| Tuesday, September 17, 2024 |
| Education: MSU garners $9.9 million grant to advance workforce integration for Mississippians with disabilities | |
 | A team of faculty members in Mississippi State's College of Education has been awarded a $9.9 million grant by the U.S. Department of Education's Rehabilitation Services Administration to help individuals with disabilities gain and retain meaningful employment in the Magnolia State. The five-year grant "Career Horizons Project: A 21st Century Workforce Initiative for Mississippians with Disabilities Accompanied by or Resulting from Long COVID Syndrome" seeks to facilitate competitive integrated employment for those who have acquired a disability due to Long COVID Syndrome. The project is expected to impact 700 Mississippians with a focus on vulnerable populations, such as those living in poverty or rural areas. The principal investigator of the grant is Zaccheus Ahonle, assistant professor and program coordinator of the rehabilitation counseling graduate program housed in MSU's Department of Counseling, Higher Education Leadership, Educational Psychology and Foundations. The team also includes Madeline Castle, assistant professor of rehabilitation counseling; Kasee Stratton-Gadke, associate professor and executive director of the Mississippi Institute on Disabilities; and Daniel Gadke, College of Education associate dean of research, professor and department head. "Our team is honored to receive this transformative funding," Ahonle said. |
| MSU seminar highlights spray drone regulations, research | |
 | Those interested in learning about the use of unmanned aircraft systems as row crop application sprayers are invited to a seminar at Mississippi State University. The MSU Spray Drone/UAS Seminar will be held at the Bost Extension Center on Oct. 9 from 9 to 11 a.m. This meeting will be presented in person and available online. Topics include regulatory updates, the current Federal Aviation Administration-approved spray drone list, current and potential spray drone restrictions and ongoing spray drone research at MSU. MSU is partnering with the Mississippi Agricultural Industry Council (MAIC) and the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce (MDAC) to host the event. Speakers from MAIC, MDAC and the MSU Agricultural Autonomy Institute will be featured. Supporting sponsors include the MSU Extension Service, the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, the MSU College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, the Mississippi Soybean Promotion Board and the Mississippi Corn Promotion Board. |
| 'Horror wasp' is the new buzz as Mississippi scientists discover frightening insect species | |
 | Have you heard the new buzz around town? An assistant professor at Mississippi State University has led to the discovery of a frightening new parasitic wasp species with peculiar origins. In an article penned in the world's leading science journal, Nature, Assistant Professor Matthew Ballinger explains how his team's efforts paved the way for researchers to discover a species of wasps that use fruit flies to give birth. The wasps, coined Syntretus perlmani, are found to use their stingers to lay eggs in a fruit fly's abdomen. The wasp embryo then hatches inside the living fly and bursts out of the fly's belly looking like a mutant alien creature around 18 days later. To make matters even scarier, the host fly typically remains alive long enough to endure the early stages of the brutality before ultimately passing away. "It will effectively emerge out of the side of the fly," Logan Moore, Ballinger's Ph.D. student at Mississippi State who helped spearhead the research, told Live Science. "And just to add an additional layer of horror, the fly will normally remain alive for several hours after that." Moore, the Nature article's lead author, began the research in March 2023 by collecting infected fruit flies from his backyard in Starkville. The researchers were screening the fruit flies for parasitic worms. A turn in the research was taken when the team first noticed a peculiar spiky-tailed wasp larva. |
| Community Profile: Lifelong Bulldogs fan Craven is the in-house voice of MSU athletics | |
| The timing could not have worked out more perfectly for Anthony Craven. With two degrees from Mississippi State under his belt, Craven was working as the news and public affairs director at MSU's campus radio station in 2014 as well as a play-by-play announcer for Bulldogs soccer, volleyball and softball games. Jonathan Holmes, the public address announcer for MSU football and basketball at the time, suffered a heart attack from which he ultimately recovered, but he needed to take some time away from the microphone. The athletic department held an open tryout for Holmes' temporary replacement, and Craven won the job. The Bulldogs experienced unprecedented success to start the 2014 season, rising to the No. 1 ranking by mid-October, so then-athletic director Scott Stricklin told Craven he could remain the voice of Davis Wade Stadium for the rest of the season. He is still in that position today. "A little bit at least was out of superstition. Let's not mess anything up," Craven said. "Everything is going so well right now. And Jonathan Holmes was fine with that. I did football only for a couple of years while Jonathan did basketball and baseball, but after a couple of years, Jonathan was ready to give everything up except for baseball." "As someone who grew up a State fan, still am a State fan, to get to do this in the stadium and go to all the football games and all the men's and women's basketball games, I'm like a kid," Craven said. "I hope they let me do it for a long time. I hope the fans enjoy the fact that I'm having fun. Most PA guys at different levels, that's their goal. I hope the fans appreciate that I'm one of them." |
| Public hearing Thursday on potential OCH sale | |
| Citizens can weigh in on the potential sale or lease of OCH Regional Medical Center during a public hearing set for 5:30 p.m. Thursday in the courtroom of the chancery courthouse. The county owns the hospital and is exploring a sale or lease for the second time in seven years. Voters overwhelmingly rejected privatizing OCH in 2017. Marvell Howard, president for the Oktibbeha County Board of Supervisors, said supervisors plan to share a strategic operations assessment of the hospital prepared by Raymond James Financial Services. OCH board members and administrators will also attend. "The role of the board of supervisors at this point was to engage a professional (service) that could do some data gathering for the county, and sort of give us a picture of the state of things at OCH," Howard said. "And once we received that information, our role then was to share that with the citizens of Oktibbeha County." The assessment, which was presented to the board in executive session during its Aug. 26 meeting, is available on the county's website. It includes information on the hospital's income, debt profile, capital spending, utilization, nursing staff and retention, revenue leakage and more. |
| Education: 15 local students named 2025 National Merit Scholarship semifinalists | |
