| Monday, September 18, 2023 |
| Horticulture learning garden in full bloom at MSU, helping students gain marketable skills | |
 | Overlooking the flourishing fields of the R.R. Foil Plant Science Research Center, also known as North Farm, rests a small, blooming oasis. Not only is Mississippi State's cut flower garden home to more than two dozen varieties of specialty-cut annual flowers, it also serves as the perfect setting to encourage growth in student learning. For Cole Etheredge, associate professor in floriculture and ornamental horticulture in MSU's Department of Plant and Soil Sciences, installing and overseeing the 24 raised flower beds allows his students to learn how to properly care for and harvest cut flowers. Developing this useful skill could eventually help the students qualify for jobs in areas such as floral design, cut flower production and horticulture. "As we continue to expand the flower garden, I plan to incorporate as many floral-based courses as possible, including Floral Design II in the fall and a cut flower gardening class in summer 2025," Etheredge said. "My overall goal is to give the students the knowledge and confidence needed to produce a portion of their own cut flowers for future careers." Funded by the American Floral Endowment, the garden was planted in summer 2022 and has blossomed into a flourishing experiential classroom. The flower beds are equipped with irrigation systems, weed barriers and compost bins. "By allowing students to grow and manage cut flowers, they gain a better understanding of what it takes to produce cut flowers for use in jobs that utilize floral design," he said. |
| Ancient Greece brought to Starkville through Classical Week | |
 | This week, the Shackouls Honors College at Mississippi State University is beginning its season of college activities with Classical Week, a nationally recognized, award-winning celebration of Greek, Roman and other cultures of the ancient world. On Tuesday evening, the week will begin when students and crew members take the stage for the first of two performances of "Electra" by the Greek playwright Sophocles. Both Tuesday and Wednesday, the play will be staged in the Zacharias Village Courtyard on the Griffis Hall patio starting at 6 p.m. "Electra," originally performed in the late 5th Century BCE (probably between 420 to 414 B.C.E.), depicts a story in which murder follows murder. The production spotlights the knowledge and scholarly research of the play's dramaturg, David Schenker from the University of Missouri, and includes special music from local musician and educator, Bonnie Oppenheimer from the Mississippi University for Women. Schenker will also be speaking on if "Old Rules Lay Generational Foundations" as a part of the "Orators" Lecture Series, on Wednesday. Members of the public are also invited to this free lecture at 12:15 p.m. in the Forum Room-401 Griffis Hall. The performances of "Electra" are free and open to the public. |
| MSU-Meridian receives $1 million grant for health care simulation | |
 | Mississippi State University (MSU) has received more than $1 million from AccelerateMS's Nursing and Allied Health Grant Program. According to the university, the funds will be used to construct an interprofessional simulation space on MSU's health sciences campus in Meridian. Officials said the facility will prepare future physician assistants, mental health providers and social workers. "We are honored AccelerateMS recognizes the impact our health sciences programs have on the vital medical community in Meridian. Furthermore, this grant expands the university's ability to take care of what matters through our innovative Master of Science in Nursing pre-licensure program," said Terry Dale Cruse, associate vice president and head of MSU-Meridian. The year-long Accelerated MSN achieved Phase I approval from the Board of Trustees of the Mississippi Institutions of Higher learning earlier this year. The proposed program is currently progressing toward Phase II approval, which is expected in early 2024. Phase II approval will allow the program to admit students, which could occur as early as Fall 2024. |
| Corn Harvest Ahead of Schedule, Yields High | |
 | The favorable weather that kicked off planting season for Mississippi corn producers stayed in play throughout the growing season and is helping growers wrap up harvest. "We are well ahead of schedule with harvest," Erick Larson, grain crops agronomist with the Mississippi State University Extension Service, said Sept. 12. "We're about 84% finished. The hot, dry weather we've had since mid-July promoted early harvest. "Some years, we have more rainfall than normal. That can prevent farmers from getting into fields to harvest. It can also compromise corn quality and plant stability," Larson said. Mississippi producers planted 790,000 acres of corn, up from the 700,000 acres forecast just before farmers began planting in mid-March. The U.S. Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Statistics Service estimates 770,000 of those acres will be harvested for grain. The jump in acreage can be attributed to drier than normal weather during the spring that allowed planting progress, growers who use crop rotation systems returning to corn and a decrease in nitrogen prices. Nitrogen is a key nutrient for corn production. Mississippi's late summer drought conditions did not affect the crop because most corn was nearly mature. |
| Customer power bills going up in Starkville | |
| City electric customers can likely expect an average 5.4% increase to their bills starting Oct. 1. Of that, a 2.9% rate hike is guaranteed, as it will cover an increase on what Tennessee Valley Authority charges wholesale to provide utilities with power. Aldermen will decide at their regular meeting Tuesday at City Hall whether to approve the remaining 2.5%, which Starkville Utilities is requesting to mitigate the effects of inflation. The rate change would raise the average monthly bill by $5.56 per month, Starkville Utilities General Manager Edward Kemp said at a Friday morning aldermen work session. That is based on the average monthly power bill rising to $108.53. If approved, it would be Starkville Utilities' first local electric rate hike since 2009. The board approved water rate increases in 2022. "We think it will carry us for a bit on our current trajectory," Kemp said of the increase. "... If we see another dramatic spike increase, then I'll have to come back to the board at some point, but I would not anticipate having to come back to the board for at least a couple of years." TVA plans to increase its wholesale price by 4.5% on Oct. 1 to provide power to the 152 utilities and 56 direct customers it serves. It is also phasing out a 3-year pandemic credit to utilities, which provided Starkville Utilities almost $478,000 annually over that span. Kemp said the utility has remained stable, both systemically and financially, and dubbed the proposed increases as "being proactive and not falling behind." |
| Up to 700 acres sought in Clay County for future development | |
| While the Golden Triangle Development LINK is still working on its recently proposed fifth megasite project, Cinco -- the fourth such site in Lowndes County -- it is already looking at more areas for economic growth. CEO Joe Max Higgins made confident remarks regarding the future of economic development in the Golden Triangle during the LINK's 20th anniversary celebration Thursday at East Mississippi Community College's Communiversity. The LINK's next move? To work with Clay County to secure between 400 and 700 acres near the Yokohama Tire Plant for future companies to locate. "We have got a policy here of winning and getting deals done," Higgins said. "... We want to go on a land buy with Clay County here coming up. We'll secure as much as the supervisors give us money for. We don't have a project in mind, but that will be so we can run the water and sewer lines and build a road." Higgins also told those in attendance that the LINK has closed on a deal to bring two separate companies to Lowndes County near the Golden Triangle Regional Airport and will officially announce them later this fall. Higgins added the LINK could also soon secure a purchase agreement with a company looking to locate in a speculative building at the NorthStar Industrial Park in Starkville. "That spec building might be gone soon," Higgins said. "We are cautiously optimistic (about the project)." |
| Raytheon breaks ground on $50M expansion in Forest | |
| Raytheon broke ground on a 17,000-square-foot expansion of its Consolidated Manufacturing Center located in Forest on Friday, with the $50 million corporate investment set to create 100 high-skill jobs over the next five years. The RTX business will construct a new building on its Forest campus to serve as a hub for the production, testing, and integration of Next Generation Jammer Mid-Band (NGJ-MB) pods for the U.S. Navy and Australian government, as well as airborne radar programs. "Our state is proud to help bolster our nation's security and to be on the cutting edge of innovation in the aerospace and defense realms," Governor Tate Reeves explained. "This $50 million investment and the 100 high-quality new jobs that it will create further solidifies that role and is tremendous news for Scott County and all of Mississippi." For 40 years, Raytheon has been part of the Forest community, with the investment marking the company's third expansion in the area since 2013. RTX employs more than 1,000 people and spends over $253 million annually with Mississippi suppliers. The Mississippi Development Authority and Scott County partnered with Raytheon to support building improvements and facility expansion needs for the project. Construction of the new facility will begin in October 2023 with completion expected by December 2026. |
| Another Biloxi casino suffers cyberattack as hackers access customer loyalty database | |
 | Beau Rivage Resort & Casino and Harrah's Gulf Coast Biloxi are open and working around computer issues as their parent companies continue to deal with cyberattacks. Caesars Entertainment said Thursday in a filing with the Security and Exchange Commission that it recently discovered suspicious activity following an attack on an outsourced support vendor used by the company. The parent company of Harrah's Gulf Coast on Sept.7 said it determined the attacker got a copy of the company's loyalty program database. Caesars Entertainment has one of the largest customer databases of any casino company. Caesars said its casinos and online gambling program were not impacted, but the attack may have exposed customers' driver's license numbers and social security numbers. "We have no evidence to date that any member passwords/PINs, bank account information or payment card information were acquired by the unauthorized actor," Caesars said, and has seen no evidence the data was shared. The Las Vegas Review-Journal cited sources who said the company already paid tens of millions of dollars to the hackers. MGM Resorts International, parent company of the Beau Rivage in Biloxi, said Friday its website is back online and operating in a limited capacity. MGM announced the cyberattack on Monday and said its website, email and electronic key entry to hotel rooms were among the systems taken down. |
| Low Mississippi River limits barges just as farmers want to move their crops downriver | |
 | A long stretch of hot, dry weather has left the Mississippi River so low that barge companies are reducing their loads just as Midwest farmers are preparing to harvest crops and send tons of corn and soybeans downriver to the Gulf of Mexico. The transport restrictions are a headache for barge companies, but even more worrisome for thousands of farmers who have watched drought scorch their fields for much of the summer. Now they will face higher prices to transport what remains of their crops. Farmer Bruce Peterson, who grows corn and soybeans in southeastern Minnesota, chuckled wryly that the dry weather had withered his family's crop so extensively they won't need to worry so much about the high cost of transporting the goods downriver. "We haven't had rain here for several weeks so our crop size is shrinking," Peterson said. "Unfortunately, that has taken care of part of the issue." About 60% of U.S. grain exports are taken by barge down the Mississippi to New Orleans, where the corn, soybeans and wheat is stored and ultimately transferred to other ships. It's usually an inexpensive, efficient way to transport crops, as a typical group of 15 barges lashed together carries as much cargo as about 1,000 trucks. But as river levels drop, that cost has soared. The cargo rate from St. Louis southward is now up 77% above the three-year average. This is the second-straight year drought has caused the Mississippi to drop to near-record lows. With no significant rain in the forecast, it's likely to keep falling. |
| Lots of indoor farms are shutting down as their businesses struggle. So why are more being built? | |
| Inside a bright greenhouse about an hour outside Dallas, workers in hairnets and gloves place plugs of lettuce and other greens into small plastic containers -- hundreds of thousands of them -- that stack up to the ceiling. A few weeks later, once the vegetables grow to full size, they'll be picked, packaged and shipped out to local shelves within 48 hours. This is Eden Green Technology, one of the latest crop of indoor farming companies seeking their fortunes with green factories meant to pump out harvests of fresh produce all year long. The company operates two greenhouses and has broken ground on two more at its Cleburne campus, where the indoor facilities are meant to shelter their portion of the food supply from climate change while using less water and land. But that's if the concept works. And players in the industry are betting big even as rivals wobble and fail. California-based Plenty Unlimited this summer broke ground on a $300 million facility, while Kroger announced that it will be expanding its availability of vertically farmed produce. Meanwhile, two indoor farming companies that attracted strong startup money -- New Jersey's AeroFarms and Kentucky's AppHarvest -- filed for bankruptcy reorganization. And a five-year-old company in Detroit, Planted Detroit, shut its doors this summer, with the CEO citing financial problems just months after touting plans to open a second farm. Tom Kimmerer, a plant physiologist who taught at the University of Kentucky, has tracked indoor farming alongside his research into the growth of plants both outdoors and inside. He said his first thought on vertical farm startups -- especially those heavily reliant on artificial light -- was, "Boy, this is a dumb idea" -- mainly due to high energy costs. |
| August Mississippi revenue report comes in $3 million below legislative estimates | |
| According to the latest revenue collections report from the Mississippi Legislative Budget Office, state revenue collections for the month of August were below the estimate by $3 million for the second month in the current fiscal year. The last time there was a monthly estimate below sine die was May 2020, according to LBO staff. Total revenue collections for the month of August in FY 2024 were $2,986,467, or 0.56% below, the legislative sine die revenue estimate. However, Fiscal Year-to-Date revenue collections through August were $42,101,765, or 3.89% above the sine die revenue estimate. The full year 2024 sine die revenue estimate is $7,523,800,000. The primary line items associated with the reduced revenue collection for the month of August were Individual and Corporate Income Taxes. Individual income tax collections for the month of August were below the prior year by $30.9 million corporate income tax collections were below the prior year by $15.3 million. Lawmakers who spoke with Magnolia Tribune say this is by design. "I am glad to see that we are up $42 Million over the estimate in collections during the first two months of this fiscal year," State Rep. Trey Lamar said on Friday. Lamar said income tax collections are down "due to our historic tax reductions in the tax on work." But, Lamar said, the sales and use tax collections continue to outpace both the estimate and last year's collections. "This coupled with historic low unemployment are significant evidence of the strength of Mississippi's economy," the House Ways and Means Committee Chairman said. Sales tax collections for the month of August were above the prior year by $8.4 million. Senate Appropriations Chairman Briggs Hopson agreed. "A quick review of the August monthly revenue report shows decreases in individual and corporate income tax receipts. It is certainly no surprise that individual income tax collections are down as the 2022 tax cuts are beginning to be implemented," Sen. Hopson said. "A deeper dive into the numbers may provide additional information." |
| Reeves, Presley push messages in Tupelo CDF candidates forum | |
| Republican Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves and his Democratic opponent in November's general election, Brandon Presley, were in the same room Friday morning, but there was no one-on-one debate. The two, however, did get to push their cases to govern the state for the next four years -- and take a few swipes at each other -- at a candidates forum at the Elvis Presley Birthplace and Museum. Each candidate got roughly seven minutes to hit home his message at the Community Development Foundation's quarterly Wake Up! Tupelo meeting. For the incumbent Reeves, who served two terms as lieutenant governor before being elected governor in 2019, it was about touting the state's accomplishments under his leadership. He noted that in his first 19 months in office, the state experienced an unprecedented 14 natural disasters. The previous record was four in any one given year. "What I will tell you about managing our great state through those challenges, whether it was the pandemic or the widest tornado ever hitting Mississippi on Easter Sunday of 2020 ... going through that reminded me every day that Mississippi is a special place, and that Mississippi has special people," he said. "So, it kind of irritates me when these out-of-state national interests from California and New York come in and try to tell us all the things we are doing wrong." Presley got a few laughs when he got on stage later and said he thought Reeves would break his arm patting himself on the back. "The truth is, two of the biggest issues facing Mississippi right now he didn't open his mouth about one time," Presley said. "The first is the hospital crisis that we've got ... we've got a health care crisis whether he wants to admit it or not." |
| Mississippi Courts Won't Say How They Provide Lawyers for Poor Clients | |
| In 2017, the Mississippi Supreme Court's then-Chief Justice William Waller Jr. helped mandate that judges throughout the state explain in writing how they deliver on their duty to provide poor criminal defendants with a lawyer. He hoped the rule would spur improvements in Mississippi's patched-together public defense system, regarded by many legal experts as among the worst in the country. Now, six years after the rule went into effect, only one of the 23 circuit court districts in the state has responded. The 22nd Circuit Court in southwest Mississippi became the first to comply this summer, according to the Supreme Court's docket. The requirement was part of a push to move "toward a statewide system," said Waller, who retired a couple of years after it went into effect. He said he's partly responsible for not enforcing it. "We should have started going court by court and asking them to show us their plans." Public defense systems across the country are overburdened and underfunded, but Mississippi stands out. Nationally, it ranks last in how much money it spends per capita on public defense, according to the Sixth Amendment Center, a nonprofit that advocates for a robust defense for the indigent -- those who can't afford their own lawyer. Mississippi is one of only eight states that rely on local officials to fund and deliver almost all public defense for people facing trial, according to the center. |
| Shortage of OB-GYNs is leaving Mississippi moms-to-be stranded for care | |
| More than half of Mississippi counties are considered maternity care deserts, or have no hospitals providing obstetric care, no OB-GYNs and no certified nurse midwives. But the small number of OB-GYNs -- particularly those still practicing obstetrics -- in a metropolitan area like Meridian shows how tenuous the current workforce landscape is. Dr. Norman Connell, market medical director for the OB Hospitalist Group and a Vicksburg-based OB-GYN, said about five years ago, the Meridian area had around 12 or 13 obstetric providers, most of them with privileges at both hospitals. Now, there are six providers on staff at both Ochsner Rush and Anderson Regional Medical Center. In 2021, as a result of the drop in providers, both hospitals signed an agreement with Connell's company to supply OB-GYN hospitalists, or providers from across the state, or even out of state, who work solely in an inpatient hospital setting. "The population of Meridian didn't shrink, but the area lost over half of the OB providers in a few short years," Connell said. Connell said the doctors at his company allow the local OB-GYNs to stay in their clinics more often and see patients they need to see. The group also has contracts with seven other hospitals all over the state, from Magnolia Regional Health Center in Corinth to Mississippi Baptist Medical Center in Jackson. As OB-GYNs stop practicing or retire, both in Mississippi and nationwide, they aren't being replaced at the same rate. And it's unknown how last year's Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade is affecting the OB-GYN workforce in Mississippi, though other states with similar restrictive abortion laws have seen providers leave because of enhanced legal risks. Dr. Michelle Owens, a maternal fetal medicine specialist who worked at the University of Mississippi Medical Center for nearly 20 years, said she suspects because the state's laws have always been so restrictive in regards to abortion, Dobbs is not having an immediate effect on providers who live here. |
| Rural hospitals are closing maternity wards. People are seeking options to give birth closer to home | |
| A growing number of rural hospitals have been shuttering their labor and delivery units, forcing pregnant women to travel longer distances for care or face giving birth in an emergency room. Fewer than half of rural hospitals now have maternity units, prompting government officials and families to scramble for answers. One solution gaining ground across the U.S. is freestanding midwife-led birth centers, but those also often rely on nearby hospitals when serious complications arise. The closures have worsened so-called "maternity care deserts" -- counties with no hospitals or birth centers that offer obstetric care and no OB providers. More than two million women of childbearing age live in such areas, the majority of which are rural. Ultimately, doctors and researchers say, having fewer hospital maternity units makes having babies less safe. One study showed rural residents have a 9% greater probability of facing life-threatening complications or even death from pregnancy and birth compared to those in urban areas -- and having less access to care plays a part. The main reasons for closures are decreasing numbers of births; staffing issues; low reimbursement from Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for low-income people; and financial distress, said Peiyin Hung, deputy director of the University of South Carolina's Rural and Minority Health Research Center and co-author of research based on a survey of hospitals. |
| Greenwood hospital, long on the financial brink, may be on its last breath | |
| After clawing itself out of closure several months ago, Greenwood Leflore Hospital once again faces that reality after being denied money from the county. The hospital, one of the largest in the Mississippi Delta that has drawn national attention for its struggles over the past year, was bled dry by the pandemic. To keep its doors open, Greenwood Leflore Hospital has shut down departments, applied for grants and pursued a new federal designation aimed at bringing in more money. It's even gone up for lease again after a potential agreement fell through last year. Additionally, in early April, the Leflore County Board of Supervisors voted to obtain a $10 million line of credit to support the hospital. At the time, the hospital said that money would allow them to stay open until 2024. But one by one in recent days, nearly all those backstops have crumbled. State grant money that was previously promised has proven difficult for hospitals to get their hands on, if at all. As of August no grant money has been awarded. And last month, the regional Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services office denied the hospital's application to become a critical access hospital, which would allow them to be reimbursed by Medicare at a higher rate. Though the application is still being considered on the federal level and hospital administration insists that the decision from the regional office was expected, it's largely why the Leflore County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday voted 3-2 against the hospital's request to draw down $1 million from that line of credit to cover hospital payroll in September. Now, hospital administration say they have enough cash to pay employees until the end of the month. Beyond that, hospital leaders say the future is uncertain. |
| As Democrats back auto workers, GOP spots a divide over EVs | |
 | Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers are rallying around the United Auto Workers union in its strike against General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Stellantis NV, formerly Fiat Chrysler. But as Democrats settle into pro-union messaging, Republicans are using the walkout to drive a wedge between the union and President Joe Biden's push for electric vehicles. Roughly 13,000 workers walked out of three plants in Missouri, Michigan and Ohio -- one plant belonging to each of the big Detroit automakers -- early Friday after negotiators failed to agree on contracts before the 11:59 p.m. Thursday deadline. The walkout is the first in the union's history against all three automakers. Sen. J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, in a sign that Republicans' see an opportunity to tap potential union discontent with Democrats, said in a statement Wednesday he supports the UAW's demand for higher wages. "But there is a 6,000-pound elephant in the room: the premature transition to electric vehicles," he said. Biden, who has proclaimed himself one of the "most pro-union presidents," rejected the view that his push for electric vehicles is at odds with union interests. He said at the White House Friday that he is sending acting Labor Secretary Julie Su and White House adviser Gene Sperling to help the parties reach agreement, and noted the companies' offers should ensure that "record corporate profits mean record contracts." Autoworkers see the push to electric vehicles as resulting in jobs in non-union factories in the U.S. and abroad, a contradiction of Biden's promises to boost domestic manufacturing. The workers are also disgruntled about the EPA's proposed rule on tailpipe emissions. |
| Ties Between Joe Biden and Merrick Garland Deteriorate From Distant to Frigid | |
 | The already frosty relationship between President Biden and his attorney general, Merrick Garland, is now in a deep freeze. Respect and admiration among White House aides for Garland, a longtime federal appeals-court judge chosen to underscore the independence of the Justice Department, has shifted for some into resignation and distrust. They point to Garland having appointed not just a special counsel to investigate former President Donald Trump, but two others as well: one looking into Biden and another probing his son, Hunter Biden. On Thursday, the latter indicted the younger Biden on gun charges. Some Biden aides have said they see Garland's handling of the inquiries into the Biden family as driven less by a dispassionate pursuit of justice than by a punctilious desire to give the appearance that sensitive investigations are walled off from political pressure, people familiar with the matter say. Adding to the fraught relationship between the Justice Department and the White House, special counsel Robert Hur has been negotiating with President Biden's lawyers for weeks over the contours of an interview with the president, according to people familiar with the matter. Hur was appointed by Garland in January to investigate why classified documents ended up at a Washington think-tank office used by Biden after he left the vice presidency, and at his Wilmington, Del., home. Allies of both Garland and Biden compare their relationship to the tense one between President Clinton and Janet Reno, his attorney general for eight years. Clinton was frustrated that Reno allowed an investigation into the failed Whitewater land deal to expand to a wide-ranging probe that ultimately ensnared Clinton for his sexual relationship with a White House intern. |
| Trump moves to put the nail in DeSantis' campaign coffin | |
 | Donald Trump's campaign believes Ron DeSantis is flatlining. Now, they want to bury him. The former president and his team are beefing up their efforts in Iowa, hoping to deliver the type of knock-out punch that would effectively end the Florida governor's bid and send a message to the other campaigns to get out of the way. Building on his seven visits to Iowa so far this year, Trump is embarking on a "Team Trump Caucus Commitment" organizing event in Iowa with campaign volunteers at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Maquoketa, and remarks at the Grand River Conference Center in Dubuque this Wednesday. Trump plans to make three more stops in Iowa during the first half of October, and again in the final days of the month, his team said. The Trump campaign is also bringing on Alex Meyer, who was recently part of the RNC's political data team, as a senior adviser to focus on both Iowa and Missouri. It's a remarkable investment of time from a candidate who has, through the summer, left a light footprint on the trail. And it's being supplemented with an air attack by Trump world as a pro-DeSantis PAC advertises aggressively in the state. MAGA Inc., the super PAC supporting Trump, is spending over $700,000 on advertising this week in Iowa, according to the ad tracking firm AdImpact. Trump's Iowa team is focused on educating and training Trump supporters on the caucus process, and the Trump campaign has boasted of 27,500 signed caucus pledge cards and 1,500 local volunteers in the state. |
| Ole Miss hosting early literacy conference | |
| The University of Mississippi will host a daylong conference on early childhood literacy, where renowned experts are to discuss the latest research and strategies to foster reading skills in young children. The Understanding Early Literacy conference begins at 8:30 a.m. Sept. 23 at the Oxford Conference Center. The event is free to the public, but registration is required. To register, click here. Funded by a donation from Carol Dorsey, of Tucson, Arizona, the forum is designed to offer resources and advice for pediatricians, educators, parents and caregivers, said John Hodges, director of the North Mississippi Literacy Project, which is co-sponsoring the event. "Participants will hear from researchers, doctors, psychologists and other experts in child development who will inspire and equip you with a better understanding of how you can play a positive role in developing a young child's literacy skills and therefore their overall academic success and well-being," Hodges said. Dorsey and her husband, Bob Dorsey, a former Ole Miss economics professor, gave almost $1 million that helped kickstart the North Mississippi Literacy Project. Other sponsors are the North Mississippi Education Consortium, Shelton School and Lafayette County School District. |
| Annual conference attracts leading dyslexia, language disorder experts to MC campus | |
| Cognitive Disengagement Syndrome, previously called Sluggish Cognitive Tempo, is an attention syndrome the National Institutes of Health defines as excessive mind-wandering, mental confusion and slowed behaviors. Separate from Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder inattention, CDS is a little-known neurologic condition not yet recognized by the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, the "gold standard" for mental health professionals, making it difficult to diagnose and treat properly. One of the world's foremost CDS experts will return to the Mississippi College campus along with a host of dyslexia and language disorder experts to participate in the MC Dyslexia Education and Evaluation Center's fourth joint Dyslexia Therapy Conference with the Mississippi chapter of the Academic Language Therapy Association. The conference, which carries the theme "Dream, Wish, Create ... Believe You Can," is scheduled for Thursday-Friday, Sept. 28-29, in Anderson Hall in the B.C. Rogers Student Center. The conference is open to all interested individuals, including academic language therapists, educators, administrators, college students and parents who want to learn best practices when working with students with language-learning differences and other learning disabilities. |
| Education expert says Mississippi testing irregularities don't negate 'Mississippi miracle' | |
 | As the Mississippi Department of Education investigates irregularities recently found in the spring 2023 Mississippi Academic Assessment Program test results, an expert on standardized testing said such irregularities are not that uncommon, and he does not believe the incident negates the so-called "Mississippi Miracle" in education. "I would be careful to say it (cheating) is common,'' said Stephen Pruitt, who is currently the sixth president of the Southern Regional Education Board, a nonprofit that works with states to improve all levels of public education though helping policymakers and educators make decisions by providing data and resources. "Have there been instances of it (cheating)? Yes," Pruitt said. "Have there been documented, proven cases of cheating? Yes. Is it pervasive? Absolutely not. States are doing more and more to follow up on those types of issues." Last week, the MDE released findings of an investigation into spring 2023 testing irregularities that resulted in 934 MAAP invalidations due to "testing irregularities" found in five Mississippi school districts and 12 schools -- including seven Jackson Public Schools. Pruitt said as states do more to ensure security with administering assessments more instances of irregularities come to light. In recent months, Mississippi has gained national attention for the state's improvements in testing scores, specifically because the state went from being ranked the second-worst state in 2013 for fourth-grade reading to 21st in 2022. The improvements have come to be known as the "Mississippi Miracle," though some critics write it off as a "statistical illusion." Pruitt said the MAAP invalidations have not impacted the "miracle," because Mississippi's student scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress have also validated improvements. |
