| Thursday, February 10, 2022 |
| GSDP announces annual award winners, releases annual impact report | |
 | The Greater Starkville Development Partnership recognized local businesses and individuals during its 2022 Annual Awards Banquet Tuesday night hosted at the Mill at MSU. Camgian Microsystems was honored as the R. Clay Simmons Exemplary Enterprise Award winner, recognized as Starkville's most outstanding business for the previous year. Led by Dr. Gary Butler and headquartered in Starkville, Camgian's expansion and growth has continued to create a positive impact within its local community. Ruth Mendoza de la Cruz was the recipient of the T.E. Veitch Community Service Award, and Melissa Rogers of Chick-fil-A Starkville was named the Partnership's Ambassador of the Year. The Oktibbeha County Economic Development Authority (OCEDA) named GLO as the Industry of the Year, and the Mississippi State University Baseball National Champions took home the Convention and Visitors Bureau Crystal Pineapple Tourism Award for their impact on the tourism industry in Starkville. The Partnership is comprised of the Starkville Area Chamber of Commerce, Oktibbeha County Economic Development Authority, Starkville Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Starkville Main Street Association. |
| LCSO's monthly Featured Fugitive initiative paying dividends | |
| Outside a rented room at University Inn on Highway 182, the Starkville police special weapons and tactics unit prepared to pounce on a suspect believed to potentially be armed and dangerous. By the time the ordeal was over, Joseph Edward Fenton, 37, of Columbus was arrested without incident, a testament to the value of citizen tips and interagency cooperation among law enforcement. The arrest also solidified the effectiveness of Lowndes County Sheriff Eddie Hawkins' latest initiative to generate more tips from the public as Fenton became his office's latest "Featured Fugitive of the Month" to be captured since the program began in December. "After the story got out, we started getting tips that night," Hawkins said. "People were telling us he was in Starkville." Things unfolded swiftly after that, with someone spotting Fenton in Kroger and calling the police, Hawkins said. The tipster followed him back to his hotel room and told investigators where the fugitive was hiding. SPD took it from there, sending its SWAT team to arrest him. "He had gotten a construction job that paid cash and was living off the grid," Hawkins said. "If it wasn't for the tips, we wouldn't have located him." The Featured Fugitive program has been a bright spot in a challenging environment, Hawkins said. "The youth culture now is that people want to handle their own problems," Hawkins said. "But then innocent people end up getting shot. That 9-year-old who died in Starkville (in January) had nothing to do with anything. Things like that don't have to happen." |
| US inflation jumped 7.5% in the past year, a 40-year high | |
 | Inflation soared over the past year at its highest rate in four decades, hammering America's consumers, wiping out pay raises and reinforcing the Federal Reserve's decision to begin raising borrowing rates across the economy. The Labor Department said Thursday that consumer prices jumped 7.5% last month compared with a year earlier, the steepest year-over-year increase since February 1982. The acceleration of prices ranged across the economy, from food and furniture to apartment rents, airline fares and electricity. When measured from December to January, inflation was 0.6%, the same as the previous month and more than economists had expected. Prices had risen 0.7% from October to November and 0.9% from September to October. Shortages of supplies and workers, heavy doses of federal aid, ultra-low interest rates and robust consumer spending combined to send inflation leaping in the past year. And there are few signs that it will slow significantly anytime soon. Wages are rising at the fastest pace in at least 20 years, which can pressure companies to raise prices to cover higher labor costs. Ports and warehouses are overwhelmed, with hundreds of workers at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, the nation's busiest, out sick last month. Many products and parts remain in short supply as a result. The steady rise in prices has left many Americans less able to afford food, gas, rent, child care and other necessities. More broadly, inflation has emerged as the biggest risk factor for the economy and as a serious threat to President Joe Biden and congressional Democrats as midterm elections loom later this year. |
| The Next Supply Chain Mess Is Coming for Your Morning Coffee | |
 | On a recent morning, Chelsie Nalley's go-to Starbucks in Chattanooga, Tenn., left her high and dry. The store had plenty of coffee, she said, but none of her favorite 24-ounce cups. Ms. Nalley called a Starbucks two blocks away and pleaded for a barista to jot her name on a Venti cup before they were all gone. Then she ran. America's latest shortage is of disposable cups, a potential energy crisis for an up-and-at-'em nation accustomed to caffeine on the go. "They're always out," said Ms. Nalley, 29 years old. She switched to 30-ounce Trenta cups until those, too, ran dry. A Starbucks Corp. spokesman said the chain was working to get more. The company said it typically goes through six billion a year, and leftover holiday-theme cups are helping fill the gap. Restaurateurs and suppliers around the country face the same empty cupboard. Disposable cups imported from China and elsewhere are stuck in ports along the mucked-up supply chain. American paper mills are short workers. And the U.S. hasn't caught up from the extreme cold snap in Texas last year that suspended production of resins used to make plastic cups and the coating on paper cups. The Plastics Industry Association has forecast a 3.1% increase in the output of plastic products, including cups. Perc Pineda, the trade group's chief economist, said the worker shortage has hampered plastics plants. Shortages of both labor and inputs have pushed prices for plastic packaging products 24% higher from a year ago, federal data show. |
| Senate passes equal pay for equal work bill | |
 | The state Senate with wide bipartisan support on Wednesday passed legislation that would require most Mississippi employers to pay men and women the same wage for the performing same type of work. The bill passed with only two senators -- Angela Turner Ford of West Point and Barbara Blackmon of Canton -- opposing the measure. The legislation simply allows employees to file a lawsuit in state court against employers if they believe they've been wronged. Federal law already allows employees to sue in federal court, but that process can often be more lengthy and expensive than going through state courts. If passed, the legislation would not apply to workplaces that use a seniority system, merit system or a system to set the pay scale for employees. Mississippi is the last state in the nation without an equal pay provision in state law. Bipartisan support has slowly grown for legislators for such a law, but previous failed to gain wide traction. A somewhat unusual group of senators joined together to raise concerns about the bill, but for very different reasons. Some of the conservative Republican senators, such as Jennifer Branning of Philadelphia and Melanie Sojourner of Natchez, said they did not need the government to protect women from being discriminated against in the workplace. Some Democratic senators opposed the bill because they believed in would be unbelievably hard for employees file a successful discrimination suit against employers because of the requirements laid out in the bill. |
| House, Senate take different paths on spending historic federal funds | |
 | Mississippi House members are developing a framework of how they want to spend $1.8 billion in federal COVID-19 relief funds, but seem content on waiting until the end of the session to reveal specifics. Senate leaders, on the other hand, have released their plans on how to spend the American Rescue Plan funds and have begun passing them. The dueling strategies will almost certainly lead to end-of-session negotiations between a handful of leaders from both chambers, and it will likely be weeks before Mississippians learn how lawmakers will decide to spend the historic amount of federal funds. The House is passing bills, but for the most part they are not placing the exact amount of funds in the bill. House Pro Tem Jason White, R-West, said those exact amounts will be worked out in conference between House and Senate leaders at the end of the session. On Tuesday, the Senate passed its largest ARPA bill -- a measure to use $750 million of the money to create a state match for city, county and rural water association infrastructure projects. The state would match local governments' spending of the ARPA funds they are receiving directly from the federal government. Federal law allows the ARPA funds to be used for local governments' water and sewerage infrastructure. Sen. John Polk, chair of the Senate subcommittee handling ARPA spending, said the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality, with help from the Department of Health, would vet and approve applications for projects, based on a grading scale. Polk said this grade would include whether a system is under federal orders to improve or having problems such as high lead levels, and it would give greater weight to projects "ready to go within six months." |
| State Senate passes bill to build new ABC warehouse, hire vendor to run it | |
| The chances of a compromise in the Legislature when it comes to the state's monopoly on wholesale distribution of wine and spirits seems minimal after the Senate passed a bill Tuesday that would build a new warehouse. Senate Bill 2844 would use $55 million in bonds to build a new warehouse to replace the Department of Revenue's existing one in Gluckstadt. The DOR's Alcohol Beverage Control division would contract with an operator for 10 years to take over the new warehouse's operations. The contractor would be paid per case of alcoholic beverages sold and the state would pay regular maintenance costs for the warehouse. The state (or the contractor) would also levy a 25 cent per case shipping fee until a special fund created to pay for warehouse improvements reaches $25 million. This approach contrasts with that of House Bill 512, which would get the state out of the liquor and wine distribution business by January 1, 2023. As in the case with beer, wholesalers take over distribution of wine and spirits if HB 512 became law. It would also lower the excise tax on wine and spirits from 27.5 percent to 18 percent. Last year, the House passed a privatization bill and the Senate passed a rewritten version that failed in conference when the two chambers couldn't find a compromise. |
| Pending proposal at State Capitol seeks to create a Department of Tourism | |
| Tourism translates to a lot of business in Mississippi. And there's a pending proposal to change the structure of who oversees that industry. Tourism isn't being left out currently. But the Senate proposal attempts to give it even more attention. "Tourism is Mississippi's 4th largest industry," said bill author Sen. Mike Thompson. "Looking at the 2019 numbers, the pre-COVID pandemic numbers, annually there was 6.7 billion dollars... billion with a b... spent by tourists visiting the state of Mississippi." Senate Bill 2164 would move to take the Division of Tourism out from under the Mississippi Development Authority and create a standalone Department of Tourism with an executive director appointed by the Governor. It would also create a 12-member marketing advisory board to assist the department. "Right now, MDA handles everything in the state, from economic development, to ports, to tourism," said Sen. Thompson. "So, we felt like that it was very important that we had a department that was dedicated in focus to tourism, just like you have for agriculture, or any of the state's other economic drivers." The Senate is hoping the third year's the charm on this proposal. They've passed it and then had the House nix it the last two years. But there's still pushback, including from The Center for Public Policy. "I'm just concerned that both from the funding side and also whether you know, marketing for this core focus of attracting tourists is really supposed to be an essential task of government," said Hunter Estes, Mississippi Center for Public Policy Senior Director of Policy and Communications. |
| Statue of racist Mississippi ex-Gov. Bilbo stashed in closet | |
| Mystery solved: The top administrator in the Mississippi House says he unilaterally made the decision to take a statue of a racist former Gov. Theodore Bilbo off public display and put it into storage. House clerk Andrew Ketchings spoke to reporters Wednesday, answering a question that has been all the buzz at the state Capitol: Where's Bilbo? People starting noticing in recent weeks that a bronze statue of the late governor had disappeared. It was on display for decades -- first in the center of the Capitol, and since the 1980s in a House committee room. "It was purely my decision, 100%," Ketchings told The Associated Press and Mississippi Today. As clerk, Ketchings has the power to authorize paint jobs, new carpet and other maintenance for spaces used by the state House of Representatives. He said a work crew moved the Bilbo statue on a Saturday in October, at a cost of about $4,000 to $5,000, paid by public money. It is now covered by a fire-resistant blanket, in a large closet behind one of the Capitol elevators. Ketchings said he had been bothered by the statue for years "because of everything he stood for." "It was way past time to do it. I just read through a lot of his quotes that were offensive," said Ketchings, who was a Republican Mississippi House member from 1996 to 2004. Statues of Confederate soldiers and generals have been removed from public display in several places across the South in recent years amid debates about how the U.S. should acknowledge troubling parts of its history. |
| House clerk Andrew Ketchings takes credit for moving Bilbo statue out of public view | |
| House Clerk Andrew Ketchings said he acted on his own to remove the statue of racist former governor and U.S. senator Theodore Bilbo from public view in the Mississippi State Capitol. Bilbo, known for his extreme racist rhetoric and views, had been memorialized with a statue in the Mississippi Capitol since the 1950s. Various Black legislators and others have for many years called for the removal of the Bilbo statue, saying it was inappropriate that such a vocal white supremacist was one of two governors to be memorialized with statues in the Capitol. "Because of everything he stood for, I think this should have been done years ago," Ketchings told Mississippi Today and the Associated Press on Wednesday. "It was way past time to do it." The Bilbo statue is now locked in a closet behind the elevator on the House side of the Capitol and wrapped in a fire retardant. Ketchings declined to open the room. Mississippi Today reported last week that the statue of Bilbo was no longer in room 113 of the state Capitol, the largest House committee room, as it had been since the early 1980s. Last week, no one would publicly take responsibility for the move. Legislative leaders, including House Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann, said they did not even know the statue was missing. "It was purely my decision, 100%," said Ketchings, who added he did not inform any of the legislative leadership of his plan. Ketchings said he has since told the House leadership he moved the statue. He said House leaders did not seem inclined to try to restore the statue to public view. |
| Brice Wiggins improperly used state campaign funds for congressional race | |
| State Sen. Brice Wiggins, a candidate for Mississippi's 4th Congressional District seat, used money from his state office campaign account to pay for congressional ads, which is prohibited by Federal Election Commission regulations. When asked about the issue by Mississippi Today last week, Wiggins said he was unaware of it and would check. He later provided a written response saying, "We found on Dec. 3 that congressional ads for a few weeks were incorrectly charged to a credit card of the (state) Committee to Elect Brice Wiggins." "We corrected this Dec. 3, and the $1,170.07 cost is being reimbursed to the state campaign along with a $10 reimbursement for a Facebook post I made myself on Nov. 2," Wiggins wrote. "An amendment to the FEC filing is being made." Wiggins also wrote: "My intent is to always be transparent." Campaign finances have already been a big issue in the 4th District race. Longtime incumbent Republican Rep. Steven Palazzo is under investigation by the House Ethics Committee over allegations of campaign fund misspending and other issues. A congressional watchdog agency's report, which prompted the House Ethics investigation, claims Palazzo misspent campaign and congressional funds, used his office to help his brother and used staff for personal errands and services. Allegations have previously been reported that Palazzo used campaign funds to pay himself and his erstwhile wife nearly $200,000 through companies they own --- including thousands to cover the mortgage, maintenance and upgrades to a riverfront home Palazzo owned and wanted to sell. A Mississippi Today report also questioned thousands in Palazzo campaign spending on swanky restaurants, sporting events, resort hotels, golfing and gifts. |
| U.S. farmers push Washington to help boost exports even after a record year | |
