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You, as I, might wonder how it feels to win a world championship at age 17. That’s what Mississippian Rachel McAlpin did Wednesday winning the 50-meter breaststroke gold medal at the World Junior Swimming Championships in Otopeni, Romania, nearly 6,000 miles from hometown of Brandon.

“It feels really cool, honestly,” young McAlpin replied in a phone call Thursday afternoon. “It truly is a blessing.”

And then McAlpin apologized for sounding hoarse, not because she is sick, but because, as she put it, “I’ve been cheering so hard all day and night for all my Team USA teammates.”

One of those teammates is Charlotte Crush of Louisville, Kentucky, the 17-year-old daughter of Mimi Bowen, formerly a highly competitive swimmer for the Jackson Sunkist swim program. Crush Thursday won the 100-meter backstroke gold medal. Said McAlpin, “We’ve become really good friends. Charlotte is an incredible swimmer and person.”

McAlpin is fairly incredible herself. You, as I, might want to know more about Mississippi’s new swimming world champion. Here’s a short dossier: Rachel McAlpin, who is home-schooled, has swam competitively since the age of 5 and regularly swims for the Flowood-based Mississippi Makos. She has committed to swim collegiately for the University of Arkansas, beginning in the fall of 2026. She is the middle of Chris and Christie McAlpin’s three daughters. Rachel is deeply religious, soft-spoken and exceedingly polite, which belies a fierce competitiveness. As a swimmer, she is known as a strong finisher.

McAlpin fell behind early in her championship race Wednesday but then rallied as she typically does and touched .34 seconds ahead of 18-year-old Smilte Plytnykaite of the Republic of Lithuainia. In winning, McAlpin equalled her personal best time of 30.78 seconds.

“I knew I was in pretty good shape in the last 10 meters when I couldn’t see anybody ahead of me,” McAlpin said. “I knew I just needed to hold on and I did.”

No telling how many hours McAlpin has spent training the past decade-plus to prepare for that 30.78 seconds of glory. Competitive swimming can be almost like a full-time job, requiring hours upon hours of rigorous pool time, plus weight room workouts.

“I guess it really is kind of like a job, and you really have to love it, which I do,” she said. “You also have to have great coaching and a strong support group at home, and I have definitely had that.”

McAlpin is probably finished swimming – but not cheering, she says – in the Romania meet, and will now point toward 2026 competition for both the Makos and Team USA. Yes, she says, her dream is to represent the U.S. in the 2028 Summer Olympics at Los Angeles.

“The Olympics are a goal, but I have a whole lot of swimming and so much work to do before that,” she said.

If nothing else, her victory in Romania establishes her as as a solid threat, if not favorite, to make the U.S. Olympic team.

Meanwhile, her parents have watched, via streaming, at home in Brandon while their middle daugher swam the preliminary heat, the semifinals and, finally, the championship race half a globe away in a country that shares a 384-mile border with Ukraine. With the time difference, they stayed up until 2 a.m. Tuesday to watch the prelims. Said Chris McAlpin, her father, “We were like any parents would be, nervously pacing beforehand and then cheering like crazy during the races. Obviously, we are extremely proud and blessed. It took a minute to sink in but it has: Our daughter is a world champion.”

The percentage of Mississippi students making high scores on state tests declined in all four content areas, the latest results reveal. 

It’s the first time those numbers have seen a meaningful drop in years, aside from the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Paula Vanderford, chief accountability officer for the state education department, conceded the downturn was “unusual for Mississippi” at Thursday’s state board of education meeting.

“With the exception of COVID, we’ve seen steady increases in our overall proficiency,” she said. “So the results this year have given us the need to take a deeper dive into what the results really mean.”

All four end-of-course assessments — Algebra I, English II, U.S. history and biology — saw similar or slightly higher pass rates compared to last year. 

Results were less straightforward for the four subject areas overall. Passing scores went up slightly overall for English-Language Arts and U.S. history, and they fell slightly for mathematics and science. 

However, the percentage of students scoring proficient and advanced during the 2024-2025 school year across the four subject areas fell a couple of points across the board. 

The smallest decline was in English — students fell just a fraction, from 47.8% last year to 47.4% — while the largest drop was in science, going from 63.4% to 60.9%.

“The data is not a warning yet,” said board chair Matt Miller. “It’s a reminder. If it happens next year, we’re sliding into a warning situation.”

READ MORE: See the test results for Mississippi here.

Vanderford also cautioned board members from becoming too concerned just yet.

She encouraged them to wait to see the results of the National Assessment of Education Progress tests, which reveals how Mississippi ranks against other states, and compare those results to these statewide assessments, the Mississippi Academic Assessment Program. 

Results from the third-grade literacy test were a little more promising. Those scores went up marginally, from a 75.7% pass rate to 77.3%. 

