| Wednesday, June 1, 2022 |
| Father and son find purpose and direction at MSU-Meridian | |
 | Mississippi State graduate student Jeremy Chase, a 20-year veteran of the U.S. Navy, relocated his family from the Pacific Northwest to the Naval Air Station Meridian in 2009. Five years later, he retired from the military at the age of 43 and began a new career as a college student. When Chase retired in 2013, he planned to work on the flight line at the naval air station. Yet while waiting to fill out his discharge paperwork at the Veteran's Administration in Jackson, he had an epiphany. "I overheard several veterans talking about their past and showing pictures to one another and then they mentioned how difficult it was to find a therapist or counselor they liked at the VA. And it hit me -- I could help them," he said. "I've always been a people person, and I could relate to them and understood the terminology. I realized right then maybe one day I could work with veterans, particularly those with post-traumatic stress disorder." With a plan in place, Chase got to work. "I'll be honest, when we moved from Seattle to Meridian, I never imagined we would have access to both a community college and a university like Mississippi State all in the same town. It has been a real blessing to our entire family," he said. Since history and psychology both fall under the Division of Arts and Sciences, the pair did have a few classes together, resulting in some friendly competition. "We couldn't help but compete somewhat, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing," Jeremy said. "But we discovered early on we could not study together." |
| Cotton acreage increases, exceeding early estimate | |
 | Early May delivered favorable weather conditions for most of Mississippi's cotton producers, allowing them to get their crops in the ground at the ideal time. "We're getting close to having 100% of the crop planted," said Brian Pieralisi, Mississippi State University Extension Service cotton specialist and researcher with the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station. "I'd say we're between 90% and 95% planted. "We haven't seen that in the last few years because of the weather. But we had two or three weeks of good weather during that optimal planting window between May 1 and 10. A lot of growers were finished by May 10," he said. Some acreage in the far north, far south and the Delta account for the unplanted acres as of May 23. Areas in the north and south were a little too dry, while a sandblasting event destroyed some young plants north of Highway 82 in Bolivar and Coahoma Counties. Pieralisi said he expects those areas to be planted and replanted within the next two weeks. Overall, the crop looks good, he said. Pieralisi said he expects total cotton acreage in the state to surpass the USDA's projection of 500,000 acres. That estimate is up 11% from the 450,000 acres planted in 2021. Will Maples, Extension agricultural economist, said prices are good. December futures, which represent the price for the new crop, are currently trading around $1.25 per pound. USDA estimates the farm price at 90 cents per pound for the 2022-2023 marketing year. However, prices could go higher if drought conditions in the U.S. Southern Plains worsen. |
| How new Army helicopter contract with Airbus will help Columbus | |
 | Airbus announced on May 23rd that the U.S. Army has once again awarded them a contract to support and maintain its fleet of Lakota helicopters, built at their facility in Columbus. The contract has the potential to generate around $1.5 billion in revenue for Airbus over the next five years. The Contractor Logistics Support Deal is the largest of its kind for the global aerospace design and manufacturing company. "(The UH-72B Lakota is) a great utility helicopter, twin-engine operation, very, very cost-effective to operate," says Keith Kenne, senior director of government contracts for Airbus. Kenne says the UH-72B has about one-third the operating cost of a Blackhawk helicopter. He says the Army uses them for medevac, troop transport and training new pilots. Kenne says the contract should help them keep their highly-skilled workers at their factory in Columbus "As you can see behind me, there are a lot of technicians (here)," he says. "They're all vying for different companies and different opportunities. So if the contract stays stable here, the employees will stay here and work on this Army mission." And it could attract others who want to be part of the potentially $1.5 billion deal. The contract is set to go into effect in July 2022. Airbus currently employs about 300 people at its Columbus facility. |
| With vanpooling, workers and employers find a 'win-win' amid a tight labor market, high gas costs | |
 | Letting someone else take the wheel on a long commute comes with perks. Just ask the riders driving together from Mobile, Alabama to their jobs at the Biloxi VA Medical Center in Mississippi. Lorrie Bowen scrolls through her iPhone. Scarlet Cox catches up on sleep. Tina Casey makes a call. These benefits come standard in a carpool, but the ride the three women are taking is a bit different -- it's a vanpool. Vanpooling is carpooling's dressed-up, corporate cousin. Co-workers rent a van from a company like Enterprise, usually in partnership with their employer and a local transit agency. Riders split the cost, sometimes while getting a subsidy -- in this case, the VA covers the whole bill. Vanpooling started in the 1970s alongside the carpooling heyday -- another ride-sharing surge brought on by steep gas prices. That's when Kevin Coggin first got interested in the idea. Right out of high school, he carpooled with his buddies the roughly 45-minute drive from Biloxi to the Huntington Ingalls shipyard for work. Decades later, the shipyard needed help after its workers were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. By then, Coggin was the head of Coast Transit Authority, which provides public transportation along Mississippi's coast. He still had that carpooling experience in the back of his mind and knew this was his chance to give vanpooling a shot. The program took off with roughly 15 vans taking workers to and from the shipyard. Eventually, more employers got involved, mostly on the federal side -- the Mississippi National Guard, Stennis Space Center and a U.S. Navy base in Belle Chasse, Louisiana. |
| 'Tremendously Tough': Vicksburg's Sen. Hopson gives review of Mississippi legislative session | |
| Tremendously tough but a tremendously good session; more so than I've had in my entire career." That's how State Sen. Briggs Hopson III, R-Vicksburg, characterized the recent session of the Mississippi Legislature, which tackled a series of major issues including medical marijuana, the disposition of more than $1 billion in American Recovery Plan Act funds, a major teacher pay raise and a tax cut package. Hopson is in his fourth term in the Mississippi Senate and has been chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee for the past three years. "It's a great committee to chair because you have a lot of authority and ability to do things in the Legislature for the state," he said. The downside, he said, "Is, that you lose track of the other bills. You're so locked in on the budget- making sure you get the financial picture right -- sometimes don't have the time to get the details of other bills; it's frustrating." ARPA funds were significant for Mississippi, Hopson said, pointing out the state received $1.8 billion in federal funding. About $750 million in ARPA funds will go to cities and counties and rural water associations for infrastructure and water and sewer projects, with $32 million going toward nurse training and a new nursing school at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. The Legislature also included $12 million for additional intensive care unit beds. Concerning other issues, Hopson said the state is in line to get an additional $1 billion in federal infrastructure funds. |
| Baby Formula Shortage Worsens, Hitting Low-Income Families Hardest | |
 | New data suggest that the U.S. baby-formula shortage is deepening, particularly hitting states in the South and the Southwest. Nationally, 23% of powdered baby formula was out of stock in the week ended May 22, compared with 21% during the previous week, according to the latest figures from market-research firm IRI. In the first week of January and before the recall of formula produced by Abbott Laboratories, 11% of powdered baby formula was out of stock because of pandemic-related supply-chain shortages and inflation. Before the pandemic, the normal out-of-stock range for powdered formula was 5% to 7%, according to IRI. Government officials have said the shortage is especially acute for families that rely on subsidies from the federally funded Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children, or WIC, as well as for infants with special dietary needs. About half of infant formula nationwide is purchased by participants using WIC benefits, according to the White House. More than 50% of infants born in Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and Louisiana received WIC benefits in 2019, according to a WSJ analysis of census and U.S. Agriculture Department data. The program's exclusive sales contract system ensures that in each state, one of the major formula brands has the majority of market share. The result is a marketplace with little competition and little flexibility, making it vulnerable if something goes wrong. |