 | Exports of U.S. agricultural goods reached an all-time high in 2021 despite supply chain bottlenecks sparked by the pandemic. But American farmers say they should be doing even better. Producers of crops, meat and dairy are leaning on the Biden administration and Congress to intervene in what they see as a market failure: Their exports are being left behind in the U.S. as ocean carriers choose to haul empty containers back to Asia to retrieve more imports. Both the White House and Congress have heeded those calls with proposals to alter shipping industry regulations and implement changes at U.S. ports, steps that policymakers contend will boost the U.S. economy by promoting exports, particularly for the large and politically influential agricultural sector. "We don't think the ocean carriers are treating agricultural exports the way they should," said John Porcari, the port envoy President Joe Biden tapped to fix supply chain issues. "And if their emphasis is on getting empty containers back to point of origin, as opposed to helping U.S. exports, that's unacceptable." The sharpest resistance is coming from the ocean carriers, most of whom are based outside the United States. They argue the government wants U.S. exports to receive preferential treatment in what amounts to unprecedented market interference that could potentially worsen existing supply chain backlogs. |
| Senate confirms another USDA undersecretary | |
| Long-time USDA employee Homer Wilkes was formally approved by the full Senate for his nominated role of undersecretary for USDA's Natural Resources and Environment mission area. In the role, Wilkes will oversee the U.S. Forest Service and several USDA conservation programs. Throughout his 41-year career with USDA, Wilkes has continually demonstrated his commitment to working with local communities to implement conservation practices. During his Senate confirmation hearing, Wilkes indicated that his priorities include wildfire management and prevention, providing an inclusive work environment, addressing forest sustainability, and supporting and creating markets for wood products. He pointed to the Good Neighbor Authority, which can be used to increase collaboration with state forestry agencies. Wilkes is originally from the state of Mississippi and has spent more than four decades working with USDA in a variety of roles. Prior to his appointment to undersecretary, Wilkes served as the director for the Natural Resource Conservation Service Gulf of Mexico Ecosystem Restoration Division. He has also worked as the state conservationist for Mississippi and acting chief of NRCS. "Dr. Wilkes will be an exceptional Under Secretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and Environment." says Senate Agriculture Committee Chairwoman Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich. "Dr. Wilkes has had a 41-year career at USDA leading efforts in conservation, ecological restoration and forest management. I'm glad my colleagues confirmed him with strong bipartisan support. I look forward to working with him to restore and protect the health of our forests and grasslands." Wilkes holds an MBA and a PhD from Jackson State University. |
| Appropriators reach 'framework' deal on fiscal 2022 spending | |
 | House and Senate Appropriations Committee leaders said Wednesday they have a deal on a "framework" that will allow them to start writing compromise spending bills for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1. Senate Appropriations Chairman Patrick J. Leahy, D-Vt., and House Appropriations Chair Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., put out statements Wednesday afternoon announcing the pact. A spokeswoman for Senate Appropriations ranking member Richard C. Shelby confirmed Republicans also view what the Alabama senator described earlier in the day as "an understanding" as an official agreement. Neither side revealed any details of what the framework entails. A source familiar with the negotiations said the agreement is to have "parity," or equal increases for defense and nondefense spending, and to start further negotiations leaving current law policy riders in place. All four committee leaders would have to agree to remove or add any other riders, the source said. That means the longstanding Hyde amendment barring federal funding for abortion in most cases will likely be in the final package, since Republicans would object to removing it as Democrats have proposed. "I am pleased that we have reached agreement on a framework, which will allow our subcommittees to get to work finalizing an omnibus," DeLauro said, adding that appropriators will "now proceed with great intensity to enact legislation." The House on Tuesday passed a third continuing resolution for the fiscal year that began Oct. 1 that would extend current funding levels through March 11. The previous stopgap expires Feb. 18. Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer said Wednesday his chamber will take up the stopgap measure "next week." |
| Biden faces possible trucker threat | |
 | President Biden is facing the possibility of truck driver protests mirroring those in Canada over vaccine mandates that would come as the administration works to combat supply chain disruptions, vaccinate more Americans and strengthen the U.S. economy. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) on Wednesday warned police partners of protests similar to those in Canada that it said could even disrupt the Super Bowl or the State of the Union address. DHS "has received reports of truck drivers potentially planning to block roads in major metropolitan cities in the United States in protest of, among other things, vaccine mandates. The convoy will potentially begin in California early as mid-February, potentially impacting the Super Bowl scheduled for 13 February and the State of the Union address scheduled for 1 March," DHS wrote in a memo shared with police partners. Protests in Canada have created a huge political problem for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and could become an issue for Biden soon while plans for a similar protest in Washington, D.C., next month are being made on social media. For the last two weeks, protests in Ottawa have shut down traffic and aggravated citizens of Canada's capital city as truckers honk in anger over requirements that truck drivers must be fully vaccinated to be permitted entry into Canada, a requirement the U.S. government has also implemented. The protests have come to be seen as a reflection of fatigue with pandemic restrictions that exists around the world and is a threat to existing governments. Pandemic fatigue has been seen as a factor in Biden's low approval ratings and the dismal outlook for Democrats in this year's midterms. It's unclear how serious plans are for a similar protest in the U.S., though groups have announced plans on social media as the Canadian protests draw more attention. |
| Republican rift exposes choice: With Trump or against him | |
| Senate Republicans blame the Republican National Committee. The RNC blames two Republican House members. They blame former President Donald Trump. And Trump blames Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell. In the midst of the GOP's first major election year blowup, each bloc believes it represents the real Republican Party and its best interests in the bid to regain control of Congress. The Republican rift over a symbolic RNC vote to censure Trump's two GOP House critics has exposed in stark contrast the competing forces fighting to control the party. The sudden burst of infighting shattered a period of relative Republican peace just as party leaders insist they need to come together to defeat Democrats in the looming midterms. But this week, at least, Republican unity is hard to find. "Mitch McConnell does not speak for the Republican Party, and does not represent the views of the vast majority of its voters," Trump said in a statement Wednesday. Instead of fighting President Joe Biden's agenda, the former president said, McConnell "bails out the radical left and the RINOs" -- shorthand for Republicans In Name Only. At issue were McConnell's comments a day earlier in which he criticized the RNC for censuring Reps. Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Adam Kinzinger of Illinois at the party's winter meeting in Salt Lake City. The two Republicans sit on a Democrat-led House committee that is aggressively investigating the violent Jan. 6 siege at the U.S. Capitol and has subpoenaed many in the former president's inner circle. |
| Travel nurse salaries are rising due to demand. Some hospitals say it's price gouging | |
 | Last year, Kimberly Carson got tired of the nursing job she had for eight years at a hospital in Illinois. She didn't think she was being paid well enough to make up for the increased workloads and stressors that came with the COVID-19 pandemic. She loved working with her manager and coworkers, but issues within the hospital -- like staff retention -- drove her to her breaking point. Adding to her feelings of frustration were the travel nurses she worked side-by-side with that were making much more than she was. "I feel like you should be able to afford to pay your staff more money and better wages," she said. "It makes you feel unwanted. It makes you feel kind of used." By the time the hospital offered her bonuses to make up for the stress, it was too little, too late. So, she left. Since December, Carson has worked as a travel nurse, making twice her old salary on a temporary contract in Mississippi -- earning around $60 an hour. But where workers like Carson see opportunity, those running hospitals see a nuisance. The American Hospital Association says healthcare staffing agencies are exploiting the pandemic, forcing them to pay astronomical wages for temporary nurses and other staff. Some hospitals, which can't afford these exorbitant prices, are asking the White House to do something about the high costs they're paying. Last week, nearly 200 members of Congress signed on to another letter to the White House, urging quick action to reign in high travel nurse costs. NPR reached out to a Biden administration official, who declined to speak publicly about a complaint to the FTC -- an independent agency -- but said that the White House has deployed federal surge teams, which include temporary staff that can help hospitals facing worker shortages and high patient levels. |
| CDC weighs updating messaging around transmission and masking | |
| The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is considering updating its guidelines on the metrics states should use when considering lifting public health measures such as mask mandates, according to four people familiar with the matter. Agency scientists and officials are debating whether to continue to publicly support using transmission data as a marker for whether to ease public health interventions such as masking, particularly in school settings, the people said. CDC staff are weighing whether the agency should use case rates as a metric or whether it should lean more heavily on hospitalization data, particularly information on hospital capacity. In recent days, the CDC has reached out to external doctors, scientists and public health organizations for input, one of the people with knowledge of the discussions said. The CDC is reviewing its national surveillance data, including information from wastewater studies, case reporting, vaccinations, hospitalizations and deaths. The major problem with relying on one piece of data over another to determine whether easing public health restrictions is warranted is that the data the CDC collects is often delayed and aggregated. The agency should consider using a mix of metrics, said Ashish Jha, dean of Brown University's School of Public Health. "In the ideal world, we would pay attention to infections among unvaccinated people because they are the ones that lead to bad outcomes and hospitalizations and deaths overall. But our ability to track vaccinations and boosters is limited in real time," Jha said. "Therefore, we have to use some proxies. I think at the end of the day people will care most about hospitalizations. But hospitalizations can be a lagging metric, too. Ultimately, it is probably a combination of infections and hospitalizations." |
| Anti-Critical Race Theory legislation alarms some UM students and faculty | |
 | When every Black lawmaker in the Mississippi state Senate walked out in January in protest of a bill prohibiting the teaching of critical race theory in the state's public schools and universities, all eyes were on Mississippi, yet again. Their seats sat empty -- a loud gesture in the quiet Senate chamber -- as their white counterparts passed the controversial legislation. Weeks later, as Senate Bill 2113 has moved to the House of Representatives for consideration, many students who fill classroom seats and the professors who teach them at the University of Mississippi are worried that passage of the anti-critical race theory legislation into law will be devastating to their freedom to teach and learn fair and accurate information about the history and current circumstances in Mississippi and the United States. Yvette Butler, an assistant professor of law at the University of Mississippi, teaches Law 743: Critical Race Theory. Despite extensive legislative pushback against critical race theory in Mississippi classrooms, hers is the only class in the state that deals with the topic. "Critical race theory is, essentially, a post-Civil Rights Era way of asking why the law hasn't fixed racial inequality," she said. "The Civil Rights Act of 1964 is one of our main statutes that basically says in employment, in public accommodations you can't discriminate against people on the basis of race, sex, national origin, etc." The Civil Rights Act marked a turn in the fight for equality in the United States. |
| UM Names First Research Scholar for Institutional Transformation | |
| Stephanie Miller, associate professor of psychology, has been named the University of Mississippi's inaugural Provost Faculty Research Scholar for Institutional Transformation. The new position supports the expansion of university efforts to build collaborative research teams equipped to write and submit external grants designed to increase institutional capacity in the areas of diversity, equity and inclusion. "I was very excited to hear the news," said Miller, who also is director of the experimental graduate program in the Department of Psychology. "Much of my service as an academic has been devoted to diversity, equity and inclusion, and I was thrilled to be able to apply for and receive a position focused on this important element in academia." Funded by the Office of the Provost and the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Miller will work closely with the Office of Research and Sponsored Program and its new Interdisciplinary Research at UM grant development program to help move research teams through the building process. Miller also will help align research goals with institutional priorities and resources. |
| HPD, HFD visit USM campus for potential new recruits | |
 | Officers with the Hattiesburg Police Department and firefighters with the Hattiesburg Fire Department are hoping some University of Southern Mississippi students will look to their departments for future employment. Several police officers and firefighters came to Shoemaker Square on the USM campus Wednesday to meet students and tell them about job opportunities and upcoming training academies. They hope many students will consider careers in law enforcement or firefighting. "We did just graduate our most recent recruit class, we graduated 12 recruits out of that, automatically, we're hitting the ground running with recruits coming for the next one," said Ryan Moore, public information officer with the Hattiesburg Police Department. "This is a great market for us to meet people and tell them a little about what we do, and we've got the Screaming Eagle truck with us today, which is the black and gold truck and just a great group of folks here and hopefully, we can recruit a few of them to come over to us," said Alexander Redondo, an engineer with the Hattiesburg Fire Department. The police and fire departments will be on the USM campus again Thursday from 11 a.m. - 1 p.m. |
| USM Symphony Orchestra preparing for first concert of 2022 | |
| This Saturday, Feb. 19, the USM Symphony Orchestra will take the stage in Bennett Auditorium for the first time in 2022. The concert is set to be a performance to honor the former USM Symphony Orchestra conductor, William T. Gower, by having the three Gower Concerto Competition winners join the orchestra on stage. "These are three students who competed against all their peers in the School of Music were chosen to perform with the symphony orchestra, and it's always exciting for them," said USM Symphony Orchestra Director, Dr. Michael Miles. "It's exciting for their colleagues on the stage to support them, and it's just a really great event for our School of Music every year." "Today was my first rehearsal ever playing with an orchestra, so I really got a taste of tempos, you know, because it's a little different in a wind band," said Concerto Competition Winner, Peyton Sills. "The beat is right on it or right ahead of it. In orchestras, a little more relaxed, so I kind of got a feel of that and prepared for my performance on Saturday, the 19th." Sills says this is the first time many of these students will perform in front of a live audience in their college years. The USM junior admitted this is the first time he will perform a solo in front of a live audience since high school. |
| U. of Alabama Reconsiders Keeping an Ex-Klansman's Name on a Campus Building | |
 | After a week of confusion and outrage across campus, the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa will reconsider a decision to honor both the university's first Black student and a former Ku Klux Klan leader on the same campus building. Last week, the Alabama system's Board of Trustees announced that Graves Hall, named for David Bibb Graves, a former governor and grand cyclops of the Klan's Montgomery chapter, would be rechristened Lucy-Graves Hall. The new name commemorates Autherine Lucy Foster, who in 1956 became the first Black student to attend the university, and whose enrollment prompted a vicious backlash on campus. But the decision to keep Graves's name alongside Foster's sparked a present-day backlash. On Wednesday afternoon, the trustees signaled that they were revisiting the decision. According to a statement provided by a university spokeswoman, the board will hold a meeting no later than Friday. Several faculty members said they were frustrated at the University of Alabama's attempt to, as they see it, treat the naming decision as a both-sides issue -- appeasing those who've called for the university to rename buildings, and those who've said that Graves's legacy is still worth honoring. "They thought by having both, they would satisfy all," said Hilary N. Green, an associate professor of history in the department of gender and race studies. "I don't think they satisfied anyone." |
| Amid criticism, UA Board of Trustees to reconsider Klansman's name on building | |
 | The University of Alabama's Board of Trustees will hold a meeting Friday to reconsider a decision to retain former Gov. Bibb Graves' name on a building named for Autherine Lucy Foster, the first Black student to enroll at the school. UA's announcement last week that it planned to keep Graves' name led to a storm of criticism. Graves was a Grand Cyclops in the Montgomery chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. Lucy Foster, who enrolled at UA as a graduate student in 1956, was attacked by mobs of white students and later expelled from the school. "The Board's priority is to honor Dr. Autherine Lucy Foster, who, as the first African American student to attend the University of Alabama, opened the door for students of all races to achieve their dreams at the University," the university said in a statement on Wednesday. "Unfortunately, the complex legacy of Governor Graves has distracted from that important priority." The statement said a working group tasked with reviewing building names at the University of Alabama had met on Tuesday to discuss the situation. It did not say what the results of those discussions were. Alabama State University, Jacksonville State University and Troy University have all moved in recent years to take Graves' name off buildings on those campuses. Alabama has renamed several buildings named after people who engaged in slavery or upheld segregation, including former Gov. George Wallace, Confederate Gen. John Morgan, and Basil Manly, an early president of the school who defended slavery and personally whipped enslaved men and women. |
| New 'divisive concepts' education bill filed in Alabama legislature | |
 | Another bill seeking to restrict teaching on race, gender and religious concepts in Alabama public institutions is now under consideration in the state legislature, joining three similar bills filed last summer. Rep. Ed Oliver, R-Dadeville, filed a bill Wednesday prohibiting the promotion of "certain concepts" regarding race, sex and religion in public workplaces and schools. The bill, HB312, also prohibits higher education institutions from promoting or advancing those concepts and allows instructors to be fired if caught doing so. The bill joins three others, including a prior labor bill filed by Oliver, seeking to restrict teaching of concepts related to race and gender in educational institutions and trainings. The new bill, which has nearly 40 additional authors, doesn't explicitly ban "divisive concepts" used in teaching and training, but prohibits any instruction that condones the concepts or requires students or employees to support them. The legislator hinted last week that the bill may be coming. Oliver filed a similar bill, HB9, in June to ban "divisive concepts" from being used in training conducted by state agencies and contractors and said at a recent informational meeting that another one was on the way. Both of Oliver's bills do not explicitly use the term "critical race theory" but use similar language to describe "divisive concepts" that are listed in other anti-CRT bills, HB7 and HB11. |
| Kirby Smith Hall will be imploded in June, LSU says -- for real, this time | |
 | Kirby Smith Hall, the notorious LSU dorm that looms over campus, will finally be imploded in June 2022 and will be replaced with a green space, university officials say. LSU has planned to get rid of Kirby Smith several times over the years, but growing demand for on-campus housing has repeatedly delayed those plans. "I think the fact that it's been on again and off again has been complicated but I can guarantee at this point that, sometime in early June, Kirby Smith will fall to the ground," said Peter Trentacoste, executive director for Residential Life at LSU. The opening of two new residence halls, Azalea Hall and Camellia Hall, in the fall created enough housing capacity to make the demolition possible. "We had about 800 beds come on line with Azalea and Camellia, which made up for the capacity because Kirby was around 500 or so," Trentacoste said. "At that point we began saying that we have the capacity now, so it's time to move forward with the ultimate demolition." Built in 1965, Kirby Smith housed decades of LSU students before it was first closed in 2006. As the demand for student housing grew, university officials reopened the building in 2011 after a $1.7 million renovation. Upon its reopening in 2011, then-LSU chancellor Michael Martin joked that students considering living in Kirby Smith Hall would get to enjoy a "historic international experience." "It's a chance to live in the Soviet Union," Martin said at the time. The building has also been the subject of controversy because it was named after Confederate general Edmund Kirby Smith, who didn't surrender until nearly two months after the rest of the Confederate army surrendered at Appomattox. |
| Bill Gatton donates $5 million to U. of Kentucky | |
| A historic $5 million gift from the University of Kentucky's largest single donor will help thousands of young Kentuckians from underserved areas obtain a degree from UK. The scholarship program will also target students from medically underserved areas who want to attend medical school at UK. The gift from philanthropist Bill Gatton will target three critical areas for Kentucky's future workforce and health care needs. Current UK students from each of Kentucky's 120 counties will be eligible for awards with an average scholarship of $5,000-6,000 based on financial need and academic progress toward graduation. The first set of awards will occur this spring. First-year UK students from Muhlenberg and McLean counties and undergraduate students who attended the Gatton Academy -- an early college entrance program for gifted students -- will be eligible for scholarship awards. Forty scholarships of up to $25,000 will be awarded for Kentucky students at UK's College of Medicine. Preference will be given to students from medically underserved areas. The scholarship program will also prioritize and support first-generation students across these three areas. The UK Board of Trustees will vote to accept the gift at its Feb. 17-18 meeting. |
| New center for race and justice at U. of Florida hosts inaugural lecture | |
 | The University of Florida's Law Race and Crime Center for Justice will host an inaugural winter lecture on Feb. 24 featuring a renowned professor with expertise in how the criminal justice system affects families of color. Dorothy Roberts, professor from the University of Pennsylvania Carey law school, will lecture on the topic "Torn Apart: How the child welfare system collaborates with the criminal punishment system to police black families." The Race, Crime and Justice Center opened during the fall semester at the University of Florida and is directed by Professor Katheryn Russell-Brown. "The center is set up to be a clearing house for all of race crime scholarships, policy work, and we focus on criminal legal policies, theories, applications of these frameworks that surround race and crime," said Vanessa Miller a postdoctoral associate student with the RCCJ. Miller said the RCCJ wanted to Dorothy Roberts to speak here because of her scholarship. "Her scholarship directly focuses on race and crime and children and families and how that's really important to the director and she wants to make sure that that is a central focus of the RCCJ," Miller said. |
| Kelsey postpones ACT requirement bill after backing down on U. of Tennessee 'wokeism' | |
| Senators sent state Sen. Brian Kelsey reeling Monday over accusations that the University of Tennessee was trying to be "woke" by no longer requiring students to take the ACT or SAT entrance exams. Kelsey, a Germantown Republican, postponed his legislation until Thursday after initially saying the University of Tennessee is trying to be like Harvard University, which he said is "picking and choosing" students based on skin color. Harvard is the target of an admissions lawsuit that is to go before the U.S. Supreme Court, he said, and the university is reacting to allegations that it discriminates against students of Asian descent. "... That's the wokeism certain people at the University of Tennessee want to bring into our state," Kelsey said. "This bill says no." Kelsey's legislation, Senate Bill 1815, which was amended, would require universities to obtain ACT or SAT scores of every student beginning with the 2023-24 school year. "Woke" is a term that describes sensitivity to racial and discriminatory issues. Yet, senators opposed to the legislation pointed out 75% of universities nationally are moving away from those college entrance exams, in part because of criticisms that they are culturally biased and don't determine whether a student can excel academically. Requiring universities to obtain those test scores could hurt athletic and student recruiting across the state, senators said. Sen. Ken Yager, a Kingston Republican, responded that Kelsey's statements "put a bad face on the state's premier land grant university." Opposition to the legislation was bipartisan, with Sen. Bill Powers, a Clarksville Republican, raising concerns about the potential impact of COVID-19 on testing. During the height of the pandemic, ACT and SAT administration was suspended to protect students from the disease. |