| Out of the 16,000 students who were named semifinalists in the 70th annual National Merit Scholarship Program, 15 are local students. The Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science has 13 semifinalists: Aden Byrd, Rebecca Candland, Andy Chen, Yaerim Choi, Joseph Deano, Andrew Dowdy, Isabella Givens, Henry Harrison, Theodore Lai, Anderson Lin, Langston Smith, Ryan Wu and Aaron Zmitrovich. Emma Spradling from Starkville High School and Nathan Gordon from East Webster High School were also announced as semifinalists. The 16,000 semifinalists were chosen from 1.3 million students who entered the competition as juniors by taking the 2023 Preliminary SAT/National Merit Scholarship Qualifying Test, which served as an initial screen of program entrants. Of the semifinalists, about 95% are expected to advance to the next level, with approximately half winning a National Merit Scholarship and being named Merit Scholars. There will be three types of National Merit Scholarships offered in the spring. Every finalist will compete for a $2,500 scholarship that will be awarded on a state-representational basis. Finalists who meet specific criteria will compete for about 770 corporate-sponsored Merit Scholarship Awards. Around 3,600 other scholarship awards will be financed by about 150 colleges and universities. |
| New state party directors want more campaign dollars, young voters ahead of Nov. 5 | |
 | The Mississippi Democratic Party and the Mississippi Republican Party both have new executive directors to guide efforts to garner more members, increase voter turnout and provide more support to political candidates. State Democratic and Republican party chairs Cheikh Taylor and Mike Hurst, respectively, told the Clarion Ledger they have selected new directors to shepherd increased efforts on both party membership and turnout to the polls as both parties seek to increase women, minorities and younger voter membership. Columbia (Mississippi)-native Mikel Bolden replaced Andre Wagner as the Mississippi Democratic Party executive director in late July, and Rance Bilbo, a Madison native with familial ties to Jackson and the Delta, replaced Tate Lewis in August. Before becoming executive director, Bilbo worked in government relations for four years at the Clearwater Group in Jackson. Bilbo has also worked in fundraising, election consulting, grassroots campaigns and strategic communications. Bilbo also ran a social media company and graduated from Mississippi State University with a bachelor's degree in political science and pre-law. Before becoming executive director, Bolden served as an administrative assistant to Wagner since 2023. She has also worked in the Hinds County Public Defender's Office, as well as in a private law firm for eight years as a paralegal in Jackson. She graduated from Tougaloo College with a bachelor's degree in political science and from Jackson State University with a master's degree in criminology and justice services. |
| Senate Republicans losing patience with Johnson as shutdown nears | |
 | Republican senators are fast losing patience with Speaker Mike Johnson's (R-La.) inability to muster the votes to avoid a government shutdown at the end of September, and are warning they will take matters into their own hands if the House fails to act by Thursday. GOP senators fear Congress may stumble into a shutdown if Johnson can't get a short-term funding measure passed by the end of the week and are ready to work with Senate Democrats to stave off a potential disaster before Election Day. Unless there's a breakthrough in the House over the next two days, the Senate is expected to move first by advancing a bill without any controversial policy riders that would fund the government until mid-December. "It's becoming a mess. Especially our military -- they're suffering. Even if you do a [continuing resolution], you know they don't get the money they'd normally get. This whole thing's a debacle," Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-Ala.) said of the stalled funding process. Senate Republicans say Senate Democrats deserve a heap of blame for not moving any of the regular annual spending bills to the floor, despite most of them having already passed through the Appropriations Committee. But they're growing increasingly alarmed that Congress may blunder into a shutdown that hurts their chances of taking back control of the Senate while Johnson battles with House conservatives and defense hawks over the contours of a short-term funding bill. |
| Federal Debt Is Soaring. Here's Why Trump and Harris Aren't Talking About It. | |
 | The U.S. isn't fighting a war, a crisis or a recession. Yet the federal government is borrowing as if it were. This year's budget deficit is on track to top $1.9 trillion, or more than 6% of economic output, a threshold reached only around World War II, the 2008 financial crisis and the Covid-19 pandemic. Publicly held federal debt -- the sum of all deficits -- just passed $28 trillion or almost 100% of GDP. If Congress does nothing, the total debt will climb by another $22 trillion through 2034. Interest costs alone are poised to exceed annual defense spending. But the country's fiscal trajectory merits only sporadic mentions by the major-party presidential nominees, let alone a serious plan to address it. Instead, the candidates are tripping over each other to make expensive promises to voters. Economists and policymakers already worry that the growing debt pile could put upward pressure on interest rates, restraining economic growth, crowding out other priorities and potentially impairing Washington's ability to borrow in case of a war or another crisis. There have been scattered warning signs already, including downgrades to the U.S. credit rating and lackluster demand for Treasury debt at some auctions. Whoever wins in November will soon face two big fiscal tests. One is the need to raise the federal debt limit, likely in mid-2025. In both 2011 and 2023, the threat of default without a debt-limit increase led to compromises that reduced red ink. The other trigger is the looming expiration of much of the 2017 tax law. If Congress doesn't act by the end of 2025, taxes would rise on most households, a path to deficit reduction that both parties say they don't want. |
| 'The most complex, dynamic and dangerous threat environment I've experienced' | |
 | The toxic political climate and a complex web of threats -- punctuated by Sunday's apparent assassination attempt on Donald Trump -- is putting an extraordinary strain on the national security officials tasked with safeguarding American democracy. Security experts say sharp polarization and increasingly hateful political rhetoric -- fanned by foreign adversaries and supercharged by social media -- have combined to test the nation's ability to protect its candidates and institutions. "The 2024 presidential election is taking place at a time when the U.S. is facing the most complex, dynamic, and dangerous threat environment I've experienced in the 40-plus years that I've been working in law enforcement, homeland security, and national security," said John Cohen, a former senior Homeland Security intelligence and counterterrorism official. "We're facing cyber, physical, and other threats by foreign and domestic threat actors, and what's different today is how they have fully embraced the power of the internet," Cohen added. Ryan Williams, a former aide to Mitt Romney who worked on his presidential bids, said in an interview that the violence directed toward Trump is like nothing he's seen in his lifetime and that he fears the attempts on the former president's life could inspire copycat shooters. "We could potentially see that now in politics," Williams said. "It's scary because you can't protect everybody in politics. There are hundreds of congressmen and senators and high-profile people -- it's just not possible to secure them all if this is what's going to happen." |
| Trump's golf outings have long concerned Secret Service | |
 | Soon after Donald Trump became president, authorities tried to warn him about the risks posed by golfing at his own courses because of their proximity to public roads. Secret Service agents came armed with unusual evidence: not suspect profiles or spent bullet casings, but simple photographs taken by news crews of him golfing at his private club in Sterling, Va. They reasoned that if photographers with long-range lenses could get the president in their sights while he golfed, so, too, could potential gunmen, according to former U.S. officials involved in the discussions. Like most others interviewed for this story, they spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the matter's sensitivity. But Trump insisted that his clubs were safe and that he wanted to keep golfing, the former officials said. These preferences posed problems for his protection that former Trump aides, Secret Service officials and security experts said have only intensified in the years since he left the White House, as his security detail shrank and agents no longer maintained as extensive a perimeter guarding his movements. A Trump spokesman did not respond to a request for comment. Trump pitches and putts at his own private clubs, elite enclaves that are nevertheless open to some members of the public and their guests. The courses are located in heavily trafficked communities. And while they're surrounded by some fencing, the greens lack hardened perimeters. The result is a security nightmare for the Secret Service and their partners in local law enforcement, especially without the added staff and tools devoted to protecting the sitting president. |
| Appeals court sounds skeptical of TikTok challenge to potential ban | |
 | Video-sharing app TikTok and a group of its users faced a skeptical federal appeals court during oral arguments Monday in a bid to overturn a law that would mandate the company's U.S. subsidiary be sold or face a ban, as a panel of judges focused on the company's China-based ownership. Attorneys for the social media giant and content creators urged the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to find that the law would infringe on the free speech rights of the platform and its users. But the three judges on the panel spent much of Monday's two-hour arguments focused on Congress' designation of China as an "adversary" of the United States and the company's ties to its China-based parent company, ByteDance. All three judges raised concerns about the risks of limiting congressional ability to regulate what a foreign adversary or enemy in war could own in the United States. Judge Neomi Rao said that, even if it did impact what TikTok or its users could say online, the law "is also regulating foreign ownership, which is a separate, non-expressive interest of the federal government." Members of Congress and the Biden administration have argued that the Chinese government could force ByteDance to provide access to the reams of data it has about TikTok users or allow manipulation of content on the application in ways that compromise U.S. interests. "There is so much happening in China outside the United States that it poses a grave national security risk," Justice Department attorney Daniel Tenny said Monday. |
| DOJ awards over $3 million to bolster public safety in Mississippi | |
| Three Mississippi universities have received grants from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) towards projects that will improve public safety and strengthen law enforcement in the Southern District of the state. The DOJ's Office of Justice Programs awarded the trio of grants to the University of Southern Mississippi, the University of Mississippi Medical Center, and Copiah-Lincoln Community College. All three grants are part of the office's 2024 Byrne Discretionary Community Project Grants – named in honor of New York City Police Officer Edward R. Byrne, who was killed in the line of duty on February 26, 1988, at 22 years old. A total of $3 million was awarded to Southern Miss to implement an initiative that will address the digital forensics needs of rural communities, the provision of forensic services, and creation of social media educational tools to assist with law enforcement officer training in digital forensic investigations. The University of Mississippi Medical Center received $380,000 in funding to enhance the school's security infrastructure through comprehensive upgrades of its existing CCTV system. |
| How Belhaven enrollment numbers compare to similar schools. You might be surprised | |
 | While Belhaven's enrollment numbers may be down a tick from 2023, there is no panic from the administration in Midtown Jackson. This year, Belhaven has a traditional-student population of approximately 1,000 students. The total enrollment of Belhaven University for 2023 was 4,400 students last fall with adult, graduate and online programs, making up the remaining enrollment. This year, that total number is down to 4,005. That's 1,000 students on campus, roughly 1,000 online and another 1,000 graduate students, most of which are also online. Compared to other schools throughout the nation that are classified as NCAA Division 3 institutions in athletics, the overall number of students is almost shocking. With Millsaps at around 700 students and other colleges such as Sewanee (Tennessee), Rhodes (Tennessee) and Centre (Kentucky) at around 2,000 or less, Belhaven seems to be the outlier. "We have a really strong enrollment this fall, and we feel really good about where we came out," Belhaven President Roger Parrott told the Clarion Ledger. "This whole FAFSA thing has been tough for everyone, but we feel like we have come out on the other side pretty well." Parrott did not have the exact final numbers just yet on where the incoming freshman class will stand when all is said and done, but said it will not be a record for sure. The most freshmen to ever report for fall classes was in 2014 with 470. However, the president said the freshman numbers are up from the fall of 2023. |
| What record-setting enrollment at the U. of Kentucky means for the state | |
| Freshman Thomas Riley has had blue in his blood since he was a kid. "Coming from McLean County, the biggest thing over there is family. So, my dad going here, and everybody in my family being a UK fan, you know Big Blue, I always thought I was going to go to UK," said Riley. The freshman is part of a record-setting class for the University of Kentucky, which is welcoming over 6,500 first-year students. "I love [University of] Kentucky. Also, it's a great program for what I want to go into," said Riley. "To be in the biggest group of freshmen to come through here, it's pretty nice." Wildcats who stay in the state post-graduation fill a big community need. Kentucky traditionally has one of the lower labor participation rates in the country. "Kentuckians have a lot of pride in their state. They love their state, they want to make it better. UK is, in many ways the symbol of the state," said University Spokesperson Jay Blanton. Blanton says that the areas of study that are growing the most on campus are those that align with the state's needs, like Riley's, who wants to be a pharmacist. "That means the mission is meeting the moment," said Blanton. |
| Georgia's governor says a program to ease college admission is boosting enrollment | |
 | Georgia college enrollment is up significantly and Gov. Brian Kemp is crediting a program that sends letters to high school seniors urging them apply for admission. Preliminary numbers show enrollment rose 9% at technical colleges and 6% at state universities and colleges this fall compared to last year, the Republican governor said Friday at his annual workforce summit in Atlanta. The Georgia Match program sent 132,000 letters promising high school seniors admission based on their grades and a streamlined application. Applications to technical colleges rose 26%, while those to public universities and colleges rose 10%, Kemp said. Kemp and others say students can earn more and give the state a better-qualified workforce by continuing their education. The governor also said that making Georgia the "top state for talent" is key to driving economic growth. "If we want to ensure companies continue to choose Georgia, we need to grow a whole army of new workers," Kemp told attendees at the Georgia World Congress Center. The Georgia Match program is part of a nationwide trend called direct admission. The idea is to reach students who haven't been considering going to college. Kemp said more than half the students who received a letter applied for admission to a public Georgia college. |