The Literacy-Based Promotion Act, passed by the state Legislature in 2013, made passing the test a requirement to graduate to the fourth grade. The act has led to higher standards in literacy education in Mississippi, which experts say has largely contributed to the state’s big reading gains, coined “The Mississippi Miracle” by national media. 

Still, Miller acknowledged that the state department of education could be in a precarious situation if it loses momentum.

“The Mississippi Miracle, that’s now in the past,” he said at the meeting. “It’s now the marathon. What can we do to move it to the next level? We can’t rest.”

Board members and top education officials stressed that the agency must turn its focus to pushing students to perform at a “proficient” level on the assessments, instead of just “passing.” 

The state’s new accountability model, which is still being finalized, puts a “greater emphasis on proficiency,” State Superintendent Lance Evans said in a statement. MAAP results are a big part of the state’s accountability grades, which will be released at next month’s board meeting. 

In order to improve scores moving forward, the agency is implementing a number of initiatives. These include increasing the number of literacy and math coaches at schools across the state, encouraging districts to use “high-quality instructional materials,” ensuring administrators know how important it is to implement curriculum based on science of reading research and training teachers in the science of reading. 

Additionally, the agency will be seeking funds from the Legislature this session for literacy and math initiatives, which Evans has already discussed with House Speaker Jason White. 

But none of these programs will make a difference if districts don’t accept the support offered by the state education department, Evans said at the meeting.

“There are some districts that refused literacy coaches last year and some of them fell tremendously,” he said. “I called them and asked, ‘Are you sure this is what you want to do?’ And they said, ‘Yes.’ You see what happened.”

Several public school districts were recognized for their high scores in three to four subject areas, including Long Beach, Ocean Springs, Clinton, Enterprise, Oxford, Pass Christian and Union County.

With the 70th anniversary of Emmett Till’s lynching just a week away, more than 6,500 pages of federal records have been released to the public.

The Civil Rights Cold Case Records Review Board released the records on Till’s Aug. 28, 1955, killing, many of them never seen before.

“The release of these records is nothing short of historic,” said board co-chair Margaret Burnham. “The brutal killing of Emmett Till helped galvanize the civil rights movement, and generations of Emmett’s family members, as well as historians and the public at large, have deserved a complete picture of the federal government’s response. The story of Emmett Till and the injustices done to him is still being written, but these documents offer up some long-overdue clarity.”

Davis Houck, the founder of the Emmett Till Archives, said for decades historians have longed to see these records, many of them files of the FBI, which balked at a federal investigation in 1955.

“The federal government has always been the final nut to crack in terms of getting these documents. It’s been frustrating. How far did their investigation go? We haven’t known,” said Houck, the Fannie Lou Hamer professor of Rhetorical Studies at Florida State University. “To get these files unredacted is going to be a treasure for researchers.”

The board shared a handwritten letter from 1955, urging federal authorities to pursue the case. “All decent democratic-thinking Americans demand that your dept take steps to end the lynch terror that now exists in the South,” S.H. Malone of Los Angeles wrote. “When local authorities refuse to act, it is up to the federal govt. They have reached a new low when they murder children.”

The records can be seen at the Civil Rights Cold Case Records portal, maintained by the National Archives and Records Administration. A summary of the Till case can be found on the board’s website, coldcaserecords.gov.

According to the board, Thursday’s release “spans 27 files and consists primarily of records from the 1950s. Three of the files include limited redactions protecting confidential informants and personally identifiable information for living individuals; the other files are released in full.”

The board was created as part of the Cold Case Records Collection Act of 2018, which passed Congress and was signed by President Donald Trump in 2019. A group of Hightstown High School students in New Jersey had championed the law.

The board has the power to review and expedite the release of records involving unsolved or unresolved cold cases from 1940 through 1979. Since last fall, the board has released federal case files spanning 31 incidents, involving 36 victims.

Other board members include: co-chair Hank Klibanoff, Gabrielle M. Dudley and Brenda Stevenson.

Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning’s board announced Thursday it will begin its official search process for selecting a new president at Jackson State University, three months after the position became vacant. 

The former university president, Marcus Thompson, resigned in May, the third departure in seven years. The state’s college governing board did not explain why he or his two predecessors left the post nor has it shared with the public details about its next steps for picking a permanent leader for the school. 

Alumni and supporters of the historically Black university have raised questions to the board about its opaque process, calling for a fair, transparent national leadership search for the university.  

Gee Ogletree, president of the IHL board, said selecting a university president is not easy. He asked members of the public who were present at the meeting to assist with thoughts, prayers and suggestions throughout the process. 

“The committee search involves us walking a very fine line, respecting the need for transparency and openness to the public but also respecting the need for confidentiality for those who will put their name up for potential selection, who would be potentially recruited and interviewed,” Ogletree said. 

Steve Cunningham, vice president of the IHL board, will chair the search committee. He and Ogletree served on the committee that resulted in Thompson’s appointment as university president in 2023. For the university’s leadership search this time, all 12 trustee members will serve on the committee. 

The IHL board said it launched a landing page on its website for the public to receive status updates on the search process. Students, faculty, staff, alumni and supporters of Jackson State University are also invited to submit comments through the webpage. The board reiterated its commitment to a transparent and collaborative process at Jackson State, Ogletree said.

“Jackson State, like every other university, deserves our commitment and our best and I will give you my personal commitment that I will undertake that,” he said. “Having worked with these trustees, I know they will do the same.” 

Members of Thee 1877 Project, a group of alums not affiliated with the national alumni association, submitted its collected survey results from 350 alums to the board on Thursday on leadership traits respondents’ sought in the university’s next chief. Those top qualities listed include values like integrity and ethics, relationship building with politicians and community leaders, financial accountability and strong appreciation for HBCU culture and students. 

The group also submitted a petition and formal public comment with the board. While the board acknowledged submission of these items, Mark Dawson, who chairs the group, said he was disappointed they weren’t allowed to speak or read their statement at the meeting. 

“Like Fannie Lou Hamer said, ‘We didn’t come here for no two seats’,” Dawson said. “Not allowing public comment further shows the lack of transparency with the board. The public should know what constituents are saying, not just about Jackson State, but all citizens of the state of Mississippi should be concerned with by not having a clear process.”

In a letter obtained by Mississippi Today, Al Rankins, commissioner of the IHL board, responded to members of the group stating that the board’s standard practice is to “reply to written submissions rather than oral presentation at Board meetings.” Mississippi’s Open Meetings Act does not require public comment at civic and government meetings. 

Members said they wished the board would acknowledge past mistakes in selecting presidents for JSU and address some lessons they learned from previous search processes. For the group, what they see as the board’s disregard for accountability or openness to change the process instills a lack of trust. 

“We want a determining stake and seat at the table where we can ‘yes’ and ‘no’ candidates just like the board members do,” Dawson said. “I don’t have any confidence right now. Certainly, I give them a chance to say and hear more. There’s still more questions.” 

Other alumni questioned who will hold the board accountable now that there is no one but the trustees on the search committee. 

“Nobody apparently,” said Monica Smith, a 1985 JSU alum. 

According to IHL board policies, it has two options when it searches for a new university president. It could extend a search that includes hiring a consultant, appointing an advisory board, launching a survey and conducting a series of community listening sessions with constituents before moving forward to post the job and interview candidates. 

It could also expedite the process in which trustees interview candidates that are “known to the board.” IHL has received repeated criticism about its history of elevating internal hires and appointing interim leaders. 

Denise Jones-Gregory, the current interim president at Jackson State, did not respond to Mississippi Today’s questions at the meeting about her interest in becoming the university’s permanent leader. 

A third data center project is coming to Mississippi. This time in Brandon. 

The Mississippi Development Authority this week announced that AVAIO Digital is building a $6-billion campus. 

In a statement, Gov. Tate Reeves called it “another historic day for Mississippi.” But on social media, reactions were mixed.

Within a day some posts had hundreds of comments. People expressed concerns about potential pollution, energy costs and traffic. Others applauded the deal.

Data centers are popping up all over the country. They provide the massive computing power that tech companies need as they compete for dominance in the artificial intelligence boom. However, there has been community push back, from Oregon to Memphis. 

The impact on energy bills is likely the biggest concern. One study found that electricity bills could increase by as much as 8% by 2030 due to cryptocurrency mining and data centers. Mississippi energy companies have promised customers’ energy bills won’t increase.

There are also concerns about how few jobs data centers create. Reporting from Bloomberg in January revealed that a majority of the 1,000 jobs promised by Amazon’s Madison County data center will be contractors. The data center in Brandon is expected to create 60 jobs, plus initial construction jobs.

Do you live in a city where a data center is being built? We want to hear what you think. Email us at marketplace@mississippitoday.org

‘A no-hire, no-fire labor market‘

“What we’re seeing is kind of a continuation of what we’ve seen for the past few months. In Mississippi as well as across the country, it seems to be kind of a no-hire, no-fire labor market,” said Corey Miller, Mississippi’s State Economist on the latest state unemployment numbers. 

Mississippi’s unemployment rate stayed at 4.0% for the fourth month in a row. July’s unemployment rate for Mississippi was the largest increase year over year in the country, up from 3.1% in July 2024. 

However, this isn’t necessarily bad news for the economy. The increase in unemployment is likely due to more people entering the labor force. Real wages went up at the end of 2023 and inflation went down encouraging people who were not looking for work to rejoin the workforce. 

Poultry workers, the Fed and other news:

• Poultry is the largest agricultural commodity in Mississippi. A recent investigation from Mississippi Today highlights the alleged abuse of immigrant workers in the industry.
• The Atlanta Federal Reserve covers the southern half of Mississippi. Raphael Bostic, the president of the Atlanta Fed, recently completed a tour of the Southeast. He highlighted that “consumers are growing more stressed, and tariff costs are real” according to Bloomberg. 
• Solar is one way to supply power to data centers. Right now solar makes up 1% of Mississippi’s power sources.
• Bankruptcies in Mississippi are at historic lows. But they are still higher than the national average and have gone up over the past few years.
• Innovate Mississippi launched the fourth cohort of Cobuilders. Cobuilders is a 12-week startup accelerator to foster Mississippi entrepreneurs. The program is sponsored by Microsoft and will train seven Mississippi companies how to grow and scale. Mississippi’s entrepreneurial landscape has lagged behind that of other states, including Alabama and Louisiana.

As children during the 1950s, Hilliard Lackey and Lillian Troupe often had to skip school to pick cotton with their sharecropping parents. 

They grew up together in the small north Mississippi town of Marks, both raised by devoutly Christian families. 

Marks has struggled with poverty for generations, and problems were compounded by Mississippi’s history of underfunding public education for Black students. Schools remained segregated, and both said it was common for Black children around them to drop out or miss school so they could work in the fields.

“That was the life we knew, the life we inherited,” Hilliard Lackey said. 

Hilliard and Lillian met as classmates in sixth grade, started dating in high school and married in 1966. Despite the challenges of the time, their parents and church leaders encouraged them to be ambitious and succeed.

Today, several members of the Lackey family have doctoral degrees: Hilliard and Lillian Lackey; their daughters, Tahirih Lackey and Dr. Katrina Davis; the couple’s daughter-in-law, Tracy Knight Lackey; and his stepbrother and sister-in-law, Dr. Robert Long and Vanessa Rogers Long.

Pew Research Center found that as of 2023, about 26% of all Black Americans 25 and older have a bachelor’s degree or higher, and 11% have advanced degrees. In Mississippi, 18.5% of Black residents have a bachelor’s degree or higher.

Hilliard Lackey is a longtime professor of urban higher education and lifelong learning at Jackson State University. He attended what was then called Jackson State College, earning his bachelor’s in history and political science, pre-law track, in 1965. (It became Jackson State University in 1974.)

Hilliard Lackey – who later earned a master’s degree in educational administration, an education specialist degree in the same topic, and a doctorate in higher education administration – was the first in his family to go to college. 

“I left home and came to a whole new city, a whole new environment. It’s a college,” he said, looking back on the experience. “And I was astounded, and scared, and frightened and bewildered.”

Lillian, then still named Troupe, attended Coahoma Community College before transferring to what was then called Alcorn Agricultural and Mechanical College – since 1974, Alcorn State University. She graduated from Alcorn with a bachelor’s in business education in 1966 and earned a masters in education administration from Jackson State in 1974. 

She was still living and working in Marks during community college.

“I went to Coahoma … rode the school bus, came home, got out of my clothes, went to the field, picked cotton,” she said. “And so I picked my way out of the cotton field to Alcorn.”

In June, West Coast Bible College & Seminary awarded Lillian Lackey an honorary doctorate for her years of community service. 

Two of Hilliard and Lillian Lackey’s four children have doctorates. Davis has a medical degree and is a urogynecologist. Tahirih Lackey has a doctorate in civil environmental engineering and is a research hydraulic engineer at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center.

Both sisters say their parents’ emphasis on education and success and their religious faith influenced their career paths. 

Davis recounted that every Sunday, each member of the family stood in front of the fireplace and discussed what they’d done that week to achieve their goals. She and her siblings attended a variety of academic and athletic summer programs before and during college.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey converted from Christianity to the Baha’i faith as adults. They raised their children “essentially as Christian Baha’is,” according to Hilliard Lackey, and let them choose what religion to follow when they were 15 years old.

“They pretty much told us, ‘Whatever you want to be, you can be, and we’ll be there to help you,’” Davis said.

“I would recognize that my parents, they were always helping other people. Like, throughout my whole life they demonstrated those concepts,” Tahirih Lackey said.

“None of us thought we had any barriers,” Davis said. “If there were barriers, they were from our own mental blocks.”

Hilliard Lackey’s stepbrother, Dr. Robert Long, is a dentist in Clarksdale. Long also credits his upbringing for his success, saying his parents raised him and his siblings with a strong work ethic and Christian values.

“They instilled in us that nobody is going to give you anything, nobody is obligated to give you anything,” Long said.