| Reeves, other governors urge Biden to solve baby formula crisis | |
| Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves has joined 18 other governors in calling for President Joe Biden to act to end the baby formula shortage. "When parents can't get the formula needed to feed their babies, our supply chain is truly broken!" Reeves wrote in a Facebook post. In a letter sent to Biden on Thursday, Reeves and other governors outlined steps they believe the president should take to address the nationwide baby formula shortage. "As governors, we are committed to protecting the life, health, safety, and welfare of our citizens, especially our vulnerable infant population," the letter reads. "The supply chain for essential goods is broken, and while we have a vested interest in promoting free commerce amongst our states, a crisis that risks the lives of our youngest demands immediate, decisive, and robust action." Last week, Biden invoked the Defense Production Act, which allows the government further control over industrial production during emergencies, in an attempt to alleviate formula shortages. The out-of-stock rate for baby formula has risen to 70% nationwide, according to Datasembly. |
| Reeves joins other Governors in opposing SEC climate-change disclosure rule | |
 | On March 21, 2022, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) proposed a rule that would compel publicly traded companies to make detailed disclosures about climate-change risks and greenhouse gas emissions. On Tuesday, Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves (R) announced that he joined 15 Governors in a letter to President Biden and SEC Chairman Gary Gensler to urge the withdrawal of the proposed rule and allow the market to continue serving as the appropriate mechanism for judging climate risk, as it does for other types of market risks. "As gas prices hit record highs, rather than unleash American energy production, Pres Biden is choosing to weaponize the SEC (and I'm not talking football) to push his Green New Deal climate agenda, directing it to overstep its authority and create rules that punish businesses," Governor Reeves said. "I've joined 15 fellow governors to call on President Biden to stop punishing American energy." In addition to Reeves, Governors who have signed the letter include Spencer Cox (R-UT), Kay Ivey (AL), Mike Dunleavy (AK), Doug Ducey (AZ), Asa Hutchinson (AR), Brad Little (ID), Kim Reynolds (IA), Mike Parson (MO), Greg Gianforte (MT), Pete Ricketts (NE), Doug Burgum (ND), Kevin Stitt (OK), Kristi Noem (SD), Greg Abbott (TX), and Mark Gordon (WY). |
| Diabetes, cancer, guns, more: Mississippians are dying faster than anyone in the US | |
 | For the second year in a row, Mississippi has the most deaths per capita in the country. For every 100,000 U.S. residents, 1,202.1 people died in 2021 and 1,138.7 people died in 2020, according to the Center for Disease Control. All 10 of the states with the highest deaths were south of the Mason-Dixon Line. Alabama (1156.7), West Virginia (1150.3), Oklahoma (1125.6) and Tennessee (1121.3) rounded out the top five. The CDC also tracks causes of death. Mississippi ranked first in Alzheimer deaths, with 52.7 per 100,000 people succumbing to the disease. Alabama ranked second with 47.6. Mississippians are more than twice as likely to die from hypertension than the folks in Louisiana, Florida and nearly every other state in the country. For every 100,000 people, 20.1 died from the preventable condition. According to the CDC, for every 100,000 people in Mississippi, 28.6 gun-related deaths took place in 2020, the last year data is available. That amounted to 818 deaths that year, a 15.2% increase from 2019. Mississippi ranked second in the nation with 41.9 per capita deaths from diabetes in 2021. Only West Virginia fared worse with 43.5 deaths per 100,000. The state was also second highest in chronic lower respiratory diseases (57.6) and kidney disease (20.8). The state ranked third for cancer deaths (178.1 deaths per 100,000), heart disease (246.6) and COVID-19 deaths (173.3). |
| Voters have OK'd three ballot initiatives in state history. Now, lawmakers have written all into law. | |
| All three of the citizen-sponsored ballot initiatives that have been ratified by Mississippi voters have since been approved by state lawmakers, ensuring the laws cannot be struck down as a result of a landmark May 2021 Supreme Court ruling that ended the initiative process. Since voters approved the now-defunct initiative process in 1992, just three initiatives have made it all the way through the process to gain the approval of voters. They are: * A photo identification requirement to vote. * The legalization of medical marijuana. * A prohibition on the government taking private property for the use of another private entity. Late in the 2022 session, the Legislature approved and Gov. Tate Reeves signed into law a bill that has the practical effect of preventing the taking of private property by the government for the use of another private entity. The bill placed in state law essentially the same language approved by voters in 2011 after the Farm Bureau Federation raised enough signatures through the initiative process to place the issue on the ballot. The reason Farm Bureau and others supported the Legislature passing the eminent domain bill is the May 2021 Supreme Court decision saying the state's initiative process was invalid. That Supreme Court decision came after voters in November 2020 approved an initiative legalizing medical marijuana. But the medical marijuana initiative process was struck down by the Supreme Court in May 2021 at the same time the entire initiative process was ruled invalid. Earlier, in the 2022 session, a bill was passed and signed into the law to enact a medical marijuana program. |
| Judge dismisses lawsuit over citizenship check for voting | |
 | A federal judge on Tuesday dismissed a lawsuit accusing Mississippi of using a discriminatory proof-of-citizenship requirement for some new voters under a law dating back to the Jim Crow era. The dismissal came weeks after the state repealed a 1924 law that required naturalized citizens, but not people born in the U.S., to provide proof of citizenship when registering to vote. A new law enacted in its place has also drawn opposition but is being grudgingly accepted by voting rights groups who say it ultimately should protect naturalized citizens from being incorrectly marked as noncitizens when they register to vote. The secretary of state had been running names of potential new voters through a state Department of Public Safety database of people with Mississippi driver's licenses and identification cards. Voting rights advocates said this practice disproportionately hurt people of color by flagging them as possible noncitizens. The new law says that if the public safety database raises questions about citizenship, the potential new voter's name must be run through a federal immigration database. Groups that advocate for voting rights and immigrants' rights said the federal database provides a safeguard to protect naturalized citizens from being incorrectly marked as noncitizens when they register to vote. |
| Still On: Plans for LeFleur's Bluff continue to move ahead despite veto | |
| New additions to LeFleur's Bluff Complex in Jackson are in the works, despite the governor's veto of $13.2 million that the Legislature approved for additions to the complex during the 2022 session. Gov. Tate Reeves vetoed the funding because he deemed it "inappropriate" ways to spend taxpayer money, saying the city of Jackson has other needs such as more police officers. Susan Garrard, president and chief executive officer of the Mississippi Children's Museum, said the masterplan for the green space that connects the children's museum and the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science dates to 2018 and was meant to be completed in phases. "We are still committed to the masterplan," she said. "We have a beautiful 150 acres of urban green space. We think the masterplan is inspirational. We'll continue to work with Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks and with our state and community leaders to create the best urban park that we can." A federal grant will fund the engineering for a pedestrian bridge over Lakeland Drive that would allow access to the Mississippi Agriculture and Forestry Museum and the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame to the children's museum and the natural science museum. Urban greenspaces are quality of life amenities that young people and families value, Garrard said, and are a positive for the city as well as the state. |
| Jan. 6 panel won't get all it seeks for public hearings this month | |
 | The House select committee investigating the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol will have a list of subpoenas that it may never get to fully enforce before it moves forward with a series of public hearings in the next few weeks. The committee intends to showcase what it uncovered in months of work on the events surrounding the attack, such as the more than 1,000 interviews it has conducted and thousands of documents it received from even recalcitrant witnesses. Yet the plodding pace at which committees can enforce congressional oversight means some major players and key records remain out of reach, which appears to include testimony from House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and four other Republicans who received subpoenas nearly three weeks ago. Experts say any effort to use the court system to force those members to testify may drag on after the committee's planned public airings of findings. The committee is "at the mercy of the congressional calendar" with midterm elections looming, according to Molly Reynolds, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution who studies Congress and House oversight efforts. "At some point they need to start telling that story, or else they run the risk of running out of time," Reynolds said. "There's a ticking clock." |
| U.S. is sending advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, Biden says | |
 | President Biden on Tuesday confirmed that his administration is sending medium-range advanced rocket systems to Ukraine, responding to a top request from Ukrainian officials who say the weapons are necessary to curb the advance of Russian forces in the east. Biden said the more advanced rocket systems and munitions, which can pinpoint an enemy target nearly 50 miles away, will enable Ukraine "to more precisely strike key targets on the battlefield." His announcement triggered an angry response in Moscow on Wednesday. "We believe that the United States is deliberately and diligently 'pouring fuel on the fire,'" Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in a news briefing. "Such deliveries do not contribute to ... the Ukrainian leadership's willingness to resume peace talks." Russia views any U.S. pledge to send advanced rocket systems and munitions to Ukraine "extremely negatively," Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov told the state-owned news outlet RIA Novosti. He called U.S. military support of Ukraine "unprecedented" and "dangerous." However, Ukrainian officials have provided assurances that they would not use the weapons to strike targets inside Russia, a senior U.S. official said. "America's goal is straightforward: We want to see a democratic, independent, sovereign and prosperous Ukraine with the means to deter and defend itself against further aggression," Biden said in an essay published Tuesday evening in the New York Times. "We do not seek a war between NATO and Russia," his essay added. |
| 'It's going to be an army': Tapes reveal GOP plan to contest elections | |
 | Video recordings of Republican Party operatives meeting with grassroots activists provide an inside look at a multi-pronged strategy to target and potentially overturn votes in Democratic precincts: Install trained recruits as regular poll workers and put them in direct contact with party attorneys. The plan, as outlined by a Republican National Committee staffer in Michigan, includes utilizing rules designed to provide political balance among poll workers to install party-trained volunteers prepared to challenge voters at Democratic-majority polling places, developing a website to connect those workers to local lawyers and establishing a network of party-friendly district attorneys who could intervene to block vote counts at certain precincts. "Being a poll worker, you just have so many more rights and things you can do to stop something than [as] a poll challenger," said Matthew Seifried, the RNC's election integrity director for Michigan, stressing the importance of obtaining official designations as poll workers in a meeting with GOP activists in Wayne County last Nov. 6. It is one of a series of recordings of GOP meetings between summer of 2021 and May of this year obtained by POLITICO. Backing up those front-line workers, "it's going to be an army," Seifried promised at an Oct. 5 training session. "We're going to have more lawyers than we've ever recruited, because let's be honest, that's where it's going to be fought, right?" A spokesperson for the RNC said the party is attempting to rectify an imbalance in favor of Democratic election workers in large urban areas, particularly Detroit, a city that votes reliably Democratic by more than 90 percent. Just 170 of more than 5,400 Detroit election officials were Republicans in 2020, according to the RNC. |
| Supreme Court temporarily blocks Texas social media law | |
 | A Texas law that would bar social media companies from taking action on hate speech and disinformation was temporarily blocked Tuesday in a rare 5-4 Supreme Court ruling. Justices John Roberts, Brett Kavanaugh, Amy Coney Barrett, Sonia Sotomayor and Stephen Breyer ruled in favor of tech industry groups looking to block the law, with Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, Neil Gorsuch and Elena Kagan dissenting. The decision is a win for tech groups pushing back on laws coming from Republican-controlled state legislatures that seek to put barriers on social media companies' ability to moderate content. A case on the law itself may wind up back before the Supreme Court as it makes its way through challenges in lower courts. But Tuesday's decision means the law -- which critics have said could lead to a more dangerous internet -- will remain blocked for now in Texas, reversing a decision from a court of appeals earlier this month. The law forbids social media companies with more than 50 million monthly users from banning users based on political views. It comes amid a push from Republicans to cast social media companies as censoring content with an anti-conservative bias, inflamed by platforms' decision to suspend former President Trump in the wake of the attack at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. A similar law in Florida was blocked last week by a court of appeals that also sided with tech industry groups on the matter. |
| War in Ukraine adds to food price hikes, hunger in Africa | |
| It now costs Ayan Hassan Abdirahman twice as much as it did just a few months ago to buy the wheat flour she uses to make breakfast each day for her 11 children in Somalia's capital. Nearly all the wheat sold in Somalia comes from Ukraine and Russia, which have halted exports through the Black Sea since Moscow waged war on its neighbor on Feb. 24. The timing could not be worse: The U.N. has warned that an estimated 13 million people were facing severe hunger in the Horn of Africa region as a result of a persistent drought. Abdirahman has been trying to make do by substituting sorghum, another more readily available grain, in her flatbread. Inflation, though, means the price of the cooking oil she still needs to prepare it has skyrocketed too -- a jar that once cost $16 is now selling for $45 in the markets of Mogadishu. "The cost of living is high nowadays, making it difficult for families even to afford flour and oil," she says. Haji Abdi Dhiblawe, a businessman who imports wheat flour into Somalia, fears the situation will only worsen: There is also a looming shortage of shipping containers to bring food supplies in from elsewhere at the moment. Another 18 million people are facing severe hunger in the Sahel, the part of Africa just below the Sahara Desert where farmers are enduring their worst agricultural production in more than a decade. The U.N. World Food Program says food shortages could worsen when the lean season arrives in late summer. |
| Chisolm honored at Mississippi University for Women | |
| Instruction is only part of Ashley Chisolm's job as associate professor of legal studies at Mississippi University for Women. Chisolm also believes it is crucial to assist and support students in part because she remembers how her professors at The W helped her graduate with a Bachelor of Arts degree in Legal Studies and a minor in Spanish in 2010. The Meridian High School graduate received her Juris Doctorate from Mississippi College of Law in 2013. "I know firsthand how important it is to build rapport with students because I was given excellent mentorship opportunities from Legal Studies faculty during my time at The W," said Chisolm, who has been a faculty member at The W since the fall of 2013. "As a faculty member, I want students to know I am rooting for them and their successes just as the Legal Studies faculty supported me as an undergraduate student." Chisolm's willingness to support her students is a key reason why she recently was named The W's Faculty Member of the Year. The award was announced at graduation and includes a $1,000 grant from the Alumni Association. It honors faculty members who exhibit excellence in teaching, advising and professional activities -- in particular, those who go beyond all expectations to support The W's students and academic programs. |