| U. of Missouri researchers receive $12 million in grants to explore technology boost in K-12 education | |
 | Grants totaling $12 million from the U.S. Department of Education to University of Missouri researchers aim to improve science education and early childhood literacy in K-12 schools. The grants are through the eMINTS National Center at MU. A $4 million grant will use speech-recognition technology to allow second graders to speak into a tablet computer and see their words on-screen to improve their literacy skills. An $8 million grant will use a video game to allow middle schoolers to learn science, specifically water systems. eMINTS is short for Enhancing Missouri's Instructional Networked Teaching Strategies. It is a national center engaged in outreach to provide professional development to teachers on using technology in their classrooms, said eMINTS associate director Cara Wylie. It helped the professors secure the Department of Education grants, with more than $47 million in federal education grants so far. The eMINTS outreach has stretched to classrooms in several states and to Australia, she said. "Our passion is outreach," Wylie said. "It's a real partnership." Betsy Baker, professor in the College of Education and Human Development, received the literacy grant. She also is past president of the Literacy Research Association. |
| More students are dropping out of college during Covid -- and it could get worse | |
| College took a back seat the moment Izzy B. called the suicide hotline. Izzy, 18, had spent her senior year of high school online. Then she'd gone straight to online summer school at a local community college near Denver. When in-person classes there started this past fall, she was glad to be back in the classroom and finally experiencing some real college life. But after Omicron forced classes back online late in the semester, Izzy, who was living with her parents, felt overwhelmed by loneliness; she struggled to focus on her schoolwork and enjoy life. "We're at this age where we're supposed to be hanging out with our friends and socializing," she said. "It definitely affected my mental health." Izzy, whose full name has been withheld to protect her privacy, said she had always earned straight A's, so the B she received in one class this fall was a sign something was wrong. As she seriously considered suicide, Izzy sought help and moved into her grandparents' home in Wyoming to be closer to her extended family. And she stopped attending school. Thousands of other students around the country are leaving college -- some because of mental health issues, others for financial or family reasons -- and educators worry that many have left for good. The rising dropout rate on college campuses has consequences for individual students, their families and the economy. People who leave college before finishing are more likely to face unemployment and earn less than those who complete bachelor's degrees, and they are about three times as likely to default on their student loans. With fewer college-educated workers to fill skilled jobs, the economy could also suffer in terms of lost business productivity and lower GDP. |
| How K-12 book bans affect higher education | |
 | Culture war battles have long been fought in colleges and K-12 schools alike, with ideological opponents clashing over free speech, academic freedom and even the politics of fried chicken chains. But a renewed battle over books has some in higher education worried about students' college readiness as school boards across the U.S. remove challenging texts from the K-12 curriculum. Some worry that it isn't just high school students who will suffer but also those in lower grades, who may have their passion for reading stifled before they can fully explore the literary world. "If you want to get kids excited about reading, you let them read whatever they're interested in, and kids are interested in the things that are in banned books," said Kathy M. Newman, an English professor who heads the Banned Books Project at Carnegie Mellon University. "They're interested in sex, they're interested in sexuality, they're interested in race and racial controversy." But parent groups across the U.S. have made waves, and headlines, by protesting the inclusion of certain books in public school curricula. Academics also point to concerted efforts by conservative political groups such as Moms for Liberty, which has ties to deep-pocketed conservative donors. Oftentimes, critics note, the books being challenged -- such as Gender Queer: A Memoir or Stamped: Racism, Antiracism, and You -- have racial or sexual minorities at the center of the narrative. Compounding this issue, academics say, is manufactured outrage over critical race theory allegedly being taught in public schools. Emily Knox, a professor at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign who studies how books are banned, points to racial anxiety as a source of many recent challenges. Many of the books under attack at the K-12 level, she explained, are works from diverse authors that offer a view of marginalized and underrepresented people. To many white parents, these books represent a different understanding of the country they grew up in. |
| A Product of Public Universities, Michelle Childs Would Be an Unconventional Court Pick | |
 | It was just before Christmas, and Jean H. Toal, then the chief justice of the South Carolina Supreme Court, was in a bind. She needed an emergency order drawn up, but the courthouse in Columbia, the state capital, was empty. She was relieved to reach someone who assured her, "Chief, I got it." It was J. Michelle Childs, then a state circuit court judge who had made a name for herself as one of the most adept on the bench. "Within an hour she came back to me, and she had a complete order with footnotes and everything," Judge Toal, now retired, recalled of the day more than a dozen years ago. "Days later, she delivered her child. So, she was über-pregnant and it was right at Christmas time, but she had her work ethic on full steam, as she always did." The memory sums up the reputation of Judge Childs, now a Federal District Court judge in South Carolina, who rose through the ranks of state schools, local government and the South Carolina legal system to the short list of potential Supreme Court nominees for President Biden, who has pledged to nominate a Black woman to replace Justice Stephen G. Breyer. The 55-year-old judge, who has served on the federal bench since 2010, is seen in elite circles as a long shot compared with other Black female candidates whose high-profile connections and Ivy League pedigrees fit the mold of a traditional Supreme Court appointee. But Judge Childs's powerful champions in Congress -- particularly Representative James E. Clyburn, the South Carolina Democrat who is widely credited with saving Mr. Biden's presidential candidacy -- and the broad appeal of her humble ascent could make her a formidable contender. Many observers say that Judge Childs's background, which would bring more racial and geographic diversity to the court, could tip the scale in her favor over other highly qualified candidates. She received a bachelor's degree in management at the University of South Florida and a master's and law degree at the University of South Carolina; both are public institutions. She also earned a second master's degree, in judicial studies, from Duke University in 2016. She attended college and law school on scholarships. |
| Public colleges offer highest chance of positive ROI to students, report finds | |
| Attending most U.S. higher education institutions tends to improve a student's lifetime earnings, but certain for-profit institutions and private nonprofits with programs shorter than two years are less likely to pay off, according to a report from the Bipartisan Policy Center, a think tank in Washington, D.C. Public colleges and universities are most likely to give students their money's worth, with 96.3% providing a positive median return on investment. That's compared to 81.2% of institutions across all sectors. Among private nonprofit institutions, 89.5% posted a positive median return on students' investment. For-profit colleges fared the worst, with only 41% giving a positive median return. The report calls for the federal government to consider whether an institution provides students with a positive return on their time and money before allowing it to receive federal financial aid. Education advocates have been pushing for stricter accountability for colleges that fail to set students up for success, especially because most higher ed institutions receive federal financial aid dollars. In January, over a dozen higher education experts and organizations called on the U.S. Department of Education to exercise stronger oversight of accreditors and how they handle colleges with poor student outcomes. The Bipartisan Policy Center report encourages policymakers to create and use more detailed, institution-level analyses when evaluating colleges. |