Long grew up in a small rural town in Quitman County, 15 miles from Marks. He had a similar upbringing to Hilliard Lackey. His parents encouraged him to get an education. 

He attended Earlham College, where he majored in biology and found a mentor who inspired him to become a dentist.

He described his undergraduate experience as a “culture shock” and an “academic shock.” He chose to persevere through the challenges.

“I knew I could go home,” he said, “but I didn’t want to go home.”

Vanessa Rogers Long grew up in a middle-class family in the small community of Memphis, Mississippi, and, like most of her family, has lived a life dedicated to service.

She was the first Black hospital administrator for the Mississippi Department of Corrections. She founded Mississippi Delta Connection, which is part of Links Inc. She also mentors teens on service and leadership skills. She has received several honors, including having her sorority,  Alpha Kappa Alpha, dedicate a bench to her at her alma mater, LeMoyne-Owen College. 

“Service is what I do,” she said.

Hilliard and Lillian Lackey are also deeply involved in community service, including their “Lackey Scholars” program inspired by a former teacher. Hillard Lackey estimates they’ve helped more than 500 high school students from Quitman County attend and graduate from Jackson State since 1967. In addition, they mentor dozens of students from Quitman County’s Madison Shannon Palmer High School to act as role models for their peers and the community. 

“That’s just been our thing, it’s always been,” Lillian Lackey said. “To help somebody, if they were hungry, if they were cold, if they were whatever.”

When asked what he would tell first-generation college students, Hilliard Lackey said: “Education is an equalizer. It gives an advantage to the disadvantaged. It levels the legacy playing field.”

A Mississippi attorney is at the center of Texas’s unusual mid-decade effort to redraw its congressional districts, which has prompted a national battle between red and blue states over partisan gerrymandering. 

Tommie Cardin, an attorney in the Ridgeland office of national law firm Butler Snow, has listed in his online profile that he is counsel to the chair and staff of the Texas House Select Committee on Congressional Redistricting. 

Cardin and a spokesperson for the law firm did not respond to questions for this story. But Texas news outlets have reported that Cardin is the attorney for the committee, and the House member who filed the redistricting legislation said he received the proposed maps from Butler Snow.

After the U.S. Census is completed at the start of a new decade, states typically use the new data to tweak congressional district lines to account for population shifts.  But President Donald Trump pushed Texas leaders to redraw the state’s congressional maps to flip five safe Democratic U.S. House seats in favor of Republicans. 

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2019 that states can draw electoral maps on partisan grounds. But under Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, communities of color must still have an equal opportunity to elect candidates of their choice. 

The Texas House was set to approve the maps on Wednesday, launching a tit-for-tat battle among Democratic- and Republican-led states. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced last week that he will ask voters in a Nov. 4 special election to approve redrawn districts intended to give Democrats five more U.S. House seats in the fight for control of Congress.

Cardin was perhaps enlisted to help the Texas efforts because Mississippi is in the same appellate circuit as Texas. Mississippi lawmakers also have a long history of tangling with civil rights groups, federal courts and themselves over congressional district boundaries. 

Cardin has represented the Mississippi Legislature in numerous complicated redistricting litigation cases, including its latest congressional redistricting effort. Civil rights groups attempted to challenge the state’s map, but a federal court dismissed the effort over legal technicalities. 

For decades, white Democratic leaders sought to diminish Black voting blocs during the redistricting process. Mike Espy became the first Black person elected to Congress from Mississippi when he won the 2nd Congressional District seat in the late 1980s. (Mississippi had two Black U.S. senators during Reconstruction, when senators were appointed rather than elected. Hiram Rhodes Revels served 1870-71, and Blanche Kelso Bruce served 1875-80.)

In the early 2000s, when Democrats still controlled both chambers of the Mississippi Legislature, lawmakers faced the difficult task of drawing new districts as the state went from five districts to four. 

House Speaker Tim Ford proposed drawing the state’s 1st District to encompass much of north Mississippi and stretching it down toward suburban Jackson. He dubbed his plan the “tornado district,” which opponents of his proposal used to prevent its adoption.

Lt. Gov. Amy Tuck, the presiding officer of the Senate who was then a Democrat but later switched to the Republican Party, blocked the “tornado” plan. The chambers’ two leaders couldn’t agree on a plan, so the courts also drew the congressional maps that decade. 

Cardin helped represent the Legislature in that unusual scenario as well.

 Lance Pogue has coached Mississippi high school football teams to 246 victories and 71 defeats, an incredible winning rate of 78 percent. He has won five state championships and one national championship. Now, he takes on another challenge at Brandon High School.

Stream all episodes here.

The presidency at Jackson State University has had its fair share of tumultuous transitions. 