| ESPN sportswriter to speak in Athens about book on Emmett Till's racially-motivated murder | |
 | Wright Thompson, a seasoned sportswriter who has covered entertaining sporting events from those hinged on a ball to those rolling on wheels, remembers a day when a story took him into life's bleak shadows. The writer walked into a barn in Mississippi where a notorious and extremely violent killing occurred in the years before he was even born. Here in 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till was tortured until his screams were silenced by death. "There is bad energy," Thompson said in describing his time inside the barn. Thompson's visit to "the barn" and his investigation into Till's slaying culminated with the book "The Barn: The Secret History of a Murder in Mississippi." The book will be released on Sept. 24. Thompson, a senior writer for ESPN.com, will be in downtown Athens on Oct. 1 for a lecture set for 7 p.m. in the Morton Theater. The visit, part of his multi-state book tour, is hosted by the University of Georgia's Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communication and the Wilson Center of Humanities and Arts. "Wright Thompson is one of America's greatest living storytellers, whether in sports for ESPN or in his growing catalogue of books. He's also a world-class raconteur," said Grady Dean Charles Davis, who was also Thompson's former journalism professor when both were at the University of Missouri. |
| UT-Austin tightens automatic admission threshold to 5% of Texas' top high schoolers | |
| High school students in Texas will need to be in the top 5% of their graduating class to gain automatic admission to the University of Texas at Austin to enroll in the fall of 2026, a harder threshold to meet than the current 6%. State law requires Texas public universities to provide automatic admission to Texas high schoolers who were in the top 10% of their graduating class. The Texas Legislature adjusted the rules for UT-Austin in 2009 to leave space for the university to accept other students, such as out-of-state students and student athletes. The top-ranked university has since been allowed to cap its automatic admittees to 75% of each freshman class. The remaining 25% is admitted through a holistic process that considers factors such as grade point average, extracurriculars and personal essays. The university can adjust the threshold for automatic admission every year to hit that balance. UT-Austin last lowered its automatic admission threshold from 7% to 6% in 2017, when a then-record of 51,000 applicants sought to join the university. The most recent change in the automatic admission rate is because UT-Austin continues to see the number of applicants grow, President Jay Hartzell told the university's Faculty Council on Monday. The university received a new record of 73,000 applications this year. |
| Students gain insight about health care industry at U. of Missouri Health Care expo | |
 | Hundreds of students from across Missouri learned about career and educational opportunities in health care Friday at the Tomorrow's Health Care Experts Expo. The expo, hosted by MU Health Care, featured immersive activities like radiographic imaging and a sawbones and splinting lab. Friday was the second annual health care expo and was open to middle and high school students. A key takeaway from the event was that there are various nonlinear paths to the health care field, said Nikki Carter, MU Health Care's director of belonging and community impact. "There are so many avenues that make the health care system function," Carter said. Carter said nurses and doctors often come to mind when people think of the health care field, but there are some "unknown" paths into health care as well. She said some examples include working on the health care aspects within fields like dining and nutrition, construction, human resources, marketing and engineering. Carter said when she was growing up, there was a misconception that a four-year degree program was the only path to success in the health care field. Understanding that there are many avenues into the industry helps students see themselves in the profession, Carter said. |
| 'We're being punked': UVa named No. 1 college for free speech | |
| The University of Virginia has been named the top college in the nation for free speech. It's a designation that has left some scratching their heads in light of an uptick in antisemitic and Islamophobic rhetoric, recent crackdowns on student protests and new restrictions on the time, place and manner of public demonstrations on the Grounds established 205 years ago by free speech advocate and Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. "Honestly, it feels like a sick joke," sixth-year M.D.-Ph.D. student Najwa Labban told The Daily Progress. "It feels like we're being punked." The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, otherwise known as FIRE, a nonprofit civil liberties organization backed by conservative and libertarian groups, announced on Sept. 5 that UVa had been named the No. 1 college in the nation for free speech and open inquiry. The announcement came mere days after UVa suspended its University Guide Service, criticized for pushing a "woke version of UVa history," and a little more than a week after the school revised 11 different policies limiting when, where and how students can protest, demonstrate and gather on Grounds. And just a month before the announcement, the school's Religious Diversity and Belonging Task Force, a group commissioned in December by UVa Provost Ian Baucom to investigate growing complaints of antisemitism and Islamophobia, reported that religion-based discrimination at UVa had increased 155% over the past academic year. |
| Teens are losing faith in college, giving rise to interest in the skilled trades | |
| Four years after the Covid pandemic began, there are more than 900,000 fewer undergraduates enrolled in college. The overall rate of high school graduates choosing to enroll in college held steady in 2023, compared to a year earlier, according to a recent report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center --- which Doug Shapiro, the Center's executive director, said was "an optimistic sign." Although the data shows the rate of high school graduates enrolling within a year of their graduation is significantly higher for students from low poverty high schools. "Large and widening gaps for low-income students continue to be a cause for concern," Shapiro said. Increasingly, worries over rising costs and large student loan balances are causing some high schoolers to make alternative plans after high school, a separate report by Junior Achievement and Citizens found. Junior Achievement and Citizen polled 1,000 teenagers between the ages of 13 and 18 in July. Roughly half, or 49%, believe a high school degree, trade program, two-year degree or other type of enrichment program is the highest level of education needed for their anticipated career path. Even more, 56%, believe that real world and on-the-job experience is more beneficial than obtaining a higher education degree. |