SPORTS
| PREVIEW: Big Week for Women's Basketball Begins with Home Contest vs No. 19 Florida | |
| A stretch of four games in eight days begins on Thursday when the Mississippi State women's basketball squad hosts No. 19 Florida. The game will have significant implications on the SEC standings that have just two games separating teams three through nine. Tip-off between the Bulldogs and Gators is scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Mississippi State leads the all-time series 26-25 with a 15-8 advantage when the game is played in Starkville. The Bulldogs enter Thursday winners of the last eight games in the series, most recently in last year's contest on Jan. 7 when MSU defeated Florida, 68-56. Prior to State's 8-game winning streak, Florida had won nine in a row. The series has been one of streaks. Only 12 times in the series history has a team not won at least two games in a row, and it hasn't happened since the 2007-08 season. Florida enters Thursday as one of the hottest teams in the country. The Gators have won seven of their last eight games, with five of those wins against teams ranked in the top 25. They earned their first top 25 ranking since 2016 when they debuted at No. 19 in the latest AP poll. This past weekend, they defeated No. 7 Tennessee and No. 14 Georgia on the road. Mississippi State begins a stretch of four games in eight days, starting with Florida on Thursday. The stretch of games will continue on Sunday when State hosts Ole Miss at 3 p.m. |
| Make or break time begins against No. 19 Florida as Mississippi State sits on NCAA bubble | |
| Mississippi State's women have been a fascinating storyline throughout the season, but amidst the tension, confusion and turnover, it's a team suddenly on the right side of NCAA Tournament projections. In Charlie Creme's latest bracketology for ESPN, he has Mississippi State (14-7, 5-4 SEC) the safest among the last four teams in the field. That's the first time State has been in the field in about a month since its back-to-back wins against Alabama and Vanderbilt. State hit a rough patch after those wins, losing its next three games -- two by double figures. Leading-scorer Rickea Jackson then entered the transfer portal, and many questioned where MSU's program was headed. MSU responded with a three-game winning streak -- with some fans now pushing for interim head coach Doug Novak to take the full-time position. But if State wants to defy most odds and continue toward the NCAA Tournament, the fun storyline must remain a winning one. MSU plays tonight at Humphrey Coliseum against No. 19 Florida (17-6, 7-3). It then takes on rival Ole Miss. |
| Fresh off jump into the top 25, Florida women's basketball hits the road for two games | |
| The Florida women's basketball team finds itself in unfamiliar territory following upset victories last week over then-No. 7 Tennessee and No. 11 Georgia. The Gators (17-6, 7-3 SEC) entered the top 25 on Monday for the first time since December 2016 and currently sit at No. 19 in the AP Poll and No. 23 in the USA Today Coaches Poll. "I think it's a big deal for our university and for our program as a whole," interim head coach Kelly Rae Finley said of the rankings. "Though it's not going to change how we prepare, how we do things, how we think about ourselves. "It is fun to see our efforts be celebrated and recognized because not every team has the opportunity to do that." The Gators are one of just seven teams in the nation to have defeated at least five top 25 teams. They will have little time to celebrate their success, however, as they hit the road for games against SEC foes Mississippi State (14-7, 5-4) on Thursday and Auburn (9-12, 1-9) on Monday. The Bulldogs, winners of three straight, are led by senior guard Anastasia Hayes, who averages 18.7 points per game and is hitting over 50% from the field in SEC play. The Gators will likely need another strong defensive performance to contain Hayes and her teammates, who rank third in the SEC in scoring at 72.4 points per game. "I think our defense has been much improved," Finley said. That's something that we've focused on a lot. We knew we were going to focus on that coming into the season and I'm pleased with where it's at." |
| Diamond Dawgs Set for 12 National Broadcasts in 2022 | |
| The Southeastern Conference and ESPN have announced the television coverage for the 2022 baseball season, with Mississippi State slated for at least 12 appearances on the ESPN family of networks. The SEC schedule will open in front of a national audience on Friday, March 18 in Athens, Georgia, as State will face off with the Georgia Bulldogs at 6 p.m. CT on the SEC Network at Foley Field. MSU's series finale at Georgia at 11 a.m. CT on Sunday, March 20, will also air on SEC Network. The next national broadcast will originate from Dudy Noble Field at Polk-Dement Stadium when the Diamond Dawgs host Alabama in league play. The third and final game of the series is slated for a 2 p.m. first pitch on Sunday, March 27, and will air on SEC Network. MSU will kick off the month of April in Fayetteville, Arkansas, with the series opener versus the Razorbacks slated for 6 p.m. on SEC Network. One week later, State will play hosts to LSU with the opener set for a 7 p.m. first pitch on Friday, April 8, at the Carnegie Hall of College Baseball. State will kick off Super Bulldog Weekend with a Thursday night contest against the Auburn Tigers. First pitch between the Diamond Dawgs and Tigers is set for 7 p.m. and will air on SEC Network. The following week, MSU will head to Oxford for a Thursday night series opener against in-state rival Ole Miss, which will air live on SEC Network at 6 p.m. on Thursday, April 21. Two days later, the series finale between the Dawgs and Rebels will air live on ESPN2 with first pitch slated for 3:30 p.m. at Swayze Field. On Sunday, May 1, the Diamond Dawgs will wrap up a three-game set at Missouri with the contest set for 2 p.m. on SEC Network. MSU will close out the regular-season home broadcast schedule with two of its three games versus Florida set to air nationally. The series opener on Friday, May 6, will be a 7 p.m. first pitch between the Dawgs and Gators on SEC Network, while game two of the series will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Saturday, May 7, on ESPNU. The last planned national TV broadcast is set for Sunday, May 15, as the Diamond Dawgs travel to face Texas A&M at 12 p.m. on SEC Network. |
| Steve Robertson signs new MSU book for Bulldog fans | |
 | Mississippi State fans got a treat Wednesday as author Steve Robertson was in Meridian signing his new book at the Bulldog Shop. Robertson, a mainstay on the Mississippi best seller's list for the past few years, has just released his third book dealing with MSU athletics. This one is titled "Dawg Pile -- A Celebration of Mississippi State's 2021 National Championship Baseball Season." "It's a labor of love," said Robertson. "I've been a Mississippi State baseball fan my entire life. When I was a kid. Will Clark, Rafael Palmeiro, Gator Theison and all those guys were my heroes. We thought then if we didn't do it then, we may never do it. But we finally did it and it's been the joy of my life to write this book and be able to share this with the Mississippi State family. We talk about crowning moments in life. For me this is one of them. To be able to write this book and chronicle this for generations to come." The book is available at the MSU Shop in Meridian and also at Dawgpilethebook.com. |
| 'It's going to be a party': Connections abound as Mississippi State softball opens season out West | |
| Chloe Malau'ulu's parents have been waiting for this. When the Mississippi State senior outfielder returns home to California this weekend for the Bulldogs' season-opening tournament, her family will be ready. That's because Malau'ulu is set to face off with her sister Thessa, a sophomore infielder for No. 3 UCLA, when the Bulldogs and Bruins meet at 3 p.m. Saturday in Irvine, California. The Malau'ulu family has already planned to sell T-shirts with their last name on it -- the "M" being replaced by a Mississippi State logo and a UCLA logo in place of the "U." Additionally, the Malau'ulus' cousin, Tiare Jennings, will be in town with No. 1 Oklahoma, which faces Mississippi State at 8:30 p.m. Friday. "It's going to be a party," Chloe Malau'ulu said. Given all the storylines involved when the Bulldogs head west for a four-game swing to open the 2022 season, it might as well be. Malau'ulu will play against her sister and her cousin. Infielder Shea Moreno will face her former school in UCLA. Head coach Samantha Ricketts, once a star at Oklahoma, will face the Sooners yet again. Oh, yeah, and Mississippi State will play two top three teams in the country -- on back-to-back days. "For us, it's a great time to go out there, to use it as a measuring stick to see where we stand," Ricketts said. "It kind of gives us an idea coming home what we need to work on." |
| How Mississippi State softball hopes to build a Dudy Noble Field-esque atmosphere at Nusz Park | |
| During NCAA baseball regionals, Samantha Ricketts surveyed Dudy Noble Field with one thought. "How do you lose when your atmosphere is like this?" the Mississippi State softball coach wondered. In the MSU baseball team's case, you don't. Not often, anyway. The Bulldogs went 30-9 at home and 5-1 in the postseason at their home stadium, earning a trip to Omaha, Nebraska. There, they brought home Mississippi State's first team national title in any sport with thousands of fans in attendance at TD Ameritrade Park. And Ricketts knows precisely what created the type of atmosphere capable of setting NCAA attendance records, which MSU did this season in Super Regionals against Notre Dame. "It's a credit to being consistent and being good all the time," she said. Ricketts' own program still has a ways to go to get to that point. The Bulldogs have finished over .500 in each of the past five seasons, but relative to the daunting Southeastern Conference, MSU is still toward the bottom. Ricketts' team was picked to finish 12th out of 13 SEC programs this season. Of course, even finishing toward the bottom of the SEC is impressive on a national level. As the No. 9 seed in the conference tournament in 2021, the Bulldogs made an NCAA regional as the No. 2 seed. They won two games but lost twice to regional host Oklahoma State, which went on to make the Women's College World Series. This season, Mississippi State is aiming higher. Pitcher Aspen Wesley said the team's goal is not only to make a regional but to win it and reach Super Regionals for the first time in program history. |
| Mississippi State hangs around with No. 19 Tennessee but falls late to Vols | |
| Cameron Matthews bounced up and down on the spot before fielding high-fives from teammates on his way to the foul line. With 4 minutes, 20 seconds left in Wednesday night's game, Matthews had a chance for a three-point play that would put Mississippi State ahead of No. 19 Tennessee. His layup through contact had dropped, tying the game at 61-all and sending Matthews to the line. His ensuing free throw clanked off the front of the rim. And Mississippi State never did take the lead. Plays like Matthews' were an example of how the Bulldogs (14-9, 5-5 Southeastern Conference) failed to take the initiative Wednesday in a 72-63 loss to the Volunteers (17-6, 8-3 SEC). "We didn't do what we needed to do down the stretch," forward Garrison Brooks said. Mississippi State charged back after falling behind 14-2 early on but never did much more than hang around. The Bulldogs never led by more than three points, and when they were ahead, it didn't last long. Once again, MSU missed out on an opportunity to bolster its case for the NCAA tournament résumé. The Bulldogs have failed to capitalize on recent chances, suffering close road losses at No. 5 Kentucky and at Arkansas. "It was a great chance for us -- great chance for us as a résumé-building game," Brooks said. |
| As Auburn investigates Bryan Harsin, new policy requires employees to cooperate with investigations | |
 | Auburn University enacted a new policy Tuesday requiring employees to fully cooperate with university investigations, with failure to do so punishable by termination. The new policy went into effect as Auburn is "judiciously collecting information" about football coach Bryan Harsin's tenure at the school. However, it's wasn't immediately clear whether the Harsin investigation is what prompted the new document. It also wasn't clear when the document was initially drafted. Auburn did not immediately respond to follow-up questions from the Montgomery Advertiser on Wednesday evening. "Violations of this policy may result in disciplinary action up to and including termination," the document says. Harsin finished 6-7 in his first season and ended on a five-game losing streak. His alleged harsh mentality that contributed to extensive coach and player turnover is among the issues under the microscope. Auburn can fire Harsin with or without cause, but a firing without cause would require the school to pay Harsin's $18.2 million buyout, which cannot be offset even if he takes another job. But the new document, which was last modified on the university's policy database at 2:44 p.m. CT Tuesday, might provide a window for Auburn as it weighs whether it has a case to fire Harsin for cause. In 2017 during the school's internal investigation into the men's basketball program, Auburn coach Bruce Pearl did not cooperate, refusing to interview with Auburn officials and university legal counsel. |
| Here's how LSU baseball players are starting to capitalize on NIL opportunities | |
| Baseball cards, apparel and content partnerships are starting to pile up for LSU baseball players. Now that college athletes able to profit off of their name, image and likeness, some LSU baseball players are getting ahead of the curve. On Tuesday, Baton Rouge personal injury attorney Gordon McKernan announced that first baseman Tre' Morgan and second baseman Cade Doughty had become part of "The G Team," as McKernan calls it, joining several football players, notably wide receiver Kayshon Boutte, sprinter and hurdler Sean Burrell and senior guard Alexis Morris. With this opportunity, Morgan and Doughty can receive monthly payments for participating in "deliverables," like modeling in photo or video shoots, posting on their social media or appearing at company events. "I call them hometown sons of Louisiana: Cade came from Baton Rouge and Tre' is from the New Orleans area," McKernan said. "I think they represent their state and their university wonderfully, and I think they'll do the same for my company. I think there's going to be a tremendous season this this year for LSU baseball, and I would encourage other businesses to get involved." Baseball is far from being the most popular college sport, but is prominent in the South. "I think there's a platform here that doesn't exist in many other programs, in terms of the interest in this place," LSU coach Jay Johnson said last month. "For our players, there's an unbelievable platform to create. I think it's going to be very impactful for us." |
| UK's Calipari and Barnhart voice support as NIL bill passes out of Kentucky Senate committee | |
 | Name, image and likeness legislation is needed in Kentucky to "protect student athletes," University of Kentucky Athletics Director Mitch Barnhart said Wednesday afternoon. Barnhart, along with UK men's basketball coach John Calipari, spoke in favor of SB6, which outlines name, image and likeness legislation for student athletes in Kentucky. Having this legislation in the state would guide student athletes and universities as they navigate name, image and likeness opportunities, and provide protections for both, Barnhart said. The bill passed unanimously in the Senate Education Committee on Wednesday and will move to the full senate for a vote. Student athletes in Kentucky are able to make money from NIL because of an executive order signed last summer. Without federal legislation, a state law is needed, Calipari said. "I think it's a model bill," Calipari said. "I think other states will look at this bill and say 'Wow.' I also think the federal government will look as they start to deal with this." Barnhart said the proposed bill helps protect both student athletes and universities as they navigate the changes that consistently happen related to NIL. In the last seven months, since the executive order was passed, there have been 800 NIL transactions among 250 UK athletes, Barnhart said. Sen. Morgan McGarvey, a sponsor of the bill, said the legislation will place student athletes on the same level as the average student, who could make money through social media or other jobs off their work. |
| SEC fines Arkansas $250,000 for court rush | |
| The on-court party after the Arkansas Razorbacks' 80-76 overtime upset of No. 1 Auburn on Tuesday came with a hefty price tag. The Southeastern Conference announced Wednesday the University of Arkansas athletic department has been fined $250,000 for the court storming after the final buzzer at Bud Walton Arena. Mostly students, many of them clad in white as part of the school's "White Out" initiative, rushed the floor immediately after the buzzer as guard Davonte Davis fed himself a high bounce and dunk that came just following the horn. Arkansas players and members of the staff participated in an on-court rave for several minutes. The festivities lasted long enough that Auburn Coach Bruce Pearl did not return court-side to conduct his post-game interview with the Auburn Radio Network. The fine for the Razorbacks is a third offense under the SEC's "access to competition area" policies that were updated in 2015. Fines levied against SEC schools due to the access to competition policy are deposited into the SEC Post-Graduate Scholarship Fund. |
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