Ahead of its nationwide premiere, a film about Mamie Till Mobley’s fight for justice after the lynching death of her son Emmett Till will be screened Thursday in Mound Bayou.
“Till”, written and directed by Chinonye Chukwu, will be shown at 7 p.m. at the North Bolivar Consolidated School District at 204 N. Edwards Ave. The movie is set to premiere nationally Friday.
“We cannot wait for audiences everywhere to see the poignant, revealing, heartbreaking yet inspiring film that is ‘Till,’” Deborah Watts, co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation and a Till family member, said in a statement. “For people who fear that they will be traumatized by this story, audiences should know it is first and foremost the story of a mother’s love.”
The movie recreated moments that helped galvanize the civil rights movement, such as Mamie Till Mobley getting her son’s body to Chicago from Mississippi, her deciding to have an open casket for his funeral and her giving speeches around the country about Emmett.
The film will be released nearly 70 years after Till’s death, and family members say justice has not been served.
The U.S. Department of Justice has reopened Till’s case several times, but its investigations did not result in new charges.
Despite the newly discovered evidence of the 1955 arrest warrant for Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman Till allegedly whistled at, and her unpublished memoir, a Leflore County grand jury declined to indict Donham for her role in Till’s death.
Mound Bayou, founded and developed by former slaves and their descendants, was the home of civil rights leader Dr. T.R.M. Howard, who is depicted in the Till movie.
Howard opened his home to Mamie Till Mobley, witnesses and Black reporters during the trial of the two white men accused of killing Emmett.
After the men’s acquittal, Howard continued to speak about Till’s case and other examples of racial violence in Mississippi. He left the state after receiving death threats.
Mound Bayou residents from multiple generations, friends and family of Howard, descendants who were part of the Till trial in 1955, faith leaders and local officials are invited to the movie screening.
Afterwards, Watts and movie co-writer and producer Keith Beauchamp will answer questions.
Those interested in attending the screening can register on Eventbrite.
The number of spots in child care for poor children in Mississippi will be reduced by 12,470 in September 2024 when the state’s allotment of federal COVID-19 relief funds is exhausted, a special Senate committee was warned on Tuesday.
The Mississippi Department of Human Services is currently using a substantial portion of its federal COVID-19 relief funds to open more spots in child care for poor parents working in low paying jobs, going to school or looking for employment.
But those COVID-19 funds are scheduled to be spent by September 2024, meaning the state will have only its normal federal appropriations to direct to the child care block grant, said Bob Anderson, the executive director of the Mississippi Department of Human Services.
The state is using the federal child care funds to provide services to 35,646 children across the state, according to latest statistics. But the COVID-19 funds the Department of Human Services is directing to child care is paying for the services for more than 12,400 of the children.
Anderson’s revelation came at hearings held by a special state Senate panel of lawmakers who have said they aim to pass policies to help women and children following the U.S. Supreme Court’s striking down of Roe v. Wade.
The nine-member Senate Study Group on Women, Children and Families, chaired by Sen. Nicole Akins Boyd, R-Oxford, was announced by Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann after the nation’s high court in June struck down longstanding Roe v. Wade and a dormant Mississippi abortion ban on the books subsequently took effect. Hosemann said it’s now incumbent on lawmakers to come up with policies to help mothers and children as experts predict the state will see an additional 5,000 unplanned births a year.
State Sen. Rod Hickman, a Democrat from Macon, asked Anderson at Tuesday’s hearing whether the state could use a portion of its federal TANF funds, normally called welfare benefits, to pay for the child care spots the state is slated to lose in September 2024.
Anderson said using TANF funds to shore up the child care program is “an option we are exploring.”
“We would be allowed to use up to 30% of the funds,” Anderson said. “But understand, people have a lot of other plans for that money as well. But yes, that’s always an option, assuming we haven’t already committed some of it.”
Mississippi is currently leaving about $18 million in available TANF funds on the table, according to information MDHS provided to Mississippi Today as well as a review of public expenditures. That could provide a year’s worth of vouchers for 4,600 children based on the 2022 reimbursement rate of $3,911 annually. In the most recent available federal report for 2020, Mississippi had an unused balance of roughly $50 million in federal TANF funds.
Anderson said that ultimately he would make the decision whether to convert some of the TANF funds to the Child Care Development Fund program.
Health, education and business experts told the panel Tuesday that lack of affordable child care is a major impediment to Mississippi moving forward economically and socially.
“The number-one topic that continually comes up is child care, or lack of available child care,” said Ryan Miller, director of Accelerate Mississippi, the state’s workforce development agency. “It is a real issue, and anecdotally, industry has been saying this for years.”