| Female Law Faculty, Students Across the Country Are Getting Unsettling Texts | |
 | It's not fair, you women are taking over the world now." That was one of the texts Shanta Trivedi, an assistant law professor at the University of Baltimore, told Inside Higher Ed she received from an unknown number on Jan. 30. More texts arrived the same day, she said, including, "Law school isn't fair for us men anymore. The women always outperform us now." She didn't respond. "I was terrified, because it sounded like a student who was upset," Trivedi said. "I also was teaching at night and my class happened to be all female, and I just felt very unnerved by the whole thing." She soon learned she wasn't the only female law professor at her university who had received one of these texts: A handful of others had all gotten them the same day or the next and reported them to an administrator. And she learned from another female law professor on social media that the University of Baltimore wasn't the only institution affected -- nor was the phenomenon confined to the East Coast. Alison Guernsey, a clinical law professor at the University of Iowa who was also texted, said, "The specific targeting of law faculty and now students is incredibly troubling." She said that the "particular focus on women law professors and now apparently women law students, if not a threat, is certainly intimidating and silencing." |
| Affirmative Action Gets Another Day in Court | |
| A little over a year after winning an end to affirmative action at the Supreme Court, Students for Fair Admissions is back in the courtroom. Yesterday marked the first day of trial in the group's case against the U.S. Naval Academy before a federal judge in Baltimore. It's the latest legal battle over the still-blurry contours of summer 2023's Supreme Court ruling, which struck down the practice at nearly all colleges and universities. For SFFA, the key word there is "nearly." In a footnote attached to his vague and at times self-contradictory majority opinion, Chief Justice John Roberts specifically excluded military academies from the affirmative action ban, citing their "potentially distinct interests" in enrolling a racially diverse student body -- namely, to diversify the officer corps of the U.S. military. But the court did not close off the possibility that the decision would be expanded to military institutions later; rather, the justices left the question open -- just as they did questions about whether it would apply to financial aid or hiring in the corporate world. "They simply knew there was a layer of complexity and difference associated with military academies that was not fully in the record or evaluated in a case about two traditional liberal arts institutions, and so they issued that footnote as a kind of caution flag," Art Coleman, founding partner of the higher ed law firm EducationCounsel LLC, told Inside Higher Ed. The Supreme Court justified the military academy exemption partly on the grounds that ensuring social cohesion in the armed forces is a national security concern. |
| Unions Outline Vision for Higher Ed Under a President Harris | |
| Unions representing graduate students, faculty and staff at hundreds of colleges nationwide called on Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic nominee, to help them "reclaim higher education as a public good." A coalition of 11 unions and labor organizations on Monday outlined their vision for higher education under a potential Harris administration, which includes debt-free college, strong support for collective bargaining at public universities and more federal funding of colleges. They also want Harris to pick an Education Secretary "who demonstrates a clear record of supporting higher education as a truly public good," according to the coalition's statement of unity. "Higher education is under attack," said Todd Wolfson, president of the American Association of University Professors and an associate professor of journalism and media studies at Rutgers University at New Brunswick. "As a sector, we have suffered through 50 years of defunding from the federal and state governments ... which has led to skyrocketing tuition to trillions in student debt and institutional debt, a lack of job security for workers on our campuses and mission drift where administrators and presidents that lead our institutions have forgotten the core purpose: teaching the next generation, creating critical, cutting-edge research and serving our communities." |
| Kamala Harris says she'll end college degree requirements for some federal jobs | |
 | Vice President Kamala Harris said she will cut college degree requirements for certain federal jobs if elected president as the Democratic presidential candidate and her Republican rival woo veters with economic pledges. Harris and Republican former President Donald Trump are in a tight race for the Nov. 5 U.S. elections. Harris has previously said she will aim to pass a middle class tax cut, while Trump has advocated for cutting taxes on overtime pay. Both candidates have supported eliminating taxes on tips. "As president, I will get rid of the unnecessary degree requirements for federal jobs to increase jobs for folks without a four-year degree," Harris on Friday in her speech in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. More than 62% of Americans age 25 or older did not hold a bachelor's degree, according to data released by the U.S. Census Bureau in early 2023. Americans without college degrees made up three out of five voters in 2020. The Democratic presidential candidate said on Friday the U.S. should recognize the value of paths to success beyond a college degree, like apprenticeships and technical programs. A degree does not necessarily indicate a person's skills, Harris said. She added: "And I will challenge the private sector to do the same." |
| Biden Celebrates Investments in Black Colleges While Promoting Harris | |
 | President Biden took the stage at an event for historically Black colleges and universities on Monday to promote a list investments and grants made to many of those schools under his watch, including a new $1.3 billion round of federal investments aimed in part at giving historically Black schools a competitive edge in research. The president's appearance at the conference in Philadelphia helped underscore a pledge to support historically Black institutions that he has returned to throughout his term, both in symbolic gestures such as addressing graduates at Howard University and Morehouse College, as well as more concrete measures such as boosting federal investment. "The promise of America, and I mean this sincerely, is big enough for everyone to succeed," Mr. Biden said. "And there's been no more important voice for that truth in the Black community than our H.B.C.U.s." Including the new funding announced on Monday, the Biden administration has directed more than $17 billion to historically Black colleges and universities, including $4 billion to help those schools bounce back from the pandemic through the American Rescue Plan and other Covid relief. Despite representing just 3 percent of all postsecondary institutions, historically Black colleges and universities educate 40 percent of all Black engineers, 50 percent of all Black teachers and 80 percent of all Black judges, according to federal work force data. |
| Trump's Road Map for Taking 'Woke' Out of American Education | |
| Donald Trump is vowing to take what he describes as wokeness out of America's schools if he is elected president. He and allies have a road map for doing so. The former president has said he would deploy federal powers to pressure schools and universities that he considers to be too liberal. One strategy that he has described would launch civil-rights investigations of schools that have supported transgender rights and racial diversity programs. Another tactic would use the college accreditation system, which sets standards for schools, to scale back diversity goals. Conservatives have previously decried the use of federal agencies -- sometimes derisively called the "deep state" -- by Democrats. Now, Trump and his allies have suggested they want to turn the tables. "We oppose the deep state, but what if the deep state were our guys?" said Max Eden, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank. Unlike many of Trump's other education proposals -- including punishing schools that require vaccines, creating an anti-"woke" online university, and instituting "universal school choice" -- these new tactics wouldn't require state or congressional cooperation. They would likely kick up a legal fight, from school systems, universities and LGBTQ advocates, among others. |
| At 2 Colleges, the Fall Semester Has Been Disrupted by Trump's Lies About Eating Pets | |
 | Robert Baker opened his political-science class at Wittenberg University last Wednesday with a pop quiz. For class credit, the students would have to share something they found memorable about the presidential debate the night before. It just so happens that Wittenberg is located in Springfield, Ohio, which has been jolted into a media firestorm over lies about the city's Haitian residents killing and eating pets. Students in the course hold a range of political beliefs. Some were Democrats, others Republican, and a few were independents. Regardless of party affiliation, a majority were "flabbergasted" that Donald Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, repeated those false claims to millions of viewers, Baker said. Trump's running mate, U.S. Sen. J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, then doubled down, despite no evidence. "They're not appreciating the fear that they're living under as a result of the national spotlight that this has created for us," Baker said of his students. Over the past few days, Wittenberg and another Springfield-area college have received violent threats. On Monday, Wittenberg administrators decided to cancel in-person classes and events for the rest of this week. Local Springfield officials have disputed the pet-eating claims, as has Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine. That hasn't stopped politically fueled threats from disrupting the city's hospitals, elementary schools, government offices, and now, colleges. |
SPORTS
| Mississippi State back to the drawing board after 24-point loss to Toledo | |
| Last week after Mississippi State's loss at Arizona State, head coach Jeff Lebby reiterated that he felt the energy in his program was still good and the players were focused the way they needed to be. After an embarrassing 41-17 defeat at home against Toledo, Lebby still is not wavering. "There were a bunch (of players) around (Sunday), having a meal, having a medical check-in, guys just being inside the building," Lebby said. "There was great disappointment. I do believe that our guys have belief. They have excitement about what's to come. They know there's an incredible opportunity to play here at home at 11 a.m. (Saturday) against the University of Florida. That's going to be a great challenge for us." As the Rockets ran up and down the field while the Bulldogs struggled to generate offense, fans voiced their displeasure and rained down boos. But as disastrous as Saturday night's loss was, MSU still has three-fourths of its season to play, including all eight Southeastern Conference games. Turning the page quickly is necessary if the Bulldogs (1-2) want to get anywhere. "We're going to continue to make sure our building and the guys inside our room have great awareness," Lebby said. "For us and our brand, what we do on Saturdays, it affects our entire state. It affects our fan base, our university and the energy that's pumped into our community. We understand that. We want to find a way to get back on track, we want to find a way to focus incredibly small and go put a really good product on the field." |
| What upset Jeff Lebby the most after watching Mississippi State football's loss to Toledo | |
| After getting a chance to review the loss to Toledo, Mississippi State football coach Jeff Lebby came to a consensus on what went wrong. The Bulldogs (1-2) were blown out 41-17 by the Rockets (3-0) at Davis Wade Stadium on Saturday. Frankly, everything that could've gone wrong did go wrong. It was the most lopsided nonconference home loss since 2006. Mississippi State paid Toledo $1.2 million to play the game. "Both sides of the ball, offensively and defensively, the self-inflicted wounds and the facts of not being able to get out of our own way at times was probably the most disappointing thing," Lebby, MSU's first-year coach, said Monday. "It really was. You look at us offensively, the negative plays in the first three drives of the game put us in such bad situations. Defensively, you look at it, the first drive of the game we had them in some really bad situations." "The messaging to our guys is focusing incredibly small," Lebby said. "Everybody understanding we've got this job to do, us as coaches and us as players, and to just do our job and focus solely on that." Lebby said he's been pleased with the initial response by players as the Bulldogs prepare to play Florida (1-2, 0-1 SEC) at Davis Wade Stadium on Saturday (11 a.m., ESPN). |
| Florida football heading to MSU amid questions surrounding Billy Napier's job status | |
 | Florida football coach Billy Napier said there have been no conversations regarding his job status following his team's 33-20 loss to Texas A&M at The Swamp. The loss dropped the Florida Gators (1-2, 0-1 SEC) to 12-16 in three seasons under Napier and created another firestorm on social media surrounding his future at UF. But Napier survived through the weekend and is turning his focus towards UF's first road game Saturday at Mississippi State (noon, ESPN). "There is a lot of football left to play," Napier said. "You know, nothing will affect that more than the next game we play, right? So, let's get ready to go play Mississippi State on Saturday." Mississippi State (1-2, 0-0 SEC), under first-year coach Jeff Lebby, is coming off a 41-17 home loss to Toledo. "They do have -- offensively the tempo is something that we'll have to try to simulate this week," Napier said. "There is a ton of variables on defense, front pressure coverage, good team speed, and that's always a recipe for some challenges when it comes to special teams and matchups there." Florida is looking to break a string of seven straight power conference losses, dating back to the 2023 season. In its two losses to power conference teams this season, UF has trailed by as many as 28 points in the second half against Miami and 26 points in the second half against Texas A&M. Florida was outgained 310-52 on the ground and 488-301 overall against the Aggies. |
| Mississippi State basketball 2024-25 schedule includes games in Jackson, Tupelo and Southaven | |
| The Mississippi State men's basketball nonconference schedule for the 2024-25 season includes a handful of notable opponents and neutral-site games. Finalized and announced Monday by the Bulldogs, MSU has neutral-site games in Southaven, Jackson and Tupelo. That doesn't include participation in the Arizona Tip-Off that was announced in June. Mississippi State and coach Chris Jans will play Utah at the Landers Center in Southaven on Nov. 17. A return game will be played in Salt Lake City in December 2025 at the Delta Center, where the Utah Jazz play. MSU will play McNeese at Cadance Bank Arena in Tupelo on Dec. 14 and Central Michigan in Jackson at the Mississippi Coliseum on Dec. 17. It will open the season with three straight home games, starting Nov. 4 against West Georgia at Humphrey Coliseum. Other notable nonconference opponents include a road game at SMU on Nov. 22, a home game versus Pitt on Dec. 4 and a road game at Memphis on Dec. 21. Mississippi State will play UNLV on Nov. 28 in the Arizona Tip-Off in Tempe and either Butler or Northwestern the following day. The matchups against SMU and Memphis are home-and-home agreements, so they will both visit Starkville in the 2025-26 season. |
| Southern Miss unveils state-of-the-art golf facility | |
| The Southern Miss men's and women's golf teams now have what officials believe is "one of the premier facilities in all of Division I" after the ribbon was cut last Friday at the Giddis Golf Center. Located at the Hattiesburg Country Club, the 3,500 square-foot center features an indoor putting lab, teaching bays with video swing analysis software, a nutrition center, and full club repair and regripping capabilities. The addition of a new tee box on the west side of the center will take place at a later date, expanding the driving range distance to 340 yards. The technology included in the Giddis Golf Center is commonly used by national championship-contending programs. Called TrackMan 4, the dual radar system tracks and records not only a player's swing but also the ball's characteristics after contact. It also provides the opportunity to record every shot to see the swing correlated with the data. The facility is named after lead donors Kevin and Sareh Giddis. Kevin, who signed to play golf at Southern Miss in 1979 before his career was hampered by injury, is a retired financial service professional and 1983 graduate of the university. While giving credit to those who came up with the idea and design of the new center, Kevin said his main goal is for the facility and all its features to help in recruiting and building an even stronger program. |
| Favre loses another round in lawsuit against ex-talk show host | |
| Former "Undisputed" host Shannon Sharpe remains undefeated in his defense of critical remarks toward fellow NFL Hall of Famer Brett Favre. On Monday, the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals rejected a request by Favre to resurrect a defamation lawsuit against Sharpe, who said on his Sept. 14, 2023, show that the former Southern Miss and Green Bay Packers quarterback stole funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families government program meant for those living in poverty. Favre hasn't been charged in the scandal in which six people have been convicted of state and federal charges involving $77 million in federal TANF funds. In 2022, the state Department of Human Services sued Favre and many others to try and recoup the $77 million that was illegally diverted between 2016 and 2019. A year earlier, the department had sought to recover $1.1 million in TANF funds that Favre received for speeches he never delivered. (The speaking fees had come through the nonprofit Mississippi Community Education Center.) After a Sept. 13, 2022, article appeared in Mississippi Today, Sharpe said on the Fox Sports show, "Skip and Shannon: Undisputed," that "Bretty Favre is taking money from the underserved" and that he "stole money from people that really needed that money." |
| Kiffin: Wake violated 'unwritten rule' in buying out game | |
| Mississippi coach Lane Kiffin says Wake Forest violated "an unwritten rule" by buying its way out of next year's matchup, leaving the Rebels in search of another major-conference opponent. The fifth-ranked Rebels defeated the Demon Deacons 40-6 on Saturday in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, as part of a scheduled home-and-home series. There won't be a rematch next season in Oxford, Mississippi. A person with knowledge of the decision confirmed that Wake Forest had canceled next year's trip to Ole Miss and said the school is closing in on alternative scheduling options. The person spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity Monday because the school isn't commenting publicly on details. Kiffin broke the news about that decision in his postgame news conference and was still unhappy about the timing two days later. "That's rarely ever done," Kiffin said Monday. "I've never really heard of doing it, and it really puts us at a big disadvantage. It is what it is. It obviously wasn't appreciated very much, them putting us in that situation." The decision leaves Ole Miss having to try to find another Power 4 conference -- or major independent -- opponent for next season or seeking a waiver from the Southeastern Conference on that requirement. |
| ESPN's Peter Burns details how Missouri fan 'saved my life' as he choked on food | |
| ESPN personality Peter Burns said a Missouri fan "saved my life" this past weekend after he was choking on a piece of food. Host of ESPN and SEC Network shows like "SEC Now" and "SEC This Morning," Burns said on social media Monday that he was dining with co-workers in Columbia, Missouri on Friday night ahead of the Missouri vs. Boston College game the following day. During the dinner, Burns said he began to choke on a piece of food and he motioned to the people at the table he couldn't breathe. A friend tried the Heimlich maneuver but was unsuccessful. Burns asked a second person to try it but it also didn't work. Burns said then a nurse came over to attempt it, only for it to not work. After about two minutes of not being able to breathe, Burns said he started to lose his vision and began "blacking out." Luckily, a man by the name of Jack Foster came and tried to dislodge the food "right as I was about to lose consciousness," Burns said, and it worked. Foster told Burns he was a youth sports coach and he had just gone through training on how to perform CPR and save people from choking. "That training is why I am here right now. I'm thankful for him and all involved that helped saved my life that night," Burns said. The ESPN personality added that Missouri football trainers assisted him later that night. As a result of the incident, Burns has slight fractures in four of his ribs. |
| Tennessee to add 10 percent 'talent fee' to ticket prices to raise money to give to players | |
| Tennessee is preparing for a world in which schools pay athletes directly by charging fans a "talent fee" to pass along to the players. Though the House v. NCAA settlement that would usher in the era of revenue sharing has yet to be approved by a federal judge, Tennessee athletic director Danny White told On3 that his school will implement a plan to add a 10 percent surcharge to all season and single-game ticket sales. If the settlement is approved, schools would be allowed to pay about $22 million a year to athletes beginning in the 2025-26 school year. White estimates that with the new roster caps included in the settlement -- which would raise the number of available athletic scholarships -- the actual cost is closer to $30 million a year. Tennessee hopes to recoup about $10 million of that through the surcharge, which will come in addition to a football ticket price increase averaging 4.5 percent across all seats. Knowing any hike in ticket prices would produce consternation, White and his team decided the best way to handle this one was to explain which part of the new money will be earmarked for the players. "It's a talent fee, and it's going directly to the talent," White said. "It's going to our student athletes as part of this new world order in college sports. So I know our fans will embrace it." |
| Auburn picking the low-hanging revenue fruit at Jordan-Hare Stadium | |