Students, faculty and alumni were left in disbelief when Mississippi’s higher education board announced Marcus Thompson’s resignation in May, just five days after graduation and two years into his term. 

He was the third president to suddenly depart at the state’s largest historically Black university in less than seven years. His predecessor, Thomas Hudson left after two years. Before that, William Bynum resigned after three years, following his arrest in a prostitution sting at a Clinton hotel. The typical college president has been in their current job for 5.9 years.

Yet, in all three cases, the JSU presidents left without formal explanation from the Institutions of Higher Learning board. 

During summer break, alumni have taken up the torch, leading email campaigns to voice their frustrations to board members, state lawmakers and elected officials about the university’s chronic leadership turnover. 

The effort forced the college board to confront lingering questions about its past choices of university presidents and, more importantly, scrutinize how it plans  to make the right decision this time. 

Still, the board only pulled back some of the curtain to reveal insights into its executive search process. It has remained mum about most of the plans for seeking the university’s next president. 

In any other era, a search committee and timeline would have been publicly announced by now. But, the pressure to hire a permanent leader has grown increasingly complex, polarized and secretive in a contentious higher education climate. 

“Discussions on the process have begun, but it’s important to make sure this process is efficient, thorough and timely,” John Sewell, a spokesperson for the board, said in a statement to Mississippi Today. 

The board says it wants to ensure Denise Jones-Gregory, the university’s current interim president, who was appointed immediately after Thompson’s departure, has the opportunity to settle into the role. 

But, repeated criticism about the board’s history of elevating internal hires and appointing interim leaders among Mississippi’s eight universities has left advocates increasingly wary that the IHL board will continue to ignore its own procedures to provide a fair and transparent search for Jackson State.  

Mississippi Today asked the board if Gregory had expressed interest in the role, the board said it was a “personnel matter” and members “have no comment on it.”

Jackson State’s next leader will enter the post amid sweeping federal research funding cuts, uncertainty about federal student loan programs and college support services like Upward Bound, TRiO and GEAR UP, and the Trump administration’s crusade against diversity, equity and inclusion policies. 

The university is also experiencing its own set of challenges: student housing shortages, financial constraints, fluctuating enrollment, low morale from faculty and staff, almost a decade worth of mistrust from alumni, community members and supporters. 

And there are the perennial questions of how to deal with the many and sometimes conflicting constituencies including the governor, state legislators, political activists and college governing board members.  

“This is certainly not a job for the weak,” said Mark Dawson, who chairs Thee 1877 Project, a renegade group of alums who aren’t affiliated with the university’s national alumni association. 

Through self-described “guerilla” methods, the group created a qualitative questionnaire for its roughly 3,000 email subscribers this month inquiring about leadership traits alums are looking for in the  university’s next president. 

They collected more than 370 survey responses, with specific qualities emphasized as being important, like “strong appreciation for HBCU culture, history and legacy,” “financial accountability and budget management” and “unwavering integrity and ethics.”

“Overwhelmingly, people were telling us in our survey that character counts,” Dawson said. 

The group’s data mimics national findings: A 2024 report by Academic Search, an executive headhunting firm, found that top education executives commonly listed attributes like trustworthiness and resilience as relevant traits for their presidencies. 

Among the 700 college presidents surveyed, more than 90% listed those qualities as “very relevant” to the job, with “behaves in a way that is trustworthy, consistent and accountable” cited the most frequently at 96%. Listening to and understanding stakeholder concerns was also highly cited. 

The alumni group said it will share its survey results with IHL board members at a meeting Thursday. With these efforts, they aim to send a clear message: If you’re going to be responsible for selecting  presidents, make sure you listen to all voices. 

“What we heard from IHL last month is that they believe their processes work and that to me sounds like they’re unwilling to change,” said Sharolyn Love, a member of Thee 1877 Project. “We really want to be in collaboration with IHL to get this right. These results let them know that we are also holding them accountable and we want someone living, breathing and walking these values.” 

‘It’s an eight-day-a-week job’ 

The role of a university president has shifted in recent decades to focus on external relations, while the provost handles many internal issues, said Judith Wilde, a George Mason University professor who studies college presidential searches. 

Most can agree being chief of a university has become increasingly harder. For HBCU leaders under Trump, that means a delicate dance of advancing legislative goals and bracing for change while addressing student fears. 

“I quote The Beatles and say, ‘it’s an eight-day-a-week job’’ ” Wilde said. “One of the most important qualifications that boards seem to look for now in a university president is their ability to raise money and that requires a lot of time meeting with tons of stakeholders at local, regional and statewide (levels).” 

Public universities rely on private donations due to decreasing state appropriations. Just this year, the Mississippi Legislature decreased support for public universities by 4.2% from last year, with an appropriation of $838.4 million to all eight institutions for the 2026 fiscal year. 

Even IHL commissioner Al Rankins stated during June’s IHL board meeting that the role of college president has become tougher and many universities “fight above their weight” to keep faculty and staff on campus. 

For years, Mississippi’s institutions have all agreed that faculty and staff are underpaid. The average salary of a professor at one of the state’s universities is $87,865 according to data compiled by The Chronicle of Higher Education. But despite several years of state-funded pay raises, Mississippi’s faculty and staff continue to make far less than those in other Southern states.

“We’re at a time in higher education where we’ve seen more change and more flux than I’ve seen over my entire career,” said Rankins, who previously served as president of Alcorn State University. “We can’t continue to go backwards. If we do, it will be very hard for these individuals to provide the quality education and experience that they provide for our students.” 

Jackson State and  Mississippi’s other HBCUs have experienced historic underfunding compared to their predominantly white counterparts like Mississippi State University and the University of Mississippi, which have deep pockets and big stadiums largely due to private support. 

Constant leadership turnover can also disrupt private donor alumni relationships, as well as research funding. While many grants remain in limbo because of the federal administration, other unfriendly policies around international students at tuition-driven institutions could pose a problem. 

But Wilde said the  job will still attract qualified candidates, appealing to those interested in generous salaries and benefits and mansion-like residences on campus. Currently, Jackson State University presidents make $450,000 annually. 

“It’s not a crass way to think about it,” Wilde said. “Of course, there are problems with these jobs and it may attract individuals who don’t have any higher education experience.” 

Amid the many challenges, turnover at the president level is a growing problem. The years of experience of those in the job has been declining steadily for nearly two decades, and 55% of surveyed presidents say they plan to step down in the next five years, according to the American Council on Education’s 2023 college president report. 

Wilde also said it is not unusual for college boards to choose insiders rather than taking a chance on newcomers. Facing political and financial pressures, university boards appear to have grown more allergic to risk. 

In many cases, the IHL board can give itself two options when it searches for a new university president, according to its policy: an extended search with a consultant, or an expedited process in which trustees interview candidates that are “known to the board.” The board has latitude to flip-flop between the two types of searches. 

In 2023, the board spent $115,000 on Academic Search, an executive head hunting firm for Jackson State’s president search, after Hudson resigned. 

The board appointed Elayne Hayes-Anthony, chair of the journalism department, as temporary acting president. When Anthony expressed interest in the role, the board opted not to pick her for the permanent position. It followed its protocol, announcing a search committee, building a search timeline, and scheduling community listening sessions and a survey. 

But then the board went with an internal hire, yet again, and chose Thompson, who was the board’s communications chief and had no experience leading a university. While plans for the current search remain unclear, Wilde said the choices for fairness and transparency are up to those in charge of the process. 

“Search firms promote secrecy,” Wilde said. “What you’re really looking for is someone who has been president before and is maybe ready to do it again.” 

‘A gemstone that needs to be reset’ 

This week kicked off fall semester classes at Jackson State. One student,  Rayvn Webster, said she hopes her next president will prioritize needs around mental health and burnout. 

“So many of us are coming from out of state, and witnessing that instability of president changes since I’ve been here has made our school have a rocky foundation,” Webster, a junior from Memphis, Tennessee, studying industrial technology with a concentration in electrical systems. “We want to think of this place as our home away from home and not a place we can’t trust or feel free.” 

Angel Edwards, a sophomore studying political science, said she does not fault any president for leaving abruptly. 

She had admired Thompson for his engagement with students, which she saw as his biggest strength. He bridged JSU alums and new generations of future alums. 

“I think he understood that this school was our path to a better career, life and opportunity for many of us and our families, and the bonds we built here were sacred,” Edwards said. “But, it was also a lot of kids and a lot of responsibility. So, I get it.” 

From the outside, the job of Jackson State president may not seem appealing. 

The role requires overseeing nearly 6,000 students, four satellite campuses, a $250 million operating budget and millions of dollars in federal research funding. The next leader will also walk a tightrope, needing to please a mainly white board and advocate for the school. 

“Jackson State University is a gemstone that just needs to be polished and reset,” Dawson said. “We have a rich legacy and history and whoever takes the helm needs to understand where we are coming from, where we’re going and what we hope to achieve in the future.” 

Jackson Mayor John Horhn said he’s considering approaching the Legislature with proposals to protect tenants from negligent landlords. 

This comes after at least 20 families were forced to vacate their south Jackson apartment, where JXN Water had disconnected services due to the owner’s nonpayment of the property’s water bill. 

At the city’s request in recent weeks, a federal judge twice ordered the utility to restore the water. But Horhn said during a housing task force meeting Monday that Jackson would not ask for another extension, leaving the Wednesday shutoff in effect.

“The first question is: Do we want to look at approaching the Legislature about any sort of criminal charges that can be put together, that the Legislature would have to approve, to let folks know that we’re really serious about this?” Horhn said.

Jackson’s Housing Task Force was created this month in response to the ongoing battle over water services at Blossom Apartments and resident abandonment at Chapel Ridge Apartments in south Jackson. Its aim is to examine and improve policies and strengthen compliance to ensure safe conditions for renters.

It’s a tall order, considering the more than 7,000 registered rental properties and nearly 26,000 individual units across the city.

On Monday, nine of the 11 task force members discussed absent landlords and the millions in unpaid bills that complexes have accrued with JXN Water. The utility has publicized the names of 15 properties with the largest delinquencies. Many of the landlords in question live out of state.

“ It’s really hard to get to these people,” task force member Emma Redding said. “Most of them live in New York or California. The only thing they want is to get their rent money dropped in the bank every month, and they don’t care about the upkeep or anything.”

Jennifer Welch, whose Jackson-based company owns and manages properties in Jackson, Meridian and Hattiesburg, said that since the discontinuation of pandemic-era rental assistance, it’s been tougher for landlords to secure rent payments from tenants.

“If you don’t collect the rent, you’re not going to make the bank note and you’re not going to make the water payment,” Welch said. “I think we’re seeing some trickle down effects of that phenomenon, which was just a cause of COVID.”

This is exacerbated by JXN Water issuing larger water bills. Welch said she’s seen her charges double.

 ”I’ve got a bill that goes from $7,000 to $15,000, which is shocking. What do you do in that situation?” Welch said. “You owe a $15,000 bill and you cannot find the source of why your bills have doubled. I have found myself in that situation before.”

Earnest Ward, president of the Association of South Jackson neighborhoods, said he couldn’t understand how the water bills of various apartment complexes could reach over six figures.

“How did you all allow the water bill to get to $100,000, $200,000, $700,000?” Ward said. “We didn’t know. The only way we found out was when our associates brought the attention to the media.” 

Carla Dazet, a billing executive for JXN Water, was also in attendance, though not as the company’s designee to the task force. She said the private water utility is only concerned with water usage dating back to December 2022. Landlords and apartment owners have been difficult to reach, she said, causing JXN Water to disconnect services.

“We do everything we can prior to disconnections. I reach out. I do research. We call the offices. These property managers flip quickly,” Dazet said. “We don’t want to turn people off, but we don’t get a response until the water goes off. They don’t even respond to final notice letters.”

One of two attorneys present, Robert Ireland, said bad actors need to be held accountable for placing their tenants in a difficult situation. 

“We don’t have the power to control the resolution while the system is under a federal receiver, but there are folks that are not doing the right thing and are pocketing tenants’ money and not paying bills,” Ireland said. 

U.S. District Judge Henry Wingate first ordered the water at Blossom Apartments to be restored on Aug. 8, calling it a “temporary humanitarian measure.”

“I think that the court has been very indulgent to us,” Horhn said. “They’ve gone above and beyond the call of duty in the 12 days that have been extended to the tenants.”

Water was set to be disconnected again at Blossom Apartments on Wednesday once the second order expires, and residents have until then to move out of the apartments. Earlier this month, Mississippi Home Corp. declared the complex to be unsafe, and residents have said they’ve dealt with poor living conditions, including mold, water leaks and dysfunctional appliances. 

Many rely on housing vouchers to cover a portion of their rent, meaning they don’t have the disposable income required to move on such a short notice. Stewpot Community Services is using a federal emergency housing grant to help residents with relocation costs. 

“We’ve got about $100,000 right now to assist the Blossom tenants,” Horhn said. “If they haven’t found a place to live within a few days, then we’re going to put them up in hotels … but we’re going to run out of that money if we don’t come up with a solution real soon.”

Another solution presented: creation of a rapid response team for when JXN Water terminates service at another housing complex. Region 6 Housing Authority stepped in to provide housing vouchers for residents at Blossom, many of whom are lower-income. Stewpot Community Services held a relocation assistance meeting Aug. 12, but Horhn said a majority of the 20 families who remain were still searching for housing. 

Members of the Housing Task Force are: 

• Brian Burns, staff attorney, Hinds County 
• Theresa Crisler, former staffing consultant
• Robert Ireland, attorney, Watkins & Eager
• Johnnie Patton, retired pharmacist
• Stacey Patrick, former resident of Blossom Apartments
• Emma Redding, retired Mississippi Division of Medicaid officer
• Rebekah Staples, policy consultant, Free State Strategies
• Stuart Tirey, government affairs director, Central Mississippi Realtors
• Earnest Ward, president of the Association of South Jackson Neighborhoods
• Jennifer Welch, property manager, VESICA Real Estate
• Pending JXN Water Designee