Miller said lawmakers should consider tax or other financial incentives for businesses to create child care programs, consider providing more state funding for programs and eliminate policies that thwart single parents’ access to child care. Miller and others testifying Tuesday said that MDHS’ requirement — per state law — that single mothers identify a child’s father before receiving benefits such as child care appears to keep some from applying.
Boyd said she has heard this brought up repeatedly during committee research.
“I think there are issues about not only feeling like they’re being judged, but probably some protection reasons, safety for the mother,” Boyd said of the requirement.
Other requirements that prevent people from getting child care assistance — and thus from joining the workforce — include a state provision that single mothers turn their child support cases over to the state to participate in the federally funded Child Care Payment Program.
Gov. Tate Reeves’ appointed State Early Childhood Advisory Council has already recommended that the governor instruct MDHS remove this requirement, but it has not done so.
Anderson also told lawmakers how the so-called HOPE Act, passed in 2017 at the behest of the state’s Republican leadership to crack down on fraud in federal programs administered by the state for poor people, was actually costing the state money. The program looks for fraud by those receiving benefits through Medicaid, Temporary Aid for Needy Families and other welfare-related programs.
Hickman questioned some experts who testified Tuesday about strict regulations Mississippi has put in place in the name of fraud prevention that instead just prevent people from applying or qualifying for programs.
Mississippi has in recent years been plagued with fraud and embezzlement of government money, but it has mostly been perpetrated by powerful politicians, bureaucrats and business leaders, not the beneficiaries of the programs. Notably, investigations continue into theft or misspending of tens of millions of TANF dollars, not by the few people who receive the benefits, but by those who were supposed to administer them or provide services.
“I believe in preventing fraud, but we need ideas that make sense and not just provide barriers to poor people receiving help,” Hickman said. “We’ve seen the amount of people applying for benefits dramatically dropped when we made all these requirements … But so much keeps getting fed into this thought that poor people are creating the fraud.”
Anderson said that MDHS is being required to create fraud and abuse systems “that we will never use” because they are redundant or not needed.
“It’s costing the state,” Anderson said.
When Hickman asked Anderson if “we are costing the state by over-policing poor people” through the HOPE Act, Anderson said essentially that is true. Anderson, a former prosecutor who worked on governmental fraud cases, said fraud by the poor is “not a big part of the problem.”
He said the last two years prove that as the welfare fraud case has unfolded in Mississippi where numerous private contractors and those close to the contractors have benefitted from the program.
The Mississippi Low-Income Childcare Initiative, led by longtime advocate Carol Burnett, is among numerous groups outlining issues faced by women and children in Mississippi and making policy recommendations to the Senate panel.
In a written statement to the committee, the initiative’s recommendations include:
Reducing the mounds of red tape single mothers face in enrolling in and staying in the federally funded Child Care Payment Program.
Mississippi using “every dollar it can” on childcare assistance to serve more families. Currently, only about 25% of eligible children are served.
Extending postpartum Medicaid for new moms from the current two months to 12 months.
Most charter schools across Mississippi performed on par with their local districts for this year’s accountability scores, though some officials say the system used to assign grades should be modified for these kinds of schools.
Charter schools are free public schools that do not report to a school board like traditional public schools. Instead, they are governed by the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board. They have more flexibility for teachers and administrators when it comes to student instruction, and are funded by local school districts based on enrollment.
Accountability grades are based on state test performance and other metrics. Charter schools, like all public schools across the state, received grades for the first time this year since 2019. For multiple charter schools, this is the first time they have ever received a letter grade.
Lisa Karmacharya, executive director of the Mississippi Charter School Authorizer Board, said that the design of the state accountability system puts charter schools “at a little bit of a disadvantage,” calling it unfortunate that the state accountability system doesn’t take into consideration all of the components the authorizer board’s framework does.
“When we’re talking about the success of a charter school, we’re looking at the whole package,” she said. “We’re looking at their academic health, their financial health, their organizational health over a period of time. So to take one snapshot and say they are or they aren’t (succeeding), I don’t think that’s quite a fair way to look at it.”
In Greenwood, Leflore Legacy Academy Director Tamala Boyd Shaw said she tried not to compare the school’s performance against other districts or charter schools. Instead, she focused on comparisons between the results of repeated benchmark testing the school administered internally.
Shaw said she anticipated the D grade Leflore Legacy received based on the state testing data released earlier this year, but still took issue with it. Since the school did not yet have students taking the state test in science, it altered the way their accountability score was calculated. Shaw said the score the school received did not align with her understanding of the rules for these situations, and she appealed it, unsuccessfully, to the Department of Education.
Shaw suggested the Mississippi Department of Education more broadly reconsider how it grades charter schools, accommodating for the fact that charter schools often add grