the coast casinos shatters the previous record, which was set in 2019 when just over $1.3 billion was grossed. That high was followed by a dramatic low in 2020 as coronavirus spread. With casinos forced to close for more than two months and with restrictions in place once they re-opened, Mississippi casinos brought in just under $1.8 billion, which was the lowest combined total for casinos in the state since 1995. |
| Omicron pushes US jobless claims to 286,000, their highest point since October | |
 | The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits rose to the highest level in three months as the fast-spreading omicron variant continued to disrupt the job market. Jobless claims rose for the third straight week -- by 55,000 to 286,000, highest since mid-October, the Labor Department reported Thursday. The jump in claims marked the biggest one-week increase since mid-July. The four-week average of claims, which smooths out weekly volatility, rose by 20,000 to 231,000, highest since late November. Economists said that last week's claims may have been inflated by the Labor Department's attempts to tweak the numbers to account for seasonal variations; unadjusted, applications fell last week by more than 83,000. "We could see one more week of notably higher claims before they should top out,″ analysts with Contingent Macro Advisors predicted. "This bears close watching going forward.″ The Federal Reserve might reconsider plans to ease its massive support for the economy if claims stay above 250,000 as the Fed's March policy meeting approaches, Contingent said. A surge in COVID-19 cases has set back what had been a strong comeback from last year's short but devastating coronavirus recession. Jobless claims, a proxy for layoffs, had fallen mostly steadily for about a year and late last year dipped below the pre-pandemic average of around 220,000 a week. |
| 57th Annual Dixie National Livestock Show Officially Kicks-Off Today | |
 | Today, the 57th Annual Dixie National Livestock Show officially gets underway at the Mississippi State Fairgrounds, beginning with the Dixie National Horse and Mule Color Bonanza Show. "We are excited to kick-off the Dixie National Livestock Show and Rodeo presented by our title sponsor Southern AgCredit," says Mississippi Commissioner of Agriculture and Commerce Andy Gipson. "Over the next month, thousands of people will be making their way to the Mississippi State Fairgrounds for the many events and shows taking place. Having the Dixie National Rodeo take place over two weekends will give rodeo fans more opportunities to experience the 'Greatest Show on Dirt.' This year will include all the usual fan-favorites, such as the Dixie National Rodeo Parade and the Junior Sale of Champions, as well as the first-ever Spring Edition of the Mississippi Ag and Outdoor Expo and Dixie National Rodeo Days." The Junior Round-Up Livestock Shows run Tuesday, February 1, through Wednesday, February 9, and will conclude with the Junior Sale of Champions on Thursday, February 10. Open livestock shows begin Saturday, February 12, and conclude Tuesday, February 15. The Dixie National Quarter Horse Show taking place Tuesday, February 15, through Sunday, February 20, will conclude the livestock and equine shows. |
| Senate education committee passes anti-critical race theory bill | |
 | The Senate Education committee on Thursday morning passed a bill that would bar public schools and universities in the state from teaching critical race theory. Though the phrase "critical race theory" isn't spelled out in the legislation, the the bill bars school districts from teaching "that any sex, race, ethnicity, religion or nationality is inherently superior or inferior," which is not what proponents of critical race theory describe as the aims of the theory. Sen. Michael McLendon, R-Hernando, authored Senate Bill 2113 and said he "felt compelled" to introduce the legislation after several of his constituents approached him with worries about critical race theory being taught in public schools. But there is no evidence that any K-12 Mississippi public school is teaching critical race theory. "I have personally not heard of any school district in the state that is teaching it," McLendon told the Daily Journal. "But I do know there are other schools in the United States that are." When asked if he could define what critical race theory is, McLendon walked away and did not comment. Sen. Dennis DeBar, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, can now bring the legislation to the full Senate chamber for a vote. |
| Mississippi Senate advances anti-critical race theory bill | |
 | The Mississippi Senate Education Committee on Thursday advanced SB 2113, a bill aimed at preventing lessons based on critical race theory from being presented in any classroom statewide. According to the bill's language, K-12 school districts, public and charter schools and universities in Mississippi would be prevented from providing any lessons that suggest one race is better or worse than another. Educators would also be prevented from teaching that a person should be treated differently based on their race, gender, religion or ethnicity. Under the proposed legislation, any school or university teaching a course regarding any of those subjects would no longer receive funding for it from the state Department of Education. It was unclear when the bill will proceed to a full vote. |
| Medical marijuana moves 1 step closer in Mississippi | |
| Mississippi is moving closer to joining most other states in allowing people to use marijuana to relieve medical conditions. The state House voted 104-14 Wednesday to pass a bill that would create a medical marijuana program. The bill passed the Senate 46-5 last week, but the House made some changes. In coming days, the Senate could accept the changes or seek negotiations. Republican Gov. Tate Reeves has said he wants even tighter limits on how much marijuana a patient could buy because he doesn't want a medical program to turn into a recreational one. But, the bill passed by wide enough margins that legislators could override a veto. When the bill passed the Senate, it said a person with a marijuana prescription could obtain up to 3.5 grams of the substance per day, up to seven days a week. That is roughly 3.5 ounces per month. The House on Wednesday reduced that limit to 3.5 grams of the substance per day, up to six days a week. That is about 3 ounces per month. "We are not trying to put more smokable marijuana on the street," said Republican Rep. Lee Yancey, chairman of the House Drug Policy Committee. The House removed the state Department of Agriculture from any role in operating the medical marijuana program -- a request made by Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson, a Republican. |
| House overwhelmingly passes amended medical marijuana legislation | |
| Mississippi representatives overwhelmingly voted on Wednesday to implement a medical marijuana program that allows patients to receive up to 3 ounces of cannabis per month. The House voted to pass the long-awaited legislation with 104 supporting the measure and 14 opposing. Since the House changed a bill that was originally passed in the Senate, it will now head back to Senators, who can either agree with the changes their House counterparts made or reject them. "I am sick of medical cannabis," House Drug Policy Chairman Lee Yancey said. "But I realize there are people out there who are sick and need it for the relief from the suffering that they have from their debilitating condition." The House's new version of the bill slightly reduces the amount of monthly cannabis a patient can receive from 3.5 ounces to 3 and places the bulk of regulatory powers in the hands of the Mississippi Health Department instead of the Mississippi Agriculture and Commerce Department. Yancey, R-Brandon, has been the House's lead architect on medical marijuana for a year now. He and Sen. Kevin Blackwell, R-Southaven, have worked closely on crafting cannabis legislation. But the Rankin County lawmaker said that Blackwell and Senate leaders did not receive a heads up that the House was altering the bill, which had received broad support in the Senate. "This is an effort to start small and grow larger rather than start big and shrink," Yancey said, adding that his goal was to alleviate some concerns that the bill was not a true medicinal program. |
| House amends Mississippi medical marijuana bill, sends it back to Senate | |
 | The House on Wednesday passed a Senate medical marijuana proposal, but only after changing the bill to lower the amount of cannabis a patient could get. The amended bill now goes back to the Senate. If the Senate does not approve the House changes to the bill, it will move to conference committee, where leaders from both chambers will negotiate the specifics of a final bill. The House vote on Wednesday was 104-14 on the amended Senate Bill 2095. "This bill is about the people who are suffering," said House Drug Policy Chairman Lee Yancey. "That has gotten lost in this debate ... These are debilitating conditions, not something you can fake and go to a doctor and get cannabis." The House lowered the amount of "flower" a patient could receive from 3.5 ounces a month to 3 ounces a month. The Senate had previously lowered the amount from 4 ounces in its original draft to 3.5 ounces. The lowered amount is likely a nod to Gov. Tate Reeves, who had threatened a veto and said it allowed patients too much marijuana and would be a toehold for recreational use and the black market. In addition, the House amended the Senate bill to say that growing operations could be located in areas with local commercial zoning. The original bill said they could locate only in industrial and agricultural zoned areas. |
| Department of Public Safety requests budget increases to improve staffing and pay | |
| The state budget won't get all the details ironed out until later in the legislative session. But state agencies are putting their wish lists out in the open on the front end. A lot of the money DPS is requesting from the legislature involves upping pay for various positions and making them more competitive. Among those... troopers. "We want to get up to $50,000 starting pay," explained Department of Public Safety Commissioner Sean Tindell. "We felt like that's not only competitive with our neighboring states and what they're offering, but also multiple jurisdictions within the state cities are starting their officers off at $50,000. So, we need that to be able to attract good folks into law enforcement." Tindell says pay puts them at a disadvantage for staffing the crime lab, too. "One of the things we compete with at the crime lab is we're trying to hire scientists," described Tindell. "They come out of college, they can be a scientist at the crime lab and start off at 30. Or they can be a teacher making 39. And so often, they choose that profession instead of coming and being a scientist at the crime lab, we need to be able to fill those positions and pay those folks equivalent to what they can make if they chose to be a teacher." Questions of security in and around the Capitol were also brought up in that hearing. DPS would like to do a threat assessment and use that to potentially make some changes, like secure parking for lawmakers. One member found a bullet at the back of his truck that was parked outside Tuesday. |
| Equal pay for women: Is this the year Mississippi will join rest of the nation? | |
| Bipartisan support has grown in recent years for an equal pay law in Mississippi -- the last state in the nation to fail to provide legal recourse for women paid less than men for the same work. Bills are pending in both the Senate -- which has passed equal pay bills twice in recent years -- and the House, which killed those Senate bills but in 2018 passed a bill with an equal pay amendment attached and appears to have more support for the measure this year. Judiciary A Chairwoman Angela Cockerham, I-Magnolia, has authored House Bill 770, which has been passed out of committee and awaits a full House vote. Cockerham said that could come as early as this week, and that she hopes the measure will have bipartisan support. Senate Judiciary A Chairman Brice Wiggins, R-Pascagoula, and Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd, R-Oxford, have co-authored Senate Bill 2451. Both bills would create a state "actionable right" for any employee paid less for equal work based on sex. Federal law already provides such a right, but taking an employer to task in federal court is a more difficult, and often more costly task for aggrieved employees. Wiggins said the attorney general has continued to champion the legislation, and he said the Senate bill mirrors Alabama's law, which was passed in 2019, leaving Mississippi as the only state without such a measure. |
| 'I was not expecting anything close to this:' Teachers react to pay raise proposals | |
| As the Legislature debates how to increase pay for Mississippi's public school teachers, some educators and advocates say they are surprised and pleased by the proposals. The House and Senate introduced separate proposals last week. The Senate plan would bring the starting salary for teachers up to $40,000 and includes significant pay raises at five-year intervals as teachers gain more experience. The House plan includes a starting salary of $43,125 and a $2,000 raise for teacher assistants. "When I saw the Senate plan and then the House plan, I was really pleasantly shocked," said Klara Aizupitis, a U.S. History teacher at South Panola High School. "I was not expecting anything close to this. I had been expecting more of what we had been seeing, the lip service saying there was going to be a raise and then having it actually be something much smaller." Aizupitis said the House plan looks "really wonderful" in terms of making Mississippi competitive with other Southern states and was glad to see it includes raises for teacher assistants, but the five-year increases in the Senate proposal shouldn't be overlooked. "To have something every five years to be looking forward to...is actually really important for keeping teachers around, not only attracting them to Mississippi but keeping them here," she said. Nationally, nearly 50% of new teachers leave the profession within their first five years, according to the National Commission on Teaching and America's Future. |
| Lawmakers consider 'common sense' laws to ease prison sentences for minors | |
| For the money Mississippi spends each year to imprison a kid, it could have paid the annual tuition to a state college -- twice. Lawmakers are considering two bills aimed at reducing prison sentences for young people, which would help the state with its goal of decreasing the prison population, after a law passed last year expanded eligibility for parole. One bill, authored by Republican Senate Judiciary B Committee Chairman Sen. Joey Fillingane, addresses life sentences for people who were under 18 when they committed a crime. The new law would make most of these people eligible for parole after 20 years. Another bill, called the Youthful Offender Law and authored by Democratic Rep. Jeffrey Harness makes it easier for people who were under 21 when they were arrested to earn supervised release for good behavior. If U.S. states were countries, Mississippi would have the second highest incarceration rate in the world behind Louisiana, according to Prison Policy Initiative. About one out of every 100 people in Mississippi are locked up, including jails and immigration and juvenile detention centers. The cost is extraordinary: Mississippi spends $18,480 a year to incarcerate one person. To compare, the cost of in-state tuition at Mississippi State University and University of Mississippi are each under $10,000 a year. |
| Rep. Ford addresses texting issue | |
| The Mississippi Legislature has been in session a little more than two weeks, and already Dist. 73 State Rep. Jill Ford, who represents Madison County, has filed several bills. One bill Ford filed is House Bill 429 that would amend the state's texting and driving law to make it a misdemeanor to text and drive and punishable by a $500 fine. "The bill is in effect already," Ford said. "What I'm changing in the bill is I'm putting teeth in it by making it a misdemeanor punishable by a $500 fine. It was $100, and there's not really any teeth in it." Ford's bill is titled the "J.T. Williamson Act to amend section 63-33-1, Mississippi Code of 1972, to revise the penalty for texting while driving without using a voice-operated or hands-free device to make it a misdemeanor punishable by a fine of five hundred dollars and prohibit any use of a hand-held mobile telephone while driving; and for related purposes." Ford said she named the bill after the late J.T. Williamson, a longtime Madison resident and SuperTalk Radio host who died last year. Ford said she used to listen to Williamson's broadcasts daily. "J.T., on a daily basis, would tell his audience that we have to have a texting and driving law with some teeth in it," Ford said. "He was adamant about getting a bill passed with some teeth in it on texting and driving, and so that is why I'm doing this. I'm doing it to honor in his passion for saving lives." |
| 'Rise in violent rhetoric': Lawmakers in both parties report spike in death threats | |
 | The voicemail begins innocuously enough. "Yeah, this voicemail is for Madison," a man says, casually, as if he's trying to get in touch with an old friend. But then steel enters his voice. "I am armed. I am dangerous. And I know where you and your staff are." That threat against Madison Cawthorn was just one of thousands sent to members of Congress last year. It may not surprise many that Cawthorn, a North Carolina Republican who himself once urged his supporters to "lightly threaten" their representatives, inspired such vitriol. But controversy hunters like Cawthorn are hardly the only members of Congress facing a bombardment of death threats. CQ Roll Call asked every member of Congress whether they had received a death threat since 2020. Of the 147 who responded, 110 -- or about 75 percent -- said yes. While more Democrats replied to our inquiry than Republicans, 95 to 52, death threats were pervasive among both parties: 74 percent of Democrats said they had received one, compared with 77 percent of GOP respondents. The threatened run the gamut of the House and Senate, from the hyper-partisan moths who fly toward the latest controversy to the little-known wallflowers toiling away in near anonymity. While prior reporting has tracked a spike in threats using yearly totals from the Capitol Police, our informal survey suggests just how widespread the problem has become. The threats against members of Congress don't surprise Andrew Mines, a research fellow at George Washington University, who said both Republicans and Democrats have dehumanized their political opponents in recent years, characterizing them as malevolent perils rather than different-minded compatriots. "No party is immune," he said. "When members of your party bring that kind of dialogue ... into the mainstream, sometimes it backfires." Congressional staffers usually bear the brunt of the verbal onslaught fired at their bosses. |
| Manchin, Sinema join with GOP in rejecting attempt to change filibuster rules, effectively killing Democratic voting bill | |
 | The year-long Democratic push for federal voting rights legislation died in the Senate on Wednesday night, after Republicans blocked an elections bill for the fifth time in six months and Democrats failed to unite their caucus behind a plan to rewrite the Senate's rules and pass it anyway. The final clash, which has been brewing since Democrats won congressional majorities a year ago as Republican legislatures in 19 states embarked on a campaign to roll back election access, began with an evening vote to close debate on a sprawling voting rights bill. That vote, at the Senate's traditional 60-vote margin for legislation, failed on party lines. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) then moved to reconsider the legislation to propose a rules change allowing for the bill's advancement with a simple majority of 51 votes. The Senate rejected that maneuver 52 to 48, with two Democrats, Joe Manchin III (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), joining all 50 Republicans in opposition. The late-evening vote amounted to a bitter but unsurprising finale for the Democratic voting rights effort on Capitol Hill, a campaign backed by top party leaders and pushed by key elements of its coalition even as Manchin and Sinema repeatedly made clear they would not weaken the 60-vote rule, defending it as a tool to protect minority-party rights and promote bipartisanship in U.S. democracy. But Schumer and other top Democrats were determined to push forward with a floor confrontation regardless, even as it promised to expose bitter divisions inside their own party rather than amplify a GOP blockade that they have described as an existential threat to democracy. In final remarks before the vote, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) accused Democrats of seeking to "shatter the soul of the Senate for short-term power." |
| Biden approval hits new low at one-year mark: AP-NORC poll | |
| President Joe Biden ends his first year in the White House with a clear majority of Americans for the first time disapproving of his handling of the presidency in the face of an unrelenting pandemic and roaring inflation, according to a new poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research. More Americans disapprove than approve of how Biden is handling his job as president, 56% to 43%. As of now, just 28% of Americans say they want Biden to run for reelection in 2024, including only 48% of Democrats. Asked on Wednesday at a wide-ranging news conference about his flagging popularity, Biden responded, "I don't believe the polls." It's a stark reversal from early in Biden's presidency. In July, 59% of Americans said they approved of Biden's job performance in an AP-NORC poll. His approval rating dipped to 50% by late September in the aftermath of the chaotic and bloody U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan and amid surging coronavirus infections and the administration's fitful efforts to push economic, infrastructure and tax policies through Congress. The latest poll shows that Americans' confidence in Biden's handling of the pandemic -- seen as a strength early in his administration -- has further eroded as the omicron variant strains the health care system and further exhausts an American electorate that had hoped life would be back to a semblance of normalcy by now. |
| Supreme Court denies Trump's bid to block release of records to Jan. 6 panel | |
 | The U.S. Supreme Court has delivered a blow to former President Donald Trump, rejecting his request to block release of White House records being sought by the House select committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The court's order paves the way for the release of records from the National Archives. The records could shed light on the events that led to the riot by Trump supporters protesting the results of the 2020 presidential election, which was won by Democrat Joe Biden. In its decision Wednesday, the Supreme Court noted that the question of whether a former president can claim executive privilege need not be answered in this case, because a lower court had already decided. "Because the Court of Appeals concluded that President Trump's claims would have failed even if he were the incumbent, his status as a former President necessarily made no difference to the court's decision," the court said in its order. Conservative-leaning Justice Clarence Thomas was the lone public dissenter in the order. "The Supreme Court's action tonight is a victory for the rule of law and American democracy," House panel Chair Rep. Bennie Thompson, D-Miss., and Vice Chair Rep. Liz Cheney, R-Wyo., said in a statement. "The Select Committee has already begun to receive records that the former President had hoped to keep hidden and we look forward to additional productions regarding this important information." |
| In Atlanta's Buckhead Neighborhood, Rising Crime Fuels Move to Secede | |
| An increase in violent crime has spurred a movement in Atlanta's wealthiest and whitest neighborhood, Buckhead, to push harder to secede and create a new city with its own police force. The idea, which has been gaining momentum over the past year, is raising alarm among Atlanta officials worried about a loss of population and tax revenue. The Republican-majority state legislature, which just opened its 2022 session, is taking up proposed legislation this month for a referendum on Buckhead cityhood. Politicians in largely-Democratic Atlanta oppose the idea. Bill White, chief executive of the committee pushing Buckhead cityhood, said Atlanta hasn't done enough to stem violence, car-thefts, drag-racing and other crimes that surged beginning in 2020, during the early stages of the pandemic and after civil unrest followed Black Lives Matter protests. "They really don't care about Buckhead," Mr. White, said about city officials. "They just want the money." Atlanta leaders including Mayor Andre Dickens have said they are taking steps to address crime in Buckhead and the rest of the city and that remaining united is important. Violent crime has risen in large cities across the nation, with several setting new records for murders in recent years. The surge in crimes -- from murders to shoplifting sprees -- has sparked political debates in many cities about how to best combat crime and what resources are needed. But in Buckhead, where 108,000 of Atlanta's 510,000 residents live, the political debate has shifted from calls for more police officers to the possibility of splitting a city apart. |
| 'Unprecedented:' States invest in child care to recover pandemic losses | |
 | State governments are directing tens of billions of dollars to child care businesses in what experts say is an unparalleled investment in salvaging an industry that was devastated by the pandemic. The money is flowing through stabilization grants, funded by the latest round of federal coronavirus relief approved by Congress last year. All but four states and two territories have set up grant programs for those businesses, grants that child care providers can use to pay for anything from the rent on their facilities to the wages their workers take home. "A phenomenal, unprecedented amount of money has been granted to child care in the three stimulus packages that were passed since COVID started," said Cindy Lehnhoff, director of the National Child Care Association and a 40-year veteran of the industry. "Our federal legislators recognized that the economy doesn't work without child care. They recognized that child care is essential. We're the essential workforce that allows all other workforces to go to work." The first round of coronavirus relief funding directed $13.5 billon to child care programs. The third round, the American Rescue Plan, directed another $39 billion to those providers, an investment orders of magnitude above what Congress has allocated for the industry in the past. Most of the funding in the American Rescue Plan was earmarked for stabilization grants to ensure child care providers could stay afloat during the pandemic. But about $15 billion was earmarked for child care development funds, and some states, from Michigan to Georgia, have used that money to expand access to low-income families. |
| A conversation with Morris on MDAH genealogy fellowships | |
| Michael Morris of Jackson is the director of public engagement at the Mississippi Department of Archives and history (MDAH). He was named to that position in June 2020 after serving as director of public relations at MDAH. He joined the department about six years ago as public information officer. A lifelong Jackson resident, Morris graduated from Calloway High School and earned a bachelor's degree in history from Jackson State University in 2011. While a student at JSU, he worked at the Margaret Walker Center and the Fannie Lou Hammer Institute. A member of the Mississippi Historical Society, Morris said he likes connecting Mississippi stories to everyday people, whether a Mississippian or a tourist visiting the state. "I enjoy studying Mississippi history and sharing some of the more fascinating stories," he said. "The Mississippi Department of Archives and History is offering 10 research stipends of $2,000 each to support individuals hoping to locate information related to their family history, using resources available at MDAH. The fellowships are brand new. The fellowships are a part of a year-long initiative in 2022 to expand understanding of the Great Migration, which was the largest intern migration of people in U.S. history, and its impact on Mississippi and the nation." |
| U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services grants UMMC $3 million in ARPA funds aimed at health care worker retention | |
| The University of Mississippi Medical Center (UMMC) is being granted $2,955,746 from the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to help health care organizations establish, improve, or expand evidence-informed programs and practices to promote mental health and well-being among the health workforce, including their employees. The funds come from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), through the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). They are awarding over $100 million in funding across the country for similar efforts. In a release from HHS, officials say the funds are to improve the retention of health care workers and help respond to the nation's critical staffing needs by reducing burnout and promoting mental health and wellness among the health care workforce. "I have traveled to many health centers across the country and know that the COVID-19 pandemic has intensified issues that have long been a source of stress for frontline health care workers --- from increased patient volumes to long working hours," said Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in a press release. In addition, HRSA is awarding $6 million to George Washington University to provide tailored training and technical assistance to today's awardees, including UMMC. |
| USM students return to class amid Omicron surge | |
 | University of Southern Mississippi students are returning to school as the Omicron variant is surging in the Pine Belt. Wednesday was the first day of classes for the 2022 Spring Semester. "I'm really concerned to say the least," said Kyra Lampley, a junior broadcast journalism major from Laurel. "I just think that everybody should do their part, wear their masks, socially distance as much as possible." Brenden Morgan, a senior chemistry major from Nashville is not as worried about the virus. "Not too much, Everybody's been pretty cooperative and understanding about everything. I just think everybody including me is just happy to be back." USM is extending its COVID safety protocols that were in effect last semester. Masks are still required for everyone indoors, regardless of vaccination status. And students are being encouraged to get vaccinated or get booster shots if they're eligible. "Omicron is certainly fast and furious and spreading, but we feel like we have just a couple of weeks to get through and we'll be back to a more normal COVID level, and we can manage these next couple of weeks," said Dee Dee Anderson, vice president for student affairs at Southern Miss. Students we spoke with said they're prepared to deal with the current COVID surge and they also say it's better to be back in class. |
| 'Revelry' returns in person to USM in February 2022 | |
| After being completely virtual in 2021, Revelry, the multi-arts celebration that hosts more than 50 events, will return in person to the University of Southern Mississippi Hattiesburg campus. "Revelry is the time where they get a chance to explore their artistic skills and endeavors and other arenas where you get someone from the costume shop making pottery for perhaps the first time in our 3D art studio," said Kelly James Penot, with the USM School of Performing and Visual Arts. "It gives the student body a chance to get to meet their colleagues who they rarely see, even though they're in the same building all day long, and make art together. It's very exciting." Revelry will start on Feb. 11 and run through Feb. 24, with multiple events going on each day. Events include, but are not limited to, a welding class for women, aluminum pours, improv. comedy and theater performances. "It was great that we were able to creatively figure out how to sustain our revelry last year, but it's just not the same as in person," said James Penot. Saturday, Feb. 12, and Saturday, Feb. 19, are both community days in which attendees will be able to get the most hands-on experience. |
| Southern Miss audiologist elected president of MSHA | |
| Dr. Courtney Turner, a University of Southern Mississippi (USM) Educational Audiologist, has been elected as the 2022 President-Elect and 2023 President of the Mississippi Speech-Language-Hearing Association (MSHA). Turner is an Educational Audiologist for the Children's Center for Communication and Development at USM. "I am honored and thrilled to have been elected. I look forward to working with our board to promote ethical, evidence-based practices and to engage speech and hearing students and professionals throughout the state," said Turner. She has been a part of the USM team for almost seven years. |
| Delta Sigma Theta Sorority launches scholarship campaign for HBCUs in the state | |
| Ensuring higher education for African American students here in the Magnolia State is the focus of an initiative by Delta Sigma Theta's Jackson Chapter. The organization brought together presidents of all five Historically Black Colleges and Universities to launch a scholarship funding raising campaign. "HBCUs serve such a high purpose in our community," said Gwen Handy, president of the Jackson MS Alumnae Chapter of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc. To help African American students reach their educational goals, the sorority launched a scholarship campaign for all five schools. The goal is to raise $100,000 for Alcorn State, Jackson State, Mississippi Valley State, Rust and Tougaloo Colleges. "It will impact students. It will allow scholarships for those high school seniors who are trying to attend an HBCU," said Handy. "It would also help those students who are currently attending HBCUs continue their education." "It's rare, believe it or not, that all of the state HBCUs are together in a specific forum," said JSU President Thomas Hudson. The Jackson State University graduate was among the college leaders in the virtual meeting Delta hosted to announce the fundraiser. "We're different. We have different interests," said Hudson. "We have different missions, but we all have the same overall, over arching mission, and that's to help educate African Americans and to really bring about equality in this state and the United States." Coach Prime, Deion Sanders, has brought new attention HBCUs and they hope to build on that momentum. |
| East Mississippi Community College to launch fundraiser for school museum | |
 | The East Mississippi Community College Development Foundation is gearing up to launch a fundraiser to create a museum on the college's Scooba campus to display sports memorabilia and other artifacts dating back to the college's inception in 1927. Plans are to renovate Wallace Hall, one of the earliest buildings on the campus that is being used by the school nurse and has housed various departments over the years, including most recently the business and financial aid offices. "We are really excited about it," EMCC President Dr. Scott Alsobrooks said. "We have a great existing structure to work with and it is one of the college's original buildings." The first floor of Wallace Hall will house the museum, while tentative plans call for the second floor to be dedicated to storage space. The college already has some sports memorabilia to display. The scoreboard from the original Sullivan-Windham Field is in storage, as are some game balls, helmets and letter jackets donated to EMCC over the years. The EMCC library has a collection of newspaper clippings and other artifacts, including original copies of the April 30, 1984 issue of Sports Illustrated titled "The Toughest Coach There Ever Was," by Frank Deford about former EMCC football coach Bob "Bull" (Cyclone) Sullivan. Donations of items for the museum from EMCC alumni and their families will also be welcome. The first priority will be a total renovation of Wallace Hall. Equipping the building will be costly, EMCC Director of Alumni Affairs and Foundation Operations Gina Cotton said. |
| MGCCC welcomes new Singing River Health System health clinic | |
| Singing River Health System and Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College partnered to provide quality care for staff and students at the Perkinston campus. Folks rushed to the school to join the ribbon-cutting ceremony to celebrate its collaboration. Singing River's CEO Lee Bond said the two have similar qualities, which made the process seamless. "We're like-minded. We're focused on getting the A ratings in healthcare, they're focused on teaching people how to get an A. So, it really was just like an automatic perfect relationship," Bond said. MGCCC's president Mary Graham said the clinic will be open twice a week while giving both staff and students easier access to healthcare at no cost. "It's so much going in the world today, so the opportunity to be tested, proactive and find ways to prevent disease is a wonderful thing in healthcare," Graham said. Graham explained a new feature to its healthcare system is adding 15 prescreening tests ranging from bone density to breast cancer. "It's an opportunity to be proactive and take care of their health before it is detrimental to them," Graham said. Officials said campus patients will also have access to all Singing River health clinics. |
| Horn Lake alumni establish Northwest Mississippi Community College scholarship | |
| Generations of Horn Lake High School graduates will be able to receive financial assistance at Northwest Mississippi Community College, thanks to a passionate group of the high school's alumni. The Horn Lake High School Alumni Endowed Scholarship has been established at Northwest with a $100,000 donation from the school's Alumni Foundation. The group has been funding student scholarships to any school of the recipient's choosing since 2004, with 16 students completing their degrees with that funding in the years since. Those college graduates include students who went on to become teachers, doctors, accountants, an architectural engineer and a physical therapist. One recipient is currently attending Johns Hopkins University. "We've had them in just about any field you could go into, and it's just been such fun to watch and take part in that part of their lives," said Jan Knight, a 1961 graduate of the high school. "They often try to stay in touch, and that really makes it feel very special." Knight started the initial scholarship 18 years ago with a personal donation and a donation from a fellow 1961 alum. "I just wanted to do something for the school," she said. "At that time, we had a very large alumni group, and I felt like they would also want to do something for the school." |
| 'Roberts will take all questions': Auburn to host open-mic forums with president finalist Chris Roberts | |
 | Students, faculty, staff and alumni of Auburn University have opportunities for dialogue on Thursday and Friday with Chris Roberts, dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering, via open mic forums, and the university encourages all interested to attend. Roberts was announced as the university's sole finalist for its 21st president to replace Jay Gogue, who has served as Auburn University's 20th president since 2019 after serving as 18th president from 2007-2017. "The public forums are a great opportunity for our students, faculty, staff, alumni and all members of the Auburn Family to meet and ask questions of Dr. Roberts," Auburn trustee Wayne Smith said in a written response to questions from the Opelika-Auburn News. "It is a time to learn more about Dr. Roberts and his vision for the university if selected as our next president." "Trustee Sarah Newton, the chair of the presidential search advisory committee, will introduce Roberts and then Roberts will speak and take questions," Smith said. "There will be a microphone available for the audience to ask Roberts questions, (and) Roberts will take all questions." No one else from the university side will answer questions, as Smith said the aim of the public forums is for the university student and staff body to meet Roberts. Auburn University hired executive search consultant Greenwood/Asher & Associates of Miramar Beach, Fla., to aid in seeking its next president. |
| Presidential candidate hopes to create a welcoming environment on campus | |
| In June 2021, Auburn University President Jay Gogue announced that he was looking to retire from his current position after serving his second term as president. The University has announced Chris Roberts as the single candidate in the running to take over Gogue's place. If elected, Roberts will serve as Auburn University's 21st president. Roberts currently serves as the dean of the Samuel Ginn College of Engineering and came to Auburn in 1993 after receiving his bachelor's degree from the University of Missouri and his master's in chemical engineering from the University of Notre Dame. He said that he felt a connection to Auburn when he was first interviewed to join the University's faculty 27 years ago. "You know, it was like, drop-the-mic type moment as soon as I was on campus. I spent some time here with the people. I knew this's where I wanted to come," Roberts said. "Somebody handed me a copy of the Auburn Creed in the middle of the interview, and that evening in the hotel, I sat that night and read the Auburn Creed. And I thought, 'This is awesome. This is a school that has a stated set of values. It's helping to define the culture of the place.' I witnessed it all day. I fell in love with it at that moment. So, I worked really hard to be able to come here and join Auburn." During his first experience in Auburn, Roberts said he felt a warmth among the community that was "really compelling" and that he was captivated by what he felt was the quintessential college town. |
| In a first, UAB surgeons replace a patient's kidneys with genetically modified pig organs | |
 | Surgeons at the University of Alabama at Birmingham replaced the kidneys of a brain-dead patient last September with genetically modified pig organs in a pioneering procedure that could bring hope to thousands of people on transplant waiting lists. The organs performed well three days after surgery, filtering blood, producing urine and showing no immediate signs of rejection, according to an article published today in the American Journal of Transplantation. It's the first peer-reviewed study of a pig kidney transplant into the body of a brain-dead patient published in the academic literature. The study marks a significant advance in transplant medicine, which has been increasingly exploring the potential of organs from genetically modified animals. More than 90,000 people in the United States are on the kidney transplant waiting list, according to Donate Life. Surgeons perform only about 25,000 transplants a year due to a shortage of organs, a number that could greatly increase if pig kidneys become a viable alternative. "This game-changing moment in the history of medicine represents a paradigm shift and a major milestone in the field of xenotransplantation, which is arguably the best solution to the organ shortage crisis," said Dr. Jayme Locke, director of the UAB Comprehensive Transplant Institute and lead surgeon for the study. "We have bridged critical knowledge gaps and obtained the safety and feasibility data necessary to begin a clinical trial in living humans with end-stage kidney failure disease." |
| UGA sees jump in COVID-19 cases after the first week of classes in 2022 | |
 | The University of Georgia had its second-highest week for newly reported COVID-19 cases, with nearly 1,000 cases reported for the first week of school. UGA officials update its COVID-19 Health and Exposure Updates page, which has data spanning as far back as August 2020, each week. UGA's spring semester began on Jan. 10 and for the week of Jan. 10-16, there were 992 cases reported. This makes it the second-highest week for reported COVID-19 cases out of all the data available from UGA. The highest number of cases in one week was 1,490 cases, which was reported in September 2020. UGA also provides a breakdown of how these test results were gathered, with 35% of the positive tests this week coming from surveillance testing. Surveillance testing is a voluntary process of testing asymptomatic people on campus to find positive cases among those who do not have symptoms but could still be spreading the virus. The positivity rate among the surveillance tests was 15% -- an increase from last week's rate of 13%. The positive case count is further broken down by status: student, staff, and faculty. When looking at these three areas, students have the largest positivity rate among surveillance testing at 17%. The staff positivity rate was 9% and the faculty rate was 10%. |
| Texas college students confront anxiety as fifth pandemic semester begins | |
| For a lot of Texas college students, last fall was a brief oasis from the pandemic's disruptions. In-person classes returned and with them, a small sense of normalcy, compared to the start of the pandemic two years ago. "The ability to walk out of a room or walk outside and then walk into another classroom ... It did so much more for me than I would have expected," Rohin Balkundi, a senior at the University of Texas at Austin, said about the fall semester. But then the highly contagious omicron variant emerged and with it, a sense of dread for college and university students, including some who are now watching as their fifth semester becomes another casualty of the ongoing pandemic. Universities were already struggling to manage the increasing demand for mental health services among college students even before COVID-19 came to campus. Now, as most Texas colleges and universities begin a fifth semester during the COVID-19 pandemic this week, rapidly changing rules about class attendance and safety protocols to mitigate the spread of the virus are fueling doubt and anxiety. As Texas reaches a record number of positive COVID cases due to omicron, universities and colleges continue to take different approaches to respond to the variant. Some, such as Texas State University and UT-Austin, are allowing faculty to start the first two weeks of classes remotely. Others, such as Texas A&M, are starting classes in-person as scheduled. Safety protocols can also vary widely when it comes to mask requirements. |
| As Michigan Settles With Sex-Abuse Survivors, Questions of Culture Loom | |
 | On the heels of firing its president on Saturday night, the University of Michigan on Wednesday announced a $490-million settlement with more than a thousand people who said they had experienced sexual abuse by Robert E. Anderson, a university physician. Anderson, who died in 2008, treated students and athletes at the university from the late 1960s until 2003, and was accused by a former student of sexual misconduct in a 2018 letter to Michigan's athletic director. The university began an investigation in 2020 that concluded last year, finding Anderson had demonstrated a "pervasive, decades-long, destructive pattern of sexual misconduct." News of the agreement comes days after Mark S. Schlissel was abruptly fired as president because Michigan's board found he had engaged in an "alleged sexual affair" with an unnamed female subordinate. Schlissel's ouster made national headlines in part because of his role adjudicating another sexual-misconduct scandal, this one involving allegations against Michigan's former provost, Martin Philbert, whom Schlissel fired in March 2020. The Anderson settlement, advocates hope, is the beginning of a new era at Michigan, one that will allow it to move past the troubled tenures of Philbert and Schlissel and begin to fix what some are calling cultural problems at the university. To do that, Michigan will first need to reckon with its current reality, Nithya Arun, president of Michigan's Central Student Government, said. |
| Colleges cash in on NFTs as a new fundraising mechanism | |
 | As NFTs dominate the moment, some colleges are cashing in on the craze. An NFT---short for nonfungible token -- is a speculative, digital asset that is unique and cannot be replicated or replaced. People often compare NFTs to original works of art; while many people own prints or replicas of the Mona Lisa, Leonardo da Vinci's original painting hangs in the Louvre. Also like art, an NFT's value depends on how many other people would pay to own it, and how much they would pay. In June, the University of California, Berkeley, auctioned an NFT based on the Nobel Prize–winning research of immunologist James Allison, who helped establish immunotherapy as a fourth pillar of cancer treatment. It netted the university about $50,000. Berkeley announced months ago that it would auction a second NFT based on Jennifer Doudna's Nobel Prize–winning CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing invention, but it has since put those plans on hold. Creating the NFT was legally complicated, said Richard Lyons, chief innovation and entrepreneurship officer at the university. Nevertheless, the university is pursuing other NFT auctions. "We have another NFT teed up that involves a breakthrough that bears directly on blockchain technology, which should appeal especially to this collector audience," Lyons said. "We are also pursuing a possible line of NFTs around UC Berkeley's creative works." Berkeley auctioned the NFT via Foundation, an online marketplace for NFTs. Using an existing platform like this one is a good way for colleges and universities to experiment with NFT auctions, said Jeremy Coffey, a senior associate attorney at Perlman and Perlman who counsels nonprofits on digital currency and new fundraising platforms. |
| New COVID Guidance for Colleges Is Stricter Than CDC's | |
| In updated guidance released Wednesday, the American College Health Association recommended that students who test positive for COVID-19 not leave isolation until they receive a negative rapid antigen test -- a departure from the latest CDC guidelines, which lowered the recommended quarantine period from 10 to five days and do not require a negative antigen test to end isolation. If a student tests positive after five days, they should test again on day seven or eight, said Gerri Taylor, co-chair of the ACHA's COVID-19 task force. "And then if that is positive, they should stay through the full 10 days of isolation." The new guidelines also recommend the use of N95, KN95 or surgical masks on campus, and amend the definition of "up-to-date" vaccination status to include a booster dose, in keeping with CDC guidelines. ACHA's update comes about six weeks after the last one, issued Dec. 6, and acknowledges that many institutions have been asking for clarification on the revised guidelines the CDC released around Christmas. "We've asked CDC, from the end of December until now, for guidance for institutions of higher ed," said Taylor. "And I believe it may still be coming. But our constituents are desperate for guidance." The ACHA's new guidelines acknowledge that contact tracing is no longer feasible on campuses because of the sheer numbers of cases. |
| Institutions, Advocates Seek to Address Basic Needs Insecurity Among HBCU Students | |
| Historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) have grappled for decades with state and federal underfunding while educating many low-income students of color. But the pandemic has disproportionately hit the very communities they often serve. To experts and HBCU leaders, a new survey's findings highlight the need for more support to students as well as institutions to help them. In its latest report, The Hope Center for College, Community, and Justice, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization at Temple University, found that two-thirds of HBCU students in Fall 2020 had experienced basic needs insecurity. With a 8.3% response rate, about 5,000 students at 14 public and private HBCUs participated in the survey. Nearly one-fifth of students reported they had been homeless in the past year. About 46% of respondents said they had experienced food insecurity in the past 30 days. "These numbers speak to something far greater than an HBCU problem or an African-American problem," wrote Dr. Michael J. Sorrell, president of Paul Quinn College, a private HBCU in Texas, in response to the survey's findings. "These numbers speak to an American problem. One which, if allowed to go unchecked, will compromise the future of too many talented citizens." |
| An Admissions Process Built for Racial Equity? This Report Imagines What It Would Look Like | |
| Ditch the ACT and SAT. End early decision. Abolish preferences for legacy applicants now. Critics of the admissions process have long demanded such changes in hopes of making the system more equitable for students. Over the last 20 years, a slew of proposed reforms have typically had two things in common: They (a) urged highly selective colleges to stop doing something, and (b) focused on a specific policy or practice in isolation, even though one discrete change alone -- like, say, going test-optional -- doesn't automatically guarantee more equitable outcomes at a given college. A report released on Wednesday by two prominent associations takes a broader view of what's wrong with the admissions and financial-aid system by examining the complex process through the lens of racial equity. "The effects of systemic racism," the report says, "touch every element of college admission -- a process that, at its origin, was not fundamentally designed to promote equity." That last part is key. The admissions realm, forever talking up its lofty ideals but forever entrenched in the relentless competition for revenue and indicators of institutional awesomeness, is a system at odds with itself. But it does, more or less, what it was built to do. The report, financed by the Lumina Foundation, was produced by the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. Its findings and recommendations were drawn from interviews with a panel of more than 20 admissions and financial-aid experts, as well as recent college applicants. |
| Report urges a new approach to admissions and aid | |
| The admissions system should be totally overhauled to make it more fair, especially for students of color, said a report issued Wednesday by the National Association for College Admission Counseling and the National Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators. A major reason that colleges developed the current system, with its tests, essays, grades and recommendation letters, said the report, is to promote selectivity. The report adds, "Selectivity exerts a fundamentally inequitable influence on the path to postsecondary education. It does so not because the system is designed on a complete definition of 'merit,' which remains elusive and ill-defined, but because in many cases it is designed to exclude even highly qualified students and because its current configuration relies upon an inequitable system of inputs." In addition, colleges should "rethink the financial aid application process into one that is less burdensome for students and families, and no longer requires them to continue to 'prove they are poor,'" said the new report. The reason for proposing such changes? Racial equity depends on them, the report says, and specifically equity for Black students. "In this report, admission recommendations focus on Black students first and foremost, and financial aid recommendations focus on all underserved populations more broadly," the report says. |
| Transfer enrollment steadies in fall 2021 after sharp declines the prior year | |
| Transfer enrollment appears to have steadied in fall 2021, declining by less than 1% year over year after dropping sharply the previous fall, according to new data from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. This fall's decline represents a loss of 11,300 students. That compares to last fall's 9.2% year-over-year decrease, which amounted to 137,000 students. The report found several positive trends among transfer enrollment in fall 2021, which is up 2.3% among continuing students. On the other hand, transfer students returning to higher ed after stopping out of college trended downward, decreasing a further 5.8% in fall 2021. The transfer report offers reason for optimism after the clearinghouse recently released bleak final figures for fall 2021 enrollment, which saw undergraduate enrollment slip 3.1% and graduate enrollment decrease 0.4% from the previous fall. The new report is based on data analyzing the enrollment patterns of 1.3 million transfer students as of Nov. 18. "Transfer pathways in fall 2021 show signs of students and campuses working hard to find greater latitude for navigating the pandemic," Doug Shapiro, executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, said in a statement. "Even as total undergraduate enrollment slid further, students who have stayed enrolled are finding ways to adapt to their specific challenges through transfer and mobility." |
| Arizona State University Looks to Enroll 100 Million More Students by 2030 | |
| Arizona State University is aiming to enroll an additional 100 million students by 2030 through a free global education initiative to be launched in April. The program, to be announced Thursday, will translate into 40 languages and put online the materials for five business courses, with the aim of reaching students in every corner of the globe. The program will use machine learning and artificial intelligence to teach and grade. The courses will confer academic credit as well as lead to a global management and entrepreneurship certificate. The initiative is a new attempt by universities and private ventures to scale technology to reach more students and make degrees more affordable. Among the first attempts were Massive Open Online Courses, which emerged about a decade ago. Web-based MOOCs have had some success, with some courses reaching tens of thousands of students. But early on a small percentage completed the courses. Bryan Alexander, a senior scholar at Georgetown University who writes about the future of education, said that many MOOCs suffered because they were little more than web-based textbooks and that a lot of them were poorly designed. "The test for this program is going to be retention," he said. "If you have a million people sign up but only 12 make it through the whole class, it will be a failure." |
| Colleges Are Still Trapped in Trump's Angry Tide | |
| A couple of weeks after a mob of Donald J. Trump's supporters stormed the nation's Capitol, Cathy Cox, then dean of Mercer University's law school, convened a group of students on a Zoom call for what she described as a real-world lesson in contract law. At issue was a mock courtroom at the Georgia university named for L. Lin Wood Jr., an alumnus, donor, and ardent Trump supporter. On social media Wood had increasingly trafficked in political conspiracy theories, and he had been accused of inciting violence. Not long before the Zoom call, Wood had taken to Parler, the conservative platform, with what sounded like a call to execute the vice president, Mike Pence. "Get the firing squads ready," Wood wrote. "Pence goes FIRST." (Parler removed the post, Mediaite reported, and Twitter permanently banned Wood after the Capitol riot. Wood said he had engaged in "rhetorical hyperbole" and does not believe in violence.) Wood is a well-known defamation lawyer who represented Richard Jewell, the security guard wrongly accused of planting a pipe bomb at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. By the time of the Mercer dean's Zoom call, however, Wood had become better known as something else: a chief propagator of Trump's baseless claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen. Cox, a former Georgia secretary of state who is a Democrat, told the students on the Zoom call that she was worried about Wood's mental health. "I'm no psychologist or psychiatrist," she said, "but it is really troubling to me to see the significant sort of downturn." Since the previous summer, Cox said, Wood's Twitter account had gone "from the supercharged Trump supporter, to the angry Trump supporter, to the insane, to the violent tweets." None of that, though, changed a fundamental fact: When Wood, in 2016, committed to donating $1 million to the law school, Mercer agreed to put his name on a courtroom, the dean said. |
SPORTS
| PREVIEW: Women's Basketball Set To Host No. 13 Georgia Thursday in Annual 'We Back Pat' Game | |
| The Mississippi State women's basketball team will be back home for just the second time in conference play when they play host to No. 13 Georgia on Thursday. State will be wearing shirts honoring Pat Summit as part of the SEC's 'We Back Pat' week. Mississippi State has won each of the last six meetings. The last time MSU and UGA met was on Dec. 31, 2020, when Mississippi State defeated Georgia in Athens, 69-62. Mississippi State averages 73.6 points per game (sixth-best in the SEC), with opponents averaging 64.4 ppg (11th in the SEC). State is shooting 42% from the floor while opponents are shooting 39%. The Bulldogs are averaging just 11.6 turnovers per game while forcing teams to turn the ball over 17.4 times per contest. Georgia enters Thursday ranked No. 13 in both the AP Top-25 and the USA Today Coaches Poll. UGA is 14-3 overall and 3-2 in the SEC. They also enter on a two-game winning streak with wins at home against Alabama and on the road at Missouri. Georgia averages 73.7 points per game (fifth-best in the SEC) while allowing teams to score just 57.1 ppg (fourth-best). From the field, they shoot 45%, while opponents are shooting just 37%. Mississippi State is receiving votes in the Top 25 coaches' poll for the third week in a row. |
| 'She made you feel important': Doug Novak reflects on relationship with Pat Summitt | |
| Mississippi State will join the rest of the SEC in honoring legendary Tennessee coach Pat Summitt this week. MSU will host 'We Back Pat' night on Thursday at Humphrey Coliseum with No. 13 Georgia in town -- a night with special meaning for interim head coach Doug Novak. Summitt's legacy speaks for itself as an eight-time national champion, but that isn't where Novak's admiration for the basketball giant stems from. It doesn't even stem from Novak's undergraduate days at Tennessee in the late 1980s -- a time where Summitt earned her first two titles. His Summitt story comes from a small Division II gym two decades ago when Novak was the head coach for Anderson University's men's team. Summitt was intrigued by some of the stuff he ran, so they talked before she eventually brought her entire staff to watch two day's worth of practice. They weren't there to tell Novak -- who was in his early 30s -- what he was doing wrong. Summitt was there to learn from him. "She would steal an inbounds play from an eighth-grade coach," Novak said. "She had no ego." Novak says Summitt spent no time talking about herself, but instead she was relentless in the questions she had for him. Summitt's interest in Novak stemmed even before Anderson, going back to his junior college coaching days. She'd often catch a game and find something she liked that Novak ran, so she'd ask about it or she'd just congratulate him on an important win with one of her iconic letters. |
| Mississippi State men's basketball schedule adjustments set up busy February weekend | |
| As the SEC attempts to reschedule any postponed games in a timely manner, the conference set up Mississippi State athletics for a jammed weekend in February. The conference announced Wednesday that the Bulldogs' previously postponed Jan. 5 game against Missouri has been moved to Feb. 20, a Sunday, in Columbia, Missouri. The game will tip off at 7 p.m. and air on SEC Network. The switch sets up a day-night doubleheader with the Mississippi State women's team, playing at 2 p.m. against the Tigers on SEC Network+. The men's basketball adjustment required another change, with the originally scheduled Feb. 19 game against Missouri moving a day earlier to Feb. 18, a Friday, in Starkville, tipping off at 6 p.m. from Humphrey Coliseum and airing on SEC Network+. Moving that game to Friday makes Starkville a busy place to be, with the reigning national champion baseball program beginning the 2022 season on Feb. 18 at Dudy Noble Field against Long Beach State. The time for first pitch has yet to be announced. |
| Down the stretch, Mississippi State gives away chance for key win at Florida | |
| Shakeel Moore's 3-pointer found the center of the net with 7 minutes, 20 seconds to go in Wednesday's game at Florida. The triple -- Moore's third of the game on just three attempts -- answered two straight buckets by the Gators to halve an eight-point Mississippi State lead. Moore's response put the Bulldogs back up seven, seemingly a good enough cushion to close things out. But MSU couldn't do that Wednesday with a chance for a Quadrant 1 win well within its reach. Florida (11-6, 2-3 Southeastern Conference) scored 20 of the next 22 points, including 14 straight at one point, to leave Mississippi State (12-5, 3-2 SEC) winless on the road in conference play with an 80-72 Gators victory in Gainesville. "We did not do a good job in the last eight minutes of this game," MSU coach Ben Howland said. The Bulldogs couldn't take advantage of a Florida team playing without center Colin Castleton, its leader in points, rebounds and blocks. Castleton observed from the Gators' bench in a white hoodie after injuring his shoulder during practice Tuesday. |
| Nick Zimmerman Named Associate Head Coach | |
| Current assistant coach of the Mississippi State soccer program, Nick Zimmerman, has been elevated to associate head coach, head coach James Armstrong announced Thursday. "I am thrilled to announce the promotion of Nick to associate head coach," Armstrong said. "Since the day we arrived, he has been relentless in executing the vision to push this program to new heights. Nick has worked tirelessly in our recruiting efforts, has improved our players technically and tactically, and has integrated himself seamlessly into the Mississippi State community and fan base. I am looking forward to many more years of us working together. The future is bright!" Zimmerman, who is in the middle of his third season in StarkVegas, works primarily with the Maroon and White's forwards and midfielders. "I am extremely grateful to James [Armstrong], the staff, the players and the administration to be a part of this special program," Zimmerman said. "It is an honor to represent MSU and all that encompasses. I look forward to further collaborating with our players both on and off the field as we pursue excellence." Since arriving to Mississippi State in January of 2019, the Bulldogs have tallied the most conference points in program history during a three-year span since 2003-05 (31), and the second most points all time in a three-year stretch since the 2000-02 seasons (32). |
| LSU basketball team stranded in Tuscaloosa; Tigers heading straight to Knoxville on Thursday | |
 | The LSU basketball team didn't just lose a game Wednesday night. The Tigers lost their ride home when their chartered plane had a mechanical problem and the team's traveling party returned to the hotel they checked out of before a 70-67 setback to Alabama in Coleman Coliseum. It was a bad night all around as LSU coaches, players and support staff all returned to the Hotel Indigo to get some rest after being grounded at the Tuscaloosa airport. Because the Tigers are scheduled to play at Tennessee on Saturday, the decision was made to stay the remainder of the night to get enough rest and then head straight to Knoxville on Thursday. Will Wade said late Wednesday night his team will depart Tuscaloosa sometime Thursday and practice in Knoxville on Thursday and Friday to prepare for the contest. LSU and Tennessee will tip off at 5 p.m. Saturday (ESPN). |
| Mike Gottfried on Ron Franklin: 'He loved college football' | |
| So many things about Ron Franklin stand out in Mike Gottfried's memory, but one quality superseded all the others. "There's not many like him, because his voice was so strong and so good," Gottfried told AL.com on Wednesday. "And then add the passion he had for his job. He was a great play-by-play man, and a good man and a great friend. We're going to miss him." Franklin, who served as play-by-play man for ESPN's College Football Primetime from 1987-2005, died Tuesday at 79. His partner for most of those years was Gottfried, the former college football head coach and longtime Mobile resident. Gottfried said he awoke Wednesday to the news of Franklin's passing, which trickled out on social media late Tuesday. The two had kept touch regularly over the years, with Franklin making his home in Austin, Texas. "I know this about Ron -- I knew he loved college football," Gottfried said. "He just had a passion about him that came through on the broadcast. ... He was just so good at what he did, and with a passion to do it the right way. "The other thing I would say is that he was not negative. He wasn't taking on people all the time. He was very positive about his job." A Mississippi native and Ole Miss graduate, Franklin first came to prominence as the radio voice of the NFL's Houston Oilers in the 1970s. He later broadcast University of Texas football and basketball before joining ESPN full-time in the late 1980s. |
| Football games send viewers to TV on cold weekend | |
| The NFL wild card games and the NCAA football championship gathered millions of people in front of their television sets on a cold winter weekend. An average of 30.5 million people watched the NFL's wild card games on television and digitally over the weekend, which the league said was up 21% over the same games in 2021. Meanwhile, Georgia's victory over Alabama for the NCAA football championship last week reached 22.3 million viewers, the Nielsen company said. That allowed the NCAA to rebound from the lackluster ratings of the New Year's Eve semifinals, which featured two non-competitive games. Boosted by their wild card games, CBS averaged 10 million viewers and NBC had 6.8 million in prime time last week. ABC averaged 2.7 million, Fox had 1.7 million, Univision had 1.6 million, Ion Television had 1 million and Telemundo had 900,000. ESPN averaged 3.69 million viewers in prime time, Fox News Channel had 2.24 million, MSNBC had 1.2 million, HGTV had 1.08 million and Hallmark had 978,000. ABC's "World News Tonight" won the evening news race, averaging 9 million viewers. NBC's "Nightly News" had 8.1 million and the "CBS Evening News" had 5.8 million. |
| NCAA updates policy on transgender athlete participation | |
| On Wednesday, the NCAA announced it had updated its policy regarding participation for transgender athletes, adopting a model that is in line with those used by the U.S. and International Olympic Committees. The Board of Governors voted in support of a sport-by-sport approach to participation that "preserves opportunity for transgender student-athletes while balancing fairness, inclusion and safety for all who compete." The new policy will be effective immediately. Transgender athlete participation will now be determined by the national governing body of that particular sport. If no national governing body exists, the international federation policy would be followed. The IOC's previously established criteria would take effect next if there is no international federation policy. "We are steadfast in our support of transgender student-athletes and the fostering of fairness across college sports," Georgetown president and chair of the board John DeGioia said. The NCAA's Office of Inclusion and the Sport Science Institute also released the Gender Identity and Student-Athlete Participation Summit Final Report, which included institutional actions aimed at improving the well-being and inclusion of transgender or nonbinary (TGNB) athletes. |
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