| Auburn students rush into lake for impromptu baptisms as football coach lends a hand at massive worship event | |
 | More than 200 students at an Alabama college were baptized in one night this week after a campus worship program that was reportedly attended by hundreds. The baptisms took place Tuesday night in a lake at Auburn's Red Barn venue, which is located about half a mile from Auburn University's Neville Arena, the site of a "Unite Auburn" worship event that drew a massive crowd. The "Unite Auburn" event featured performances by Christian worship band Passion and saw speakers such as Jennie Allen, a Christian author, and Rev. Jonathan Pokluda, lead pastor of Harris Creek Baptist Church in Waco, Texas. Following the event, one individual reportedly wanted to be baptized, but a tub was not available for use. Seeking a solution, students began gathering at the lake. Auburn Tigers head football coach Hugh Freeze also attended the event and "got in the water to help," according to Montgomery-based WSFA. In one clip taken by Auburn senior Michael Floyd, Freeze was shown assisting in the baptism of one of the school's football players. "This was a great moment of Auburn being Auburn! Thousands gathered to unapologetically seek Jesus, and hundreds took their next step," Floyd told Fox News Digital of the event. Other photographs and footage from the event showed hundreds of college students lining the banks of the lake as students waded into the water to be baptized one by one over a two-hour time frame. |
| At Michigan State, a New Scandal Raises an Old Question: Why Does This Keep Happening? | |
 | When Teresa Woodruff, Michigan State University's interim president, stepped to the podium on Sunday to announce the suspension of the football coach, she repeatedly stressed one message: The "MSU of today" is different from the "MSU of old." The "MSU of old" was tarnished by scandal, as well as accusations that university leaders had no interest in serious oversight. For instance, in April 2014, a recent Michigan State University graduate filed a sexual-misconduct complaint against a university doctor who was a big name in national gymnastics circles. But the university cleared Larry Nassar, and the board later said it never knew about the complaint. Then, in November 2017, three board members and their guests flew with the basketball team to a tournament that stretched over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. As the trustees were waking up on the West Coast, Nassar, whom the university had fired the year before, pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting women. Board members defended their trip --- a common practice, an investigation later found -- but the bad optics carried the heavy implication that the board was more interested in hanging out courtside than in oversight. Finally, in December 2022, a development with echoes from the past: A sexual-misconduct complaint was filed against Mel Tucker, the university's football coach and the highest paid state employee in Michigan. Trustees were informed of the complaint, but only that it involved alleged sexual harassment, not assault. The full details only emerged last weekend -- over eight months later -- when USA Today broke the news of the complaint, which accused the coach of harassing Brenda Tracy, a prominent rape survivor and activist. For many critics and insiders, the crisis now embroiling the university reeks of issues unresolved since the Nassar days. |
| West Virginia University makes wide-ranging cuts to academic programs and faculty | |
| Despite shouts of "stop the cuts" from students, West Virginia University's board voted Friday to make wide-ranging reductions to academic programs and faculty positions as it grapples with a $45 million budget shortfall. The state's largest university will drop 28 of its majors, or about 8%, and cut 143 of the faculty positions, or around 5%. Among the cuts are one-third of education department faculty and the entire world language department, although there will still be seven language teaching positions and students can take some language courses as electives. The university in Morgantown has been weighed down financially by a 10% drop in enrollment since 2015, revenue lost during the pandemic and an increasing debt load for new building projects. Students chanting slogans and holding signs, including one that read, "This isn't the WVU that I fell in love with," briefly interrupted Friday's meeting just prior to the board's vote. Dozens of speakers, including students and faculty, also vehemently opposed the cuts at a board hearing Thursday. No one spoke in support. Maryanne Reed, the provost and vice president for academic affairs, acknowledged the dissenting voices but assured the board Friday that "even with the accelerated timeline, this was a thoughtful, professional and data-informed process." A faculty group recently took symbolic motions expressing no confidence in school President E. Gordon Gee and calling for a freeze in the ongoing cuts, which the American Federation of Teachers called "draconian and catastrophic." Faculty members will find out if they're losing their jobs by Oct. 16, but they can remain at the school through early May, said Stephanie Taylor, university vice president and general counsel. |
| Admissions Officers Reflect on a Transformative Year | |
 | It has been a turbulent year for college admissions, marked by a landmark Supreme Court decision, an escalating enrollment crisis and a political battle over higher ed's soul. For the admissions officers on the front lines, the Supreme Court's ruling striking down affirmative action -- arguably the year's marquee event -- cast the biggest pall. According to Inside Higher Ed's annual Survey of College and University Admissions Officers, 64 percent of respondents said they disagreed with the decision to ban race-conscious admissions, while only 17 percent agreed. Although admissions officers were mostly united in their opposition to the decision, survey responses reflected a range of views about the ruling's potential impact on diversity, which diverged further when respondents considered its impact on their own institutions. David Hawkins, chief education and policy officer at the National Association for College Admission Counseling, said the decision is part of a wide-reaching movement to politicize diversity and inclusion in higher education, and that admission is likely to become an even more contested battleground in the future. The question of how to ensure diversity and promote college access in the post–affirmative action era, he said, is front and center for many admissions officers. "There was a real earthquake in higher ed this year, and that's the reckoning we are having around concepts like equity, racial justice and racism. And what this court decision did was, in our view, a step backwards," he said. "Now things are markedly different, and so everything is on the table." |
| The AI Detection Arms Race Is On: And college students are developing the weapons | |
 | Edward Tian didn't think of himself as a writer. As a computer science major at Princeton, he'd taken a couple of journalism classes, where he learned the basics of reporting, and his sunny affect and tinkerer's curiosity endeared him to his teachers and classmates. But he describes his writing style at the time as "pretty bad" -- formulaic and clunky. One of his journalism professors said that Tian was good at "pattern recognition," which was helpful when producing news copy. So Tian was surprised when, sophomore year, he managed to secure a spot in John McPhee's exclusive non-fiction writing seminar. Every week, 16 students gathered to hear the legendary New Yorker writer dissect his craft. If McPhee stoked a romantic view of language in Tian, computer science offered a different perspective: language as statistics. During the pandemic, he'd taken a year off to work at the BBC and intern at Bellingcat, an open source journalism project, where he'd written code to detect Twitter bots. As a junior, he'd taken classes on machine learning and natural language processing. And in the fall of 2022, he began to work on his senior thesis about detecting the differences between AI-generated and human-written text. When ChatGPT debuted in November, Tian found himself in an unusual position. As the world lost its mind over this new, radically improved chatbot, Tian was already familiar with the underlying GPT-3 technology. And as a journalist who'd worked on rooting out disinformation campaigns, he understood the implications of AI-generated content for the industry. While home in Toronto for winter break, Tian started playing around with a new program: a ChatGPT detector. |