| Alums Gather: MUW planning 2022 meeting | |
| Photo: The Jackson Metro Chapter of the Mississippi University for Women Alumni Association will hold its first meeting of 2022 on Thursday, June 16 -- a luncheon meeting at 11:30 a.m. at the Country Club of Jackson. Special guest will be Anna Henderson Ogburn, the new director of alumni relations and donor engagement at the W and a 1995 graduate of the university. Reservations must be made in advance. RSVP to jacksonmetroalums@gmail.com. The cost is $25 per person. Finalizing plans for the event are Jackson Metro alumni (from left) Barbara Travis, Judy Rankin, Symone Bounds, Katy Pacelli, and Jennifer Katool. |
| Formula supply expected to increase, UMMC experts say | |
| While parents around the state may still be experiencing shortages of infant formula, state and national efforts are underway that should increase the supply, experts at the University of Mississippi Medical Center say. "We have been blessed to have a good working relationship with suppliers who gave us a heads up at the very beginning," said Dr. Mobolaji Famuyide, chief of the Division of Newborn Medicine at the University of Mississippi Medical Center. "Obviously as providers we have had to be very resourceful to ensure we get the needed supply to the babies who need it. On the other hand, in the community, it's been a different story." Parents have had to change where they shop or the brands of infant formula they buy to get through the shortages, she said. The problem has been more difficult in rural areas. "Those preexisting deficiencies have become amplified as a result of this shortage," she said. Formula supplies should be increasing because of response to the shortage. "Efforts to get more infant formula in the hands of parents should make it more readily available," Famuyide said. Manufacturers have increased production or are importing formula from Europe to meet demand, and Abbott Nutrition's Sturgis, Michigan, plant is set to reopen June 4. UMMC and Children's of Mississippi "continue to have adequate supply of formula for their patients, and now have been stocked on some of the previously limited metabolic formulas," said Shiloh Lancaster, a dietitian in the neonatal intensive care unit inside the Kathy and Joe Sanderson Tower at Children's of Mississippi. "Dietitians and providers at Childrens of Mississippi also continue to provide support and help with locating and choosing formulas for our patients and members of the community." |
| Dolly Parton accepts philanthropy award from Ole Miss | |
 | Legendary performer and philanthropist Dolly Parton captured the hearts of two University of Mississippi audiences during her recent visit to accept the Legacy Award from the Ole Miss Women's Council for Philanthropy. "Storytime with Dolly" featured the special guest reading "The Little Engine That Could" by Watty Piper and talking about literacy to a packed Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts. Sponsored by Regions Bank, the event was part of the OMWC Rose Garden Literacy Project. The 2020 award presentation was postponed twice because of the pandemic. "Having Dolly here will be remembered as one of those magical Ole Miss moments, which makes the Ole Miss Women's Council family unique and illustrates the widespread appeal of the mission to create a more caring and ethical society one scholar at a time," said Liz Randall, the council's chair. |
| USM students win Kennedy Center awards | |
 | Three students from the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) received national recognition from the Kennedy Center. The 2022 National Kennedy Center American College Theatre Festival (KCACTF) honored festival winners at a virtual ceremony held earlier in May. Among the winners were USM students Petron Brown, Mason Baria and Allison Bucher. Brown, a graduate student in theatre performance from the Bahamas, received the John Cauble Award; Baria, an undergraduate in theatre design and technology from Gautier, MS, received the Distinguished Achievement for the National Costume Design Award and Bucher, an undergraduate in theatre design and technology from Metairie, LA, received the National Sound Design Award. "We are thrilled for students of our program to receive national recognition at the KCACTF National Festival," said David Coley, Ph.D., producer and assistant professor of theatre. "It speaks volumes of their talents and efforts as well as the education and training they received here at Southern Miss Theatre. We are proud to be at the national forefront in performance, design, and advocacy." The purpose of the ASPIRE program is to equip the next generation of leaders in the American theatre system by exposing them to industry professionals and providing the space to engage in insightful conversations. |
| New simulation center trains students in healthcare industry at Mississippi College | |
| Physician Assistants play a pivotal role in hospitals and health care clinics in Mississippi. We see the importance of quality medical professionals, especially during the pandemic. Mississippi College is making sure it produces the best and the brightest in the field with the help of a new state-of-the-art simulation center. He blinks, coughs, cries, and shakes, yet he is not a human. It's a 3G Plus advanced patient simulator, nicknamed "Billy Ruben." The medical mannequin is the centerpiece of Mississippi College's new state-of-the-art Physician Assistant Program Medical Simulation Center. It's located on the first floor of the Baptist Healthplex in Clinton. "This is something that we had envisioned for some time," said Dr. Steve Martin, Program Director in the Department Chairmen Professor of Physician Assistant Studies. "We do have access to a state-of-the-art simulation center at UMMC, but during COVID, they shut down. They didn't allow students on campus, so we lost that resource, and we wanted to develop our own center." The goal is to use this new center to train dozens of students each semester to become effective on the job and help provide quality health care, and save lives. Mississippi College also plans to collaborate with nursing students, so they can work with PA Students in this new center to train. The college also points out that at least half of the students that graduate from the program stay and work in the state. |
| Frontier, an Oak Ridge supercomputer, is now the fastest on earth. Here's why it is astounding | |
 | The new Frontier supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee was just declared to be fastest computer in the world. The Frontier supercomputer was built last year by Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Cray, a high-performance computing company, using AMD processors. Frontier will be used for high-powered scientific modeling. Supercomputers are high-performance machines built for solving complex scientific or mathematical problems. A supercomputer can run complex software to simulate diverse problems from weather, molecular interactions and nuclear reactions. The announcement of the world's fastest title was made in Hamburg, Germany, at the ISC High Performance conference. Frontier is the first supercomputing system known to break the exaflop barrier. During a test, Frontier ran at 1.1 exaflops and could go as high as 2 exaflops. FLOPS means "floating point operations per second," a measure of how many math problems a computer can solve in a second. "Exa" is a prefix that you typically only see in astronomy referring to absurdly large numbers. Exa is 10 raised to the 18th power. It's 10,000,000,000,000,000,000. In translation, one exasecond is roughly 32 billion years. This means that Frontier is theoretically capable of running 2 quadrillion calculations a second. The new rating means Frontier is 10 times more powerful than the previous supercomputer built by Oak Ridge National Laboratory. Two more computers of this kind are being built by the Department of Energy at Argonne National Laboratory outside Chicago and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Livermore, California. |
| UF community expresses political interference will be incoming president's biggest challenge | |
| With the conclusion of listening sessions, UF community members await the next steps in the presidential search -- many of which will continue behind closed doors. The Board of Trustees will compile the ideal president's requirements and desired characteristics based on community input from the past month's 15 listening sessions. The Search Advisory Committee hosted its final sessions May 24, allowing students, faculty, alumni and Gainesville residents to express attributes they think the next president should have. During the final listening sessions, attendees voiced concerns about lack of transparency and trust with university leaders. They fear political values will interfere with the selection. Brantlee Richter, a UF plant pathology assistant professor who attended a listening session, said trust was breached between faculty and the president's office when its values transitioned from campus advocacy to obliging the state government. "The biggest challenge that the incoming president is going to have to face is how to carve out a position for themselves as the president of the university, not as an employee of the governor," Richter said. DeSantis signed a bill in April allowing the Board of Trustees to require post-tenure reviews every five years and suggesting the Board of Governors may develop regulations regarding tenured status. He also signed the 'Stop WOKE' Act last month, which will limit how race is discussed in classrooms. Faculty fears both laws will affect their academic freedom. |
| Mun Choi, first Asian-American leader of MU, UM System reflects on AAPI Heritage Month | |
 | Acknowledging Asian-American Pacific Islander Heritage Month is an important exercise, said Mun Choi, the first Asian-American president of the University of Missouri System and MU chancellor. "I think it's very important," Choi said of the month. "It provides us with an opportunity to reflect. It's very valuable in that regard, with how we benefit as a society and try to gain a better understanding of people of different countries, different backgrounds and cultures." Choi spoke Thursday in a wide-ranging interview from his office in Jesse Hall. Choi is the top administrator of MU and the UM System, whose other Asian-American leaders include Provost Latha Ramchand at MU and Mauli Agrawal, chancellor of the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The UM System, and University of Missouri, tries to find the very best, so it spreads a wide net to find them, Choi said. "We all want to broaden the (applicant) pool to find the very best person for the job," Choi said. Koreans represent the biggest group of alumni among all international alumni, Choi said. "My understanding is that back in the '50s, President Truman asked the university to allow Korean students to attend so they can return to Korea to help their country," Choi said. "Many went back to help rebuild the fractured country." MU was able to get a taste of Korean politics when a campus site was designated as a polling place for Koreans in the United States voting in the South Korean Presidential election. "They selected MU because of its historic ties to Korea," Choi said of the South Korean government. "Many of our faculty helped with the polling place." |
| Asian Americans are typecast as successful students, but new report finds troubling gaps | |
 | Asian Americans are often seen as successful students, but the stereotype masks "incredibly disconcerting" gaps in college outcomes among the multiple ethnic groups who make up the larger community in California, according to a new report released Tuesday. Among the first-year, full-time students who entered the University of California in 2013, six-year graduation rates vary from about 90% for those of Chinese, Vietnamese and Indian descent to about 70% for Samoans and Hmong undergraduates, according to the report by the Campaign for College Opportunity. At California State University, about 85% of transfer students of Japanese and Filipino ancestry graduate in four years compared with less than 70% for Native Hawaiian, Bangladeshi and Tongan students. The 95-page report details other stark differences in academic achievement among California's Asian American and Pacific Islander subgroups, including qualification for UC and Cal State admission, completion of community college degree or certificate programs and attainment of bachelor's degrees. Data on 30 subgroups were examined. California is home to about 6.8 million Asian Americans, the largest concentration in the nation, and about 332,000 Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders. The vast majority trace their heritage to China, the Philippines, India, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, but dozens of other groups also reside in the state. All told, they make up about 15% of the state's population, the second largest racial/ethnic minority after Latinos. |
| Parents matter more in admissions decisions | |
 | Parents matter more than in the past in the college admissions process, according to a survey by EAB, being released today, of 4,848 high school seniors who graduated in 2021. Of those students, 48 percent ranked "parental influence" as one of their top five sources of information on the admissions process. That figure compares to 34 percent in 2019 and 37 percent in 2020. But a report by EAB indicated that not all parents are relied on in the same way. "Lower-income students are less likely to rely on parental support than higher-income students, as are Black or Hispanic students compared to Asian or white students," the report said. Only 30 percent of first-generation students saw parents as one of the top five sources of information, compared to 53 percent of those who were not first generation. By race, the answers also were different: 52 percent of white students ranked their parents among the top five sources of information, and 50 percent of Asian students did so, while only 44 percent of Black students and 38 percent of Hispanic students agreed. "Parents/families have always had significant influence on college choice and this was heightened -- in my opinion -- by all of the at-home time that students had with family members during COVID," said Madeleine Rhyneer, vice president of consulting services and dean of enrollment management at EAB. She said it has long been her practice "to engage parents and make them allies in the college admission process." |
| Professors Are Being Asked to Accommodate Students. That's Not the Same Ask for Everyone. | |
 | As students have confronted the many challenges of the past two years, they've leaned on their professors for support. They've asked for accommodations, extensions, and flexibility. They've sought help coping with personal issues, including strains on their mental health. It adds up to a lot of extra work for instructors. But that work has not been distributed evenly. Professors who are white, cisgender men performed less emotional labor -- that is, managing students' feelings and their own -- in the early stretch of pandemic teaching than did their colleagues, according to a recent study based on faculty surveys from three colleges. That uneven burden is driven by the different demands that students place on professors of different identities, according to the paper "Teaching College in the Time of Covid-19: Gender and Race Differences in Faculty Emotional Labor," published in the journal Sex Roles. Instructors who are white, cisgender men, it says, have a "status shield" that protects them from students' requests. Cisgender men and women of color, white cisgender women, and gender-nonconforming professors did not have that protection, it found. Both the data and further interviews suggest that "women of color were already tapped out," says Catherine White Berheide, a professor of sociology at Skidmore College and the paper's lead author. What changed, in other words, was that male professors of color and female, white professors began doing the amount of emotional labor that female faculty of color were already doing. |
| Campus ministries, counselors join to tackle mental health | |
| As student anxiety skyrockets, campus ministries are trying to help by not only offering the comforts of faith and community, but also creating collaborations with mental health professionals. On Ivy League campuses, large public institutions and faith-based colleges, chaplains and psychologists are teaming up, informed by abundant research showing religion and spirituality can ease mental distress by providing group support and boosting personal resilience. "We're good partners, and routinely refer back and forth," said Calvin Chin, Princeton University's director of counseling and psychological services, which a third of students use. "We're really thinking holistically about how to support a student, what they need to lead successful and satisfying lives." On a spring Saturday afternoon close to finals week, Sadaf Shier, the Muslim chaplain at the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul, oversaw a celebration for the end of Ramadan where students of all faiths, or none, did stress-reducing activities like flowerpot painting and henna hand decorating. Shier and the university's Protestant pastor, Neil Ellingson, mingled with dozens of students on the lawn outside the Catholic chapel. "My major engagement is providing a climate where students feel their religious identity is legitimate," Shier said. "That's directly supporting mental health." Still, chaplains and psychologists are quick to emphasize that one can’t replace the other -- especially since demand is so high. By serving as students’ long-term mentors, chaplains can free up counseling to deal with critical care like panic attacks and suicidal thoughts. |
| A new app lets students connect and administrators monitor | |
| Incoming first-year students have always found ways to connect with each other before they start college, especially through social media apps such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Now a new app is trying to enter that market, fostering connections among incoming students while simultaneously letting administrators join their conversations. Unibuddy, a student recruitment platform for higher education, launched a new product last month called Community, which is an app that connects admitted and incoming first-year students to group chat rooms devoted to different interests or identities, including sports, music, race and sexuality. A community is formed when an institution's admission officers invite newly admitted or committed students to download the Unibuddy app. Once students sign up for Community, they can add their interests and find relevant groups they want to join -- groups that were either created by the institution or added by other students. Nina Bilimoria Angelo, Unibuddy's chief marketing and strategy officer, said that so far more than 400 institutions around the world -- including Indiana University at Bloomington and Marymount Manhattan College -- are using Unibuddy's Community feature. Students already know how to connect with their peers. Even before they set foot on campus, many join class Facebook groups or Instagram pages and share their handles for Snapchat, TikTok and Twitter. Diego Fanara, CEO and cofounder of Unibuddy, said the company created Community because students are shying away from Facebook -- and Instagram and other apps don't allow users to form large group chat rooms. Plus, the Unibuddy platform allows new students to connect not only with other incoming freshmen but also with administrators, faculty and current students, which is harder to do on social media. |
| APLU Announces UC Davis Chancellor Gary S. May as Board Chair | |
| The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) today announced University of California, Davis Chancellor Gary S. May as the new Chair of its Board of Directors. May succeeds Rebecca Blank, who resigned as chair after recently leaving her position as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison to become president of Northwestern University in July. May will serve in the role until November 13, 2023. The Board of Directors provides oversight and direction for APLU's work and is charged with setting membership and governing policies for the association. Board members work to make public institutions of higher education more effective in driving equitable student success, fostering research and innovation to meet societal needs, and building prosperous, equitable, and vibrant communities locally and globally. "We're very pleased to have Gary May as chair of the APLU Board of Directors," said APLU President Peter McPherson. "Chancellor May is an exceptional public university leader and brings deep experience advancing the positive impact of public universities to serve all communities. As he takes the helm of the APLU Board, we're excited to have his leadership as the association works to promote equitable student success, cutting-edge research, and prosperous communities." |
| Magnolia Speech is a state treasure, gets new building | |
| Mississippi newspaper publisher and columnist Wyatt Emmerich writes: On Bozeman Road in Madison County across from the Madison Heights Church, the Magnolia Speech School is building a state-of-the-art 30,000 square-foot facility. They'll be leaving behind a 40-year-old building in west Jackson that is well past its prime. Established in 1956, Magnolia Speech School has impacted thousands of students and families from every county in Mississippi and as far away as Alaska and Pennsylvania. The new $12 million facility in Madison is going to be an economic boon for south Madison County. Its relocation will make the school even more attractive to families who are willing to relocate near a school that can accommodate their children's hearing and communication disabilities. The new facility will be able to accommodate 110 students, a big increase from the current capacity of 70 at the existing facility. The average tenure of a student is three to four years with a maximum age of 12 years old. Most of the money was raised with private funds. An outstanding achievement for our community. Many of the most ardent supporters are families who have had children attend the school and understand its importance. |
| Justice Scalia's words on Second Amendment absolutism are true and prophetic | |
| Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: On the brutal reality of the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting -- and all the others in our country dating back to Columbine and Luke Woodham's rampage at Pearl High School in Mississippi -- the "thoughts and prayers" of do-nothing politicians ring particularly hollow and meaningless. I come at this as a gun owner, a hunter, someone who absolutely will defend my home and family with force, and as one who supports the rule of law and respects the authority of those who wear the badge and stand their posts. Likewise, I come at this as a father, grandfather and educator responsible for other people's children. Democrats and Republicans, conservatives and liberals, gun owners and gun opponents, it's time to come to the table and find common ground that makes us all safer -- particularly innocent children. All of us in this country have let the National Rifle Association and similar groups make us afraid, and we as voters have allowed them to hold our political processes hostage. When party primaries are made litmus tests on who can genuflect most to the gun lobby, responsible government and sensible public policy are not the results. Having safer schools may hit us all in the wallet through higher taxes to pay for the security we say we want. More stringent background checks may slow gun transactions. The current distinctions between handguns, long guns and assault weapons need to be reconsidered. But our current laws and the enforcement of them -- or lack thereof -- aren't working. |
SPORTS
| New-Look Mississippi State Summer Coaches Tour Hits the Road Beginning in June | |
| Some of Mississippi State's top Dawgs are soon hitting the road to visit with the Bulldog family in cities across Mississippi and portions of the southeast. The new-look summer coaches tour will be comprised of the traditional marquee Road Dawgs tour stops in four Mississippi cities but will now also feature a series of new events known as Hail State Happy Hours which will continue in other towns throughout the summer. The first of four 2022 Road Dawgs Tour stops is set to take place on June 14. Road Dawgs stops will be headlined by head football coach Mike Leach as well as new head basketball coaches Chris Jans of the men's team and Sam Purcell of the State women's squad. The tour opens with a pair of events on Tuesday, June 14. Lunch in Olive Branch will be the site of the first leg of the trip before the group heads to the Mississippi Delta for a stop in Greenwood later in the day for a dinner event. Leach, Jans and Purcell will then host a visit to the Mississippi Gulf Coast on Wednesday evening, June 15, followed by a trip to the capital city of Jackson on the evening of Thursday, June 16. The fun continues throughout the summer as the coaches tour rolls on with the new-look tour events known as Hail State Happy Hours. These new 90-minute informal events will provide an opportunity to socialize with Mississippi State coaches in towns across Mississippi and the Southeast. Hail State Happy Hours are currently being planned in cities across the state and further details will be announced soon. |
| From 14 fans to 2,200: How Mississippi State softball packed Nusz Park in breakout season | |
 | At some of Mississippi State softball's home tournaments in the February cold, coach Samantha Ricketts and her players looked up and counted the fans in the stands. Once, the tally was just 14 -- meaning more Bulldogs in the dugout than there were supporters in the chairback seats at Nusz Park. Contrast that with last weekend, when Mississippi State fans filled every nook and cranny of the venue. Nearly every seat was full, the concourses were clogged, and an expanded outfield deck struggled to contain fans with standing-room only tickets. MSU brought a program record 2,209 fans for the first game of NCAA Super Regionals on Friday against Arizona. Saturday's Game 2 saw an even bigger crowd at 2,299. "To go from 14 to 2,200, or whatever it was, was just really amazing --- something I don't think any of us imagined," Ricketts said after Game 2, a 7-1 loss that eliminated the Bulldogs from championship contention. Mississippi State's season was over, but the fanbase a historic year created was just getting started. Ricketts said she hoped her team made "a couple thousand new fans" after winning an NCAA regional for the first time ever. "We believed, but now we've seen that we can play at this level, and we can play in the Super Regional round," she said. "We can host. We can draw the crowd. We can have Starkville showing up and being loud for softball." |
| Brewers call up ex-Bulldog Ethan Small to make MLB debut | |
| Ethan Small became the 65th former Mississippi State baseball player to reach Major League Baseball when he started the first game of a doubleheader for the Milwaukee Brewers on Monday in Chicago. Small lasted just 22/3 innings and was charged with two runs and four hits with four strikeouts. The left-hander ran into control problems in the third when he walked four. He did not factor in the decision as Milwaukee won 7-6. "It still doesn't seem real," Small told mlb.com. "It's something I've dreamed about since I was a little kid. Tough result at the end of the day, but I'm happy we got to experience it all together." Said Brewers manager Craig Counsell: "Look, we saw his stuff work in the strike zone, no doubt about it. It's just the next step of pitching. Your misses have to be better. Your full-count pitches have to be a little better. Your stuff doesn't have to be better, but your misses have to be better." Small was called up by the Brewers earlier Monday after going 3-1 with a 1.88 earned run average in 38 1/3 innings for the Triple-A Nashville Sounds this season, allowing 22 hits and 21 walks while striking out 49. During three minor-league seasons, Small has a combined record of 7-5 with a 1.78 ERA in 33 starts. He has 177 strikeouts in 1362/3 innings, allowing 88 hits and 67 walks. His career minor-league WHIP is 1.13. Small joins Konnor Pilkington, his teammate on MSU’s 2016 SEC championship squad, as former Bulldogs making their MLB debuts this season. Pilkington’s first game was on April 15 for the Cleveland Guardians. |
| State Games of Mississippi returns | |
 | The State Games of Mississippi is nearing its return to Meridian as the excitement in the Queen City rises. "It's like 150% I'd say," Director of Marketing and Development Angela Ferguson said. "We're all very busy working and trying to get everything together. We have people flying in to be with us to help with State Games set up and I'm crazy busy trying to get all of our amazing food contributors to reach out and help us," Ferguson said. Ferguson is the newest member of the State Games family as this is her first year to be involved. She also does photography for the event and describes what she loves the most about the games. "I think one of the greatest things to me is being able to see all of the kids go out and participate in all of the events and they all get rewarded. Everybody wins," she said. The games have been going 32 years strong and it's the uniqueness of the games that keeps the competitors coming back "We have new events every year, we have different events every year," State Games Consultant Carolyn Smith said. "It's just something that that the kids love, we make it fun for them. Everybody likes fun. They get to wear their medals after the games and all, they just enjoy it and we try to make it a good time for them," she said. |
| Hattiesburg NCAA Baseball Regional tickets going fast. Southern Miss officials expect sellout | |
 | The Hattiesburg Regional is already a hot ticket. Southern Miss will be the host team for the third time in program history, while LSU, Kennesaw State and Army round out the field. Play is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. Friday, when the Golden Eagles take on Army. LSU and Kennesaw State are slated to square off at 6 p.m. Friday. Southern Miss officials are projecting a sellout for the entire tournament, a spokesperson told the Hattiesburg American on Tuesday, adding the school does not plan to create any temporary seating options at Pete Taylor Park (listed capacity of 4,300). The spokesperson also said a limited amount of tickets are still currently available. As if the Southern Miss baseball fan base wasn't fervent enough -- the program established records for single-game (6,346) and overall home attendance (133,578) -- fans from LSU, Kennesaw State and Army will be in search of tickets to the tournament. Tickets can be purchased by calling either 1-800-844-TICK or 601-266-5418, visiting SouthernMissTickets.com, or visiting the Pat Ferlise Center on campus between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. |
| NCAA Regional Tournament expected to bring in 25,000 people, $5M to Hub City | |
| It's been the talk of the town since Monday night when the University of Southern Mississippi found out it's hosting an NCAA Regional Tournament, and not only will there be several big games... there will also be a big economic impact. Hattiesburg, the Hub City, HBurg... whatever you call the home of the USM Golden Eagles, be sure and make room for one more name. "Baseburg, of course, is a word that we're liking to use right now and it's certainly alive and well in Hattiesburg," said Marlo Dorsey, executive director of VisitHattiesburg. While it's quiet now, soon, LSU, Army and Kennesaw State fans, along with, of course, USM fans, will fill Hattiesburg and Pete Taylor Park. "We're going to have an influx of people," said Dorsey. "We anticipate about 25,000 people being in town over the course of the weekend for all of the different ballgames... we're looking at about a $5-million economic impact right here in the Hub City from baseball." That's coming off of last weekend when the city saw another roughly 25,000 people and a $5-million economic impact from the Conference USA Tournament. The large influx comes at a good time as Hub City's tourism sector is still recovering from the pandemic. "...The tourism industry was the hardest hit and for us to be able to see tourism is alive and well and to know that we're welcoming thousands of fans here into the Hub City... they'll be in our hotels, they'll be in our restaurants and really going to our points of interest... we're made for this, you know, so we're really excited to be able to see one more step toward full recovery," said Dorsey. |
| What Missouri's Eli Drinkwitz said about adding former MSU QB Jack Abraham | |
| Missouri football needed to add a veteran quarterback this offseason, coach Eli Drinkwitz felt. Sifting through the NCAA transfer portal, Drinkwitz and his staff landed former Mississippi State and Southern Miss quarterback Jack Abraham. "Our quarterback room has two younger guys on it," Drinkwitz said at the SEC spring meetings. "We were looking for somebody with some experience .... In our first six games, we have three on the road and three in really difficult environments." When it comes to experience, Abraham has a significant amount across college football. He began his college career at Louisiana Tech, where he redshirted. Then he played a year for Northwest Mississippi Community College. Then he transferred to Southern Miss, where he played for three years. During that time, he completed 595 passes on 859 attempts for 7,067 yards, 41 touchdowns and 29 interceptions. Abraham didn't play at Mississippi State because he was out all year with a concussion. He received a medical hardship waiver to be immediately eligible for this season. Abraham will be part of a quarterback competition at Missouri ahead of a schedule that will include road trips to Kansas State, Auburn and Florida in about the first month of the 2022 season. "I felt like for the sake of our team, we needed to make sure we have enough firepower in that room, and look forward to seeing all four of those guys really compete," Drinkwitz said. |
| Not done yet, but SEC football nears big change to its schedule and alignment | |
| The SEC is in the process of sunsetting its two-division format that has been in place since the 1992 season. Although no decisions have been finalized and discussions continue at the conference's spring meetings here this week, commissioner Greg Sankey said Tuesday that talks are centering on alignments that would do away with divisions when Oklahoma and Texas join the SEC by 2025. The entry of those Big 12 schools will expand the conference to 16 teams. "We focused more on the single-division model," Sankey said, "but until we're done you never know." Among the options on the table: * An eight-game conference schedule with each team having one permanent SEC rival and seven additional conference foes that rotate. * A nine-game conference schedule with each team having three permanent SEC rivals and six additional conference foes that rotate. Either of those models would allow teams to play each of their conference peers at least once every two years. In the current two-division structure, teams can go several years between meetings with some interdivision foes. Cutting down on those gaps between matchups has been one of Sankey's priorities throughout this process. |
| The SEC Is Getting a New Schedule Model, but Which One Will Win Out? | |
| Months ago, a consulting firm produced more than 30 different formats for a future football scheduling model of a 16-team Southeastern Conference. A week before the league's leaders gather in Destin for their annual spring meetings, the 35 has been cut to two: an eight-game format where teams play one permanent opponent and seven rotating opponents (1–7 model); and a nine-game format where teams play three permanent opponents and six rotating (3–6). While most officials feel strongly that divisions are likely gone, and a pod system first floated out in the fall has been eliminated, the conference is virtually split on what to do next: eight conference games or nine? With this issue -- and so many others -- the SEC is divided mostly on revenue-generating lines. "It seems like a deadlock," says one person familiar with the discussions. While the new, 16-team SEC is poised to potentially be the richest and most powerful in the history of college athletics, it is also one of the most diverse -- a broad stretch of turf that features schools with differing financial situations, cultural views and varying interests. Like a microcosm of the NCAA itself, the SEC has haves and have-nots, both in historical athletic success and athletic budget. If there's one concept everyone in the league has agreed on, it's that they should play one another more often. Either of these formats, 1–7 or 3–6, allows for such. The rotation would mean that each team will host and travel to every league opponent in a four-year stretch. |
| Saban on feud with Fisher: 'I have no problem with Jimbo' | |
| Alabama coach Nick Saban tried to put an end to his feud with Texas A&M's Jimbo Fisher on Tuesday as Southeastern Conference leaders gathered for spring meetings at a resort on the Florida Gulf Coast. "I didn't really say that anybody did anything wrong," Saban said when asked if he had evidence that Texas A&M has been buying players with name, image and likeness compensation deals. "OK, and I've said everything I'm going to say about this. I should have never mentioned any individual institutions as I've said that before." Saban added: "I have no problem with Jimbo. I have no problem with Jimbo at all." Saban set off Fisher two weeks ago when he called out Texas A&M and other schools while talking about the need for NIL regulation in college sports. Fisher responded angrily, saying Saban's comments were despicable and calling his former boss at LSU a "narcissist" while denying any wrongdoing with his program that landed the No. 1 recruiting class in the country for 2022. The SEC spring meetings --- taking place in person for the first time since 2019 because of the pandemic ---- were the first opportunity for the two superstar coaches to meet face-to-face since the dustup. Fisher was not scheduled to meet with reporters Tuesday. SEC Commissioner Greg Sankey said the coaches had a "healthy meeting" and a good exchange of ideas. |
| Kirby Smart on Nick Saban-Jimbo Fisher feud: 'You should be on the headphones sometimes' | |
 | Kirby Smart's cell phone blew up on that morning a couple of weeks ago when Jimbo Fisher stepped to the microphone at a hastily called press conference. An SEC war of words pitting Fisher against his former boss Nick Saban was a very public fight between men Smart worked with on the same staff at LSU in 2004. "I haven't thought about it a day since," the Georgia football coach insisted Tuesday at a podium at the SEC spring meetings at the Hilton Sandestin. "In the world that we operate in, you're worried about what's in front of you right now, which is the 15 recruits I'm trying to get on the phone, the conversations I'm trying to have. I'm not really worried about a feud between two guys that used to sit in the same staff meeting and have similar conversations." Smart spoke before going into a meeting room with all 14 head coaches who are assigned seats alphabetically by name of school. Smart and Fisher are two of Nick Saban's coaching tree's success stories. Both have won national titles and they are the only assistants who have beaten him. "At the end of the day, things like that happen," Smart said. "You guys should be on the headphones sometimes. You'd think that was a Mickey Mouse. It just so happened in front of everybody. It's not something I prefer to comment on. I'm worried about what we do at Georgia and that's my focus." |
| Did Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher talk to each other at SEC spring meeting? Lane Kiffin has the answer | |
 | People are just nicer face-to-face, Lane Kiffin says. The Ole Miss football coach, asked about the public squabble between Nick Saban and Jimbo Fisher, downplayed the drama and said the SEC football coaches' gathering Tuesday was "pretty normal" as the league's spring meetings began. "Probably the assumption is that it's different in there than you guys think and the public thinks," Kiffin said. "Guys have jobs to do. We're professionals. It's probably a lot calmer than you picture it being." Kiffin and LSU's Brian Kelly were the only two coaches to speak with reporters after Tuesday's meetings. Kiffin was asked whether Saban and Fisher talked. "I guess the best way to describe it is, somehow our group is more professional in the room together than they are on camera by themselves," Kiffin said. "I kind of compare it to texts, where people like to say things on a text and they don't in person. It's kind of like that." Kiffin has been the most transparent SEC coach about name, image and likeness and its impact on the college football landscape, most notably in an interview with Sports Illustrated's Ross Dellenger. Kiffin was asked Tuesday about becoming a "voice of reason" on the topic of NIL. "No, I don't think that was on purpose," he said. "I just think I've always kind of answered questions and not done the coach speak." |
| New LSU coach Brian Kelly talks about a host of issues at first SEC spring meeting | |
 | For new LSU football coach Brian Kelly, the first day of his first conference spring meeting in 12 years was like a backlog of ideas piling up for more than a decade. "NIL, the transfer portal, the full (football) calendar, scheduling, the playoffs," Kelly said here Tuesday after the first day of the Southeastern Conference spring meeting. "That's a lot, right? We could probably still be in there. But that's enough for your head to blow up." Kelly, who spent the previous 12 seasons at independent Notre Dame, affirmed his support for name, image and likeness (NIL), but he wants it to exist in the spirit that was intended. "I don't think we were ever in a place where we wanted to see amateurism so distorted that it would move toward professionalism," Kelly said. "I think that's what's happened here. "I don't think that's what the intention was. We need some guidelines before this gets thrown into Congress." Kelly also said he doesn't believe athletes want the full experience of being treated like professionals and the unintended consequences that would bring. "I don't think they want contracts," he said. "I don't think they want to be traded. I'm sure they don't want to be cut." Kelly, who came to LSU in November, said he's been pleasantly surprised with how much he's enjoyed the transition to Louisiana. "I've just loved the state and the people," he said. "It's been fun. I've enjoyed the players. It (Baton Rouge) is the state capital. There's a lot going on. It's an invigorating environment for me." |
| Adams to represent U. of Arkansas faculty on athletics | |
| Paul Adams, a University of Arkansas biochemistry associate professor, will serve as the UA's new faculty athletics representative beginning Wednesday. Adams will replace Gerald Jordan, a retiring UA journalism professor who has held the role since 2017. The faculty athletics representatives are responsible for certifying the eligibility of athletes and represent UA faculty in matters with the NCAA and Southeastern Conference. Adams is the fifth UA faculty member to hold the position. "I look forward to expanding my service to our university in this manner," Adams said in a statement. Adams has taught at the UA since 2007. He holds degrees from LSU and Case Western Reserve University. |
| 2023 Masters tickets: Application process now open. Here's what to know | |
 | The 2023 Masters Tournament ticket application process for practice rounds and daily tournament tickets opened June 1, the tournament announced on its website. According to the Masters Tournament, applications will be accepted June 1-21. Those interested can create a free account at masters.com. Current account holders may be asked to reset passwords, according to a note on the website. Only one application per household will be accepted and applicants must use their permanent residential address, according to the Masters Tournament. Applicants must be at least 21 years old. Tickets are awarded through a random selection process and those selected will be notified via email in late July. Tickets will be mailed mid-March. No additional tickets are sold at the gates and patron tickets are limited to two gate entries per day. The patron list for tournament series badges is closed. Series badges are good for all four tournament days, Thursday through Sunday. An application email will be sent to those on the patron's list in early January, according to tournament officials. |
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