| At least there is plenty of low-hanging fruit for college athletics departments as they scramble to generate new revenue streams and make long-needed fan experience upgrades. For Auburn, that meant creating new premium options and modernizing Jordan-Hare Stadium's food and beverage service this past offseason, following multiple successful trials in 2023. "All of us are right now trying to find ways to not leave revenue on the table," said Rhett Hobart, Auburn's deputy AD/external affairs. Last year, 5.7% of Jordan-Hare Stadium's capacity was premium seating, well below the SEC average of 10.2%. There also was a premium waitlist of nearly 1,000 accounts (equivalent to more than 4,000 individual seats), meaning Auburn had plenty of impetus to create new premium. That manifested in six new permanent field-level suites that sold out for the 2024 season in weeks. An area behind the Tigers' bench was converted into an on-field space accessible as a purchasable add-on for any ticketholder, while a 1940s era storage space was renovated and turned into the new Locker Room Club (designed by Goodwyn Mills Cawood). Those two projects cost roughly $1.5 million, but Hobart expects the investment to be repaid in less than two seasons, after which, the athletic department will begin netting roughly $1 million annually. The second focus of Auburn's offseason was the F&B experience, which, at most college sports venues, frankly, is stuck in the 1970s. Working with Aramark, Auburn spent $2.8 million modernizing its F&B setup and rolled out stadium-wide alcohol sales for the first time this fall. |
| Florida State is college football's most disappointing team, and it's not even close | |
| Few expected Florida State to run the table again in the Atlantic Coast Conference and coast into the expanded, 12-team College Football Playoff. Not after losing quarterback Jordan Travis, running back Trey Benson, receivers Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson, and a handful of standout defenders. However, no one could have seen this coming. The Seminoles are winless after three games, the result of an erratic passing attack, a sluggish ground game and a defense that can't seem to stop the run and can't get consistent pressure on quarterbacks. And now FSU, which was ranked No. 10 to start the season, is without question the most disappointing team in college football. And with all due respect to Clemson, Florida and Kansas, it's not even close. "I know that it's a frustrating thing to sit there and look at, and it's frustrating for everybody involved, for those guys that are out there playing," Florida State coach Mike Norvell said Monday. "They want more. They want to be better. They're working hard at it. But it's some of those little things that we have to improve on and just the consistency of it." The only thing Florida State has done consistently this season is lose -- twice as a double-digit favorite (Georgia Tech and Boston College) and again as a 6 1/2-point choice against Memphis. The Tigers got a victory against their former coach and a $1.3 million payday. How the 'Noles got here is as easier to explain than how they might get out. |
| Donald Trump 'looking into' attending Alabama-Georgia game, state Republican Party chairman says | |
 | Donald Trump is looking into possibly visiting Tuscaloosa's Bryant-Denny Stadium on Sept. 28 when the Alabama Crimson Tide takes on Georgia, according to the head of the state Republican Party. However, it remains to be seen if those plans were affected by the second apparent attempted assassination of the former president on Sunday in Florida. Ryan Wesley Routh was arrested after that apparent attempt. "I am aware that Donald Trump was looking into the possibilities of attending the Alabama-Georgia game. Obviously, the Republican Party's very excited about that possibility," said John Wahl, chairman of the Alabama Republican Party. The people of Alabama and Donald Trump have a special relationship and we are always thrilled when he has a chance to visit our state," Wahl said. "That being said, I'm not directly involved with the planning or the coordination and I don't know if this most recent assassination attempt would have any effect on his possible visit." While Alabama is hardly a swing state, Georgia will be hotly contested in 2024 and is crucial to Donald Trump's chances of winning the White House in the November election against his Democratic opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris. |
| Sen. Blumenthal introduces bill to limit gambling advertisements: 'This industry targets losers' | |
| Six years after the U.S. Supreme Court cleared the way for the legalization of sports gambling in states nationwide, Connecticut's Sen. Richard Blumenthal believes it's time for the betting industry to face greater regulation. "The blunt, simple truth is, this industry targets losers," Blumenthal said Monday at a news conference outside the XL Center in Hartford. "It does it methodically and scientifically, using algorithms to track who's betting, what they're betting on, whether they're winning or losing, what kind of promotions, credits, ads, bonuses to drive at them and make them more likely to lose." This week, Blumenthal introduced the SAFE Bet Act, which would impose nationwide consumer protections on sports betting. Under the bill, sportsbooks would be barred from offering free bonus bets and other promotions meant to draw new customers, from advertising during live sporting events and from accepting more than five deposits from a single customer within 24 hours. Additionally, the measure would prohibit the use of artificial intelligence to track users' gambling preferences, ban prop bets on college and amateur sports and create a national self-exclusion list, through which bettors with gambling addictions could voluntarily bar themselves placing wagers. Blumenthal argued existing state regulations are not sufficient to constrain gambling companies, thus necessitating federal intervention. |
| This Device Is 'Proven' to Protect Athletes' Brains. The Science Is Under Fire. | |
| For athletes who collide on the field, a neck accessory called the Q-Collar has a reassuring pitch: It's the only medical device "proven to help protect the brain," a claim authorized by the Food and Drug Administration. But some of the studies offering evidence for its efficacy are now coming under scrutiny. Outside researchers have identified apparent discrepancies and errors in at least a half-dozen studies about the Q-Collar, which has endorsements from more than two dozen professional and college football, soccer, and lacrosse players. In response, scientists who worked on the studies told The Chronicle that they are planning to fix some of their data. "While these identified errors do not change the overall interpretation of findings," Gregory D. Myer, a researcher who oversaw many of the papers, said in an email, "we are committed to the highest standards of accuracy in reporting our research findings." Still, the data sleuths -- Mu Yang, director of a mouse neurobehavioral facility at Columbia University Medical Center, and James Smoliga, a professor of rehabilitation science at Tufts University -- are not satisfied. They say that the proposed corrections would address only a fraction of the problems they've found in the papers, which were all published in the Journal of Neurotrauma from 2017 to 2022. Smoliga, a longtime critic of the Q-Collar, said that he supports athletes playing contact sports with a clear understanding of the risks. "The problem with Q-Collar is that Q-Collar is lowering the perception of the risk," he said, "so now people are not making informed decisions." |
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