| The 'U.S. News' Rankings Are Here, With an Altered Formula and Few Defectors | |
| U.S. News & World Report's "Best Colleges" lists for 2024 are out today. Although the publisher often makes tweaks to its ranking formula from year to year, the company's leaders are calling this year's revisions "the most significant methodological change in the rankings' history." The vast majority of national colleges appeared to participate in this year's undergraduate rankings by turning in U.S. News' extensive data survey. U.S. News marked about 90 percent of institutions in its "National Universities" and "National Liberal Arts Colleges" lists as data submitters. That's a much higher participation rate than for the magazine's most recent law-school rankings, which many deans boycotted. Almost a third of law schools didn't respond to that survey. Measures new to the "National Universities" methodology this year included how many of a college's graduates earn more than the average young adult who has only a high-school diploma, the graduation rates of first-generation students at the college, and measures of faculty members' citations and the prestige of their publications. To make room for these new factors, U.S. News dropped metrics such as class sizes, the proportion of faculty who have terminal degrees in their fields, and alumni donation rates. The most important factor in the rankings, a college's reputation as measured by a survey that college leaders fill out, is still worth 20 percent of the college's overall score. |
| Why Colleges Can't Quit the U.S. News Rankings | |
 | Yale Law School started the exodus last November: Dozens of law and medical schools, many among America's most elite, vowed not to cooperate with the U.S. News & World Report rankings juggernaut. The publisher's priority-skewing formula was flawed, administrators complained, as was the notion that schools could be scored and sorted as if they were mattresses or microwaves. Critics of the rankings dared to hope that undergraduate programs at the same universities would defect, too. But despite generations of private grousing about U.S. News, most of those colleges conspicuously skipped the uprising. Yale, Harvard and dozens of other universities continued to submit data for U.S. News's annual undergraduate rankings, the 2024 edition of which will be released on Monday. "It's been very stable, and that's a good thing," said Eric J. Gertler, the executive chairman of U.S. News. That the rebellion went only so far, for now, has underscored the psychic hold that the rankings have on American higher education, even for the country's most renowned schools. The rankings remain a front door, an easy way to reach and enchant possible applicants. And their reach goes beyond prospective students since proud alumni and donors track them, too. Although a recent survey found that nearly three-fifths of college-bound high school seniors "considered" rankings to some degree, more than half reported that colleges put too great an emphasis on them, according to Art & Science Group, a consultancy that works with public and private universities. Oftentimes, administrators and researchers said, students may use rankings to prepare an initial list of potential matches, but make a final enrollment decision based on other factors -- from a financial aid package to a dining hall's breakfast-for-dinner buffet. |
| Student-Loan Restart Threatens to Pull $100 Billion Out of Consumers' Pockets | |
| The restart of student-loan payments could divert up to $100 billion from Americans' pockets over the coming year, leaving consumers squeezed and some of the nation's largest retailers fearing a spending slowdown. Starting Oct. 1, tens of millions of student-loan borrowers will need to make payments averaging between $200 and $300 each month. The payments will mark the first time that borrowers have had to make good on their loans since the Education Department instituted a pause in March 2020. In the interim, they spent the money on televisions, travel, new homes and thousands of other products. That spending is one reason the economy has remained resilient in recent years, despite a surge in interest rates. What the resumption of loan payments means for the broader economy, however, is up for debate, and at least two groups watching closely disagree. Target, Walmart and other retailers that depend on discretionary spending are concerned. Economists, on the other hand, say the renewed payments are a relatively small problem for the more than $18 trillion in annual U.S. consumer spending. Inside Americans' homes, the debate doesn't matter. Borrowers say they are curtailing their spending in meaningful ways. Making the payments will add another financial obligation to rising credit-card bills, gasoline prices and other costs, and they say uncomfortable cuts will be necessary. |
| Citizens favor, leaders fear ballot initiatives | |
| Syndicated columnist Bill Crawford writes: Thirty-one years ago in November, an overwhelming 70% of voters approved a ballot initiative process for Mississippi. Two years ago, the Mississippi Supreme Court threw out the process over a wording blunder. Despite state leaders' calls for the process to be reinstated, that has not happened. So, another November general election will pass with citizens denied their right to alter their constitution. Soon after the court decision, Gov. Tate Reeves, Speaker Philip Gunn and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann said the initiative should be reinstated. "Getting it fixed sooner rather than later is where we as the Legislature should be," said Gunn in May 2021. Two years later, Hosemann said, "I was for the ballot initiative, and I didn't get it," when he and Gunn could not agree on the details of a revised initiative process in the 2023 legislative session. Hmm. In 2021, the thought was to fix the language and reinstate the process. By 2023, leaders' thoughts had shifted significantly. My take is that the governor, lieutenant governor and speaker got scared of the initiative process, particularly the latter two. Enjoying immense power over legislation and public policy, they feared citizen initiatives would diminish that power. |
| Mississippi politicians have long history of opposing efforts to provide health care for their citizens | |
| Mississippi Today's Bobby Harrison writes: There's a strong feeling of déjà vu in Mississippi politics. When Haley Barbour began his successful 2003 gubernatorial campaign, he criticized Democratic incumbent Ronnie Musgrove for expanding the state's welfare rolls. Barbour was referring to the fact that during the Musgrove administration, enrollment in the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) increased significantly. When Musgrove took office in January 2000, a little more than 12,000 Mississippi children were signed up for the health insurance program that was enacted by Congress in 1997. When Musgrove left office, defeated by Barbour in his 2003 reelection bid, almost 83,000 children were enrolled in the program. CHIP is a federal program that provides health insurance for children of the working poor -- parents who make too much money to qualify for Medicaid, but work in jobs where employer-based insurance is not provided and their pay makes purchasing insurance prohibitive. Musgrove was proud that his administration increased enrollment in CHIP. He viewed obtaining health insurance for children who otherwise would not have it as a good thing. After all, the federal government was paying the bulk of the cost. In Mississippi politics, the more things change the more they stay the same. This year, 20 years later, Democrat Brandon Presley is challenging Republican incumbent Gov. Tate Reeves and is making Medicaid expansion a focus of his campaign. |
| PERS tapping same ole well | |
| The Greenwood Commonwealth's Tim Kalich writes: Those who complain that their property taxes are already too high should pay closer attention to what is happening with Mississippi's Public Employees' Retirement System. The pension plan that covers about 1 out of every 7 adults in this state is financially out of control and only going to get worse. For years, the PERS board has been trying to close the system's long-term projected shortfall by jacking up the percentage that employers -- i.e., the taxpayers -- contribute into the pension plan for state, city and county employees as well as those who work at public schools, colleges and universities. Since 2005, the employer rate has been increased eight times, and it's expected to increase 2 percentage points for each of the next five years, starting on July 1, 2024, ultimately hitting 27.4%. Assuming the employee rate stays at 9%, that means by 2028, for every dollar that a public employee earns, 36.4 cents will be needed to fund PERS. That's almost three times what Social Security taxes presently cost employers and employees combined. Cities and counties around the state are warning the PERS board that there's no way they can swallow the next five years of projected increases without cutting services or raising taxes. |
| Roses and thorns: 9-16-23 | |
| The Dispatch Editorial Board writes: A rose to the 16 Golden Triangle students who were named this week as National Merit Semifinalists. Mississippi School for Math and Science has 14 semifinalists while Starkville High School has two. They are among 16,000 of the 1.3 million students who entered the program seeking to attain semifinalist status. MSMS students named as semifinalists are Heaven Alvarado, Ean Choi, Maryann Dang, Jules Gallo, Sebastian Harvey, Noah Lee, Ethan Liao, Jacob Neal, Gabriel Petitt, Landon Tu, Dorothy Virges, Jackson Williams, Iris Xue and Junran Zhou. Starkville High students Harrison Holliday and Jenna Holder are also semifinalists. These students will have the opportunity to continue in the competition for some 7,140 National Merit Scholarships worth nearly $28 million that will be offered next spring. Congratulations and good luck! |
SPORTS
| MS State President Keenum praises SEC Network's success | |
| Video: On The Paul Finebaum Show, Dr. Mark Keenum applauds the innovative partnership between the conference and ESPN in creating and sustaining the SEC Network. |
| Dawgs Take Down Tigers 1-0 To Open SEC Play | |
| In the highly anticipated 2023 SEC Soccer Opener, the Dawgs met with a very familiar foe in the Tigers of Auburn on a Starkville Friday night. As the sun began its descent over the MSU Soccer Field, the stands were filled with the Maroon and White faithful while the buzz of the West End resonated around the pitch. It was time for kickoff, and it was a Dawgs Day indeed. The scoring action was limited in the first half, with both teams showcasing solid defensive performances. Auburn struggled to generate scoring opportunities, managing only two shots in the first half. MSU, on the other hand, displayed their attacking prowess with eight shots in the opening 45 minutes. After the half, State continued its relentless attack, getting into the defensive third at will and registering shot after shot on goal in front of a West End who gathered behind Auburn's Maddie Prohaska racked up seven saves throughout the match. State had been on the attack all night, however, the match was looking to end in a hard-fought 0-0 stalemate. In the 88th minute, that narrative changed. With the clock winding down, State took a throw-in at midfield that Aitana Martinez-Montoya was able to corral and head towards goal with. Martinez-Montoya had a step on the defender and was looked to send the Dawgs home happy. As the cowbells reached their crescendo and the crowd looked for the game-winner, Haley McWhirter had found a seam down the left sideline and was ready for her moment. The junior took advantage of the through pass by Martinez-Montoya and sent the Dawgs home happy as State's eighth shot on goal on the night found the back of the net with only 1:22 left on the clock. |
| Late winner leads Mississippi State soccer past Auburn in conference opener | |
| Haley McWhirter knew the cross would be right where she wanted it. Mississippi State's junior midfielder was making a run up the left side of the pitch in the 89th minute of a scoreless match against Auburn on Friday night. Junior forward Aitana Martinez-Montoya had just shaken free of a defender on a counterattack, and she slotted a pass perfectly between two defenders. McWhirter sprinted forward to get onto the end of it and one-timed a left-footed shot into the net, lifting the Bulldogs to a dramatic 1-0 victory over the Tigers to open Southeastern Conference play. "We fought really hard throughout the game and we deserved the goal," McWhirter said. "We were just so close, and it came in the last two minutes. I saw the ball go forward and I knew Aitana was going to cross that ball to me. I knew I had to be there, and I was there." MSU (6-1-2, 1-0-0 SEC) had chances aplenty to go in front earlier, getting off 16 shots to just five for Auburn (4-3-2, 0-1-0) and earning nine corner kicks to the Tigers' two. "We've got a lot of work to do. Hopefully we're not peaking right now," Armstrong said. "We've got to tighten everything up. We've got to get the ball down a little earlier and play our style. We've also got to be able to run in behind at times; our movement could have been a little bit better. But overall, that's what coaching is all about. We've got a great group of young ladies who come every day and work hard." |
| Bulldogs Complete 7-3 Non-Conference Schedule With Four-Set Win | |
| Mississippi State's volleyball team found the response it needed to grind out a winning weekend as the Bulldogs knocked off Abilene Christian to conclude the Maroon & White Invite and non-conference play. Abilene Christian (5-7) took the first 25-21, but State (7-3) stormed back to take the following three sets 25-23, 25-16, 25-14. "I thought our leaders did a really good job today," head coach Julie Darty Dennis said. Amina [Shackelford] and Lauren [Myrick] are leaders for us and they had to carry a huge load. I was really proud of the team for figuring out a way to fight it out and win; it was pretty gritty. I think we are exactly where we need to be heading into SEC play. I said at the beginning of the year that we are a young group, we do not have a ton of experience. We learned a lot this preseason, so I am pretty excited to head to Texas A&M this week." State will head to College Station, Texas, for its SEC opener against Texas A&M on Wednesday. First serve is set for 7 p.m. CT. |
| Why LSU warmed up at car dealership ahead of Mississippi State | |
| College football is as much a game of innovation as it is players and Xs and Os. Brian Kelly and No. 14 LSU put that idea into practice on Saturday against Mississippi State. The Tigers, who needed to drive an hour to Starkville, Mississippi from their team hotel in Tupelo, decided to break up an hour-long drive with a curious pit stop: a car dealership. Asked about it after the game, second-year Tigers coach Brian Kelly said he wanted to make sure his team didn't fall asleep before the game's 11 a.m. CT kickoff. The tactic appeared to work beautifully, as the Tigers scored a 41-14 victory over the Bulldogs. "It was when we looked at the trip as being over an hour I felt like I didn't want the team sleeping and falling asleep on the bus," Kelly told reporters. "So we found a spot that we use one of our car dealers to make a call and there was a dealership right off the highway. We pulled the buses and we did our substitution drill just to get our guys up thinking about their substitution on special teams. We did a little light stretch, it was only about 10 minutes, but it got them up but got them alert. And the idea again, was just to break up the trip. So that was about 45 minutes and then we only had about 20 minutes (remaining on the trip)." |
| 10 years after USC fired him on the tarmac, Lane Kiffin believes he can weather any storm | |
 | The first meeting of the summer session for the Mississippi coaching staff doesn't start with football. Before they step into their roles as coordinators or assistants on this Wednesday morning in June, Lane Kiffin wants them to be fathers and husbands. As they walk into the conference room, tall coffees in hand, the conversation revolves around their kids' baseball games. "We're going to talk about temptation," says Fish Robinson, Kiffin's pastor and a friend of the program. "I just pray we'll be honest and real about where we're at." A young man named Jared Farlow sits at the head of the table to lead today's coaches devotion. He describes temptation as a "crack in the foundation that the enemy uses to make war with us, to get us off path." "Why is laying a strong foundation so important?" Farlow asks. There's a bit of silence, but Kiffin won't allow it to get awkward. "The house analogy of ... get the foundation right, take your time, then the storms come, and issues come, you'll have a chance," Kiffin says in a low mumble. Kiffin, 48, can speak with authority on this one. When the biggest storm of his life came out of nowhere 10 years ago, he had nothing firm to fall back on. "The Tarmac" remains an oft-used punchline for college football fans today, but for Kiffin, his 4 a.m. firing on the tarmac at LAX by USC athletic director Pat Haden was more than a public humiliation. It was acute trauma, shattering his self-image. "Like Coach is saying about the house, you can build a massive, beautiful structure," Robinson says, "but if the foundation is not healthy, it will crumble." Three months after this pensive moment with his staff, Kiffin's freshly laid foundation is being tested. A storm of his own making is gathering, in the form of a lawsuit filed against Kiffin and Ole Miss by Rebels defensive tackle DeSanto Rollins. The suit alleges that Kiffin kicked Rollins off the team last spring for missing practices and refused to meet with him during what Rollins says was a mental-health crisis. |
| Former Trinity Episcopal football standout files $10M suit against Ole Miss, Lane Kiffin over mental health issues | |
 | A former Trinity Episcopal School standout is suing Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin and the university for $10 million, citing unfair treatment in the wake of mental health issues. DeSanto Rollins, a defensive tackle for Ole Miss, filed a federal lawsuit Thursday against the university and Kiffin for failure to provide equal protection, racial and sexual discrimination and multiple other allegations. Rollins is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages and $30 million in punitive damages. The backup lineman has been plagued by injuries during his collegiate career. He was a student at the former Trinity Episcopal School, where he had standout careers in both basketball and football before the school closed. Rollins was a member of the 2018 Saints basketball team that won a South State championship. He played defense on the football team and in 2017 was named to second team All-Metro team by The Natchez Democrat. Rollins was honored in 2017 by the Miss-Lou chapter of the National Football Foundation and College Hall of Fame as one of 14 standout student athletes in the Miss-Lou. He transferred to Parkview Baptist School in Baton Rouge, La., after Trinity closed in May 2018, and graduated from there. He then signed a scholarship to play for Ole Miss. The suit alleges that Kiffin discriminated against Rollins "on account of race for requesting and taking and mental health break, but not taking adverse action against white student athletes" who made the same request. Moreover, the suit cites sexual discrimination stating that Ole Miss has not taken "adverse against female student-athletes for requesting and taking a mental break." |
| In court filing, Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy fight allegations that they got rich off Michael Oher | |
| A Memphis couple who took in former NFL offensive lineman Michael Oher when he was in high school denied in court documents filed Thursday that they used a legal agreement between them to get rich at his expense and lied about intending to adopt him. Lawyers for Sean and Leigh Anne Tuohy filed a response to Oher's Aug. 14 request for a judge to end a conservatorship signed in 2004 when Oher was an 18-year-old high school football player in Memphis and a prized college recruit. Oher had a troubled childhood and moved in with the Tuohy family, in a story that was the subject of the film "The Blind Side," which earned Sandra Bullock an Oscar for her portrayal of Leigh Anne Tuohy. Oher, 37, filed his petition in probate court accusing the Tuohys of lying to him by having him sign papers making them his conservators rather than his adoptive parents nearly two decades ago. Oher wants the conservatorship to be terminated, a full accounting of the money earned off his name and story to be done and to be paid what he is due, with interest. The Tuohys have called the claims they enriched themselves at his expense outlandish, hurtful and absurd and part of a "shakedown" by Oher. Lawyers representing the couple also said the Tuohys would enter into a consent order to end the conservatorship. The Tuohys said they conservatorship was the tool chosen to comply with NCAA rules that would have kept Oher from attending the University of Mississippi, where Sean Tuohy had been a standout basketball player. |
| Missouri fined $100K under new SEC policy after fans rush field | |
| Missouri became the first school to be fined under the SEC's revised policy after fans rushed the field in Columbia following Saturday's 30-27 walk-off win over Kansas State. Because it was Missouri's first offense, the school will pay $100,000. The money will go to the SEC Post-Graduate Scholarship Fund. The conference, during its annual spring meetings, voted to increase fines for violating the field access policy. A school's second offense will result in a $250,000 fine. A $500,000 fine will be handed out for third and subsequent offenses. According to the policy, "institutions shall limit access to competition areas to participating student-athletes, coaches, officials, support personnel and properly credentialed or authorized individuals at all times. For the safety of participants and spectators alike, at no time before, during or after a contest may spectators enter the competition area." Missouri beat then-No. 15 Kansas State on Harrison Mevis' 61-yard field goal that split the uprights with no time left. Mevis' kick set the record for the longest field goal in SEC history. The previous record was 60 yards, done three times, most recently in 1984 by Georgia's Kevin Butler and Florida's Chris Perkins. |
| Union Push by Dartmouth Athletes Is Distinct From Previous Failed Efforts | |
| When the Dartmouth College men's basketball team filed a petition to unionize this week, it was a reminder of how much the movement for player empowerment has grown in college sports. The petition, filed to the National Labor Relations Board by the Service Employees International Union, was unanimously signed by all 15 players on the team, the union said. It was immediately backed by supporters of more rights for college athletes, and Dartmouth itself said it was considering how to respond. The Dartmouth team's effort joins a long line of recent actions that have challenged the N.C.A.A.'s student-athlete model, which has come under heightened scrutiny in recent years. States have enabled athletes to be paid for endorsement deals, and the Supreme Court has said that leaders of the sport cannot not stop modest payments and benefits related to education. In February, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit heard oral arguments for a case in which a former Villanova football player asserted that college athletes are employees. The N.C.A.A. is also facing a $1.3 billion class-action lawsuit from current and former players over the use of their name, image and likeness in television broadcasts. And the Ivy League itself is facing litigation, after current and former Brown University basketball players filed a lawsuit against the conference in March to challenge its practice of not awarding athletic scholarships. "We are just in a completely different place with college sports," said Jason Stahl, the founder and executive director of the College Football Players Association, which promotes the unionization efforts of college football players. |
| The Hottest Conference in College Football Might Not Exist Next Year | |
| At this time last year, the Pac12 conference was down in the football dumps, with the worst team in major Division I football and seven years separating it from its last trip to the College Football Playoff. By this time next year the Pac-12 may not even exist. But in 2023? The Pac-12 is the hottest league in college football. In what is its final season of existence, at least in the form it has long been known, the self-described "Conference of Champions" is living up to its name. Eight of its teams are ranked in the Associated Press Top 25 -- and the seven of them that were in action on Saturday all won. The wins included No. 8 Washington smashing future Big Ten conference mate Michigan State 41-7 and No. 18 Colorado -- the team that won just one game last year -- continuing its Deion Sanders-led revival with a riveting 43-35 comeback win in two overtimes. No. 5 Southern California, with defending Heisman Trophy winner quarterback Caleb Williams, was idle. The Pac-12's resurgence coincides with an unexpected slump in the mighty Southeastern Conference. Through the first two weeks of the season, SEC teams combined to go 3-6 in games against teams from the other major conferences -- the Atlantic Coast, Big 12, Big Ten and Pac-12 It improved slightly in Week 3, with two wins and one loss, as Arkansas lost to Brigham Young at home. That doesn't even capture the near upset that took place in Tampa, when Alabama squeaked out a 17-3 win over South Florida, a team from the American Athletic Conference. This all could augur for a topsy-turvy football season ahead without a single dominant team. Meanwhile, one of the biggest reasons behind the Pac-12's resurgence this fall is the quarterbacks populating the league. The vast majority of them, including Williams, didn't start their collegiate careers out west. It's a proof of concept for using the transfer portal to overcome lackluster high school recruiting. It's also a sign of this new era of college football where the balance of power can shift dramatically in the span of an offseason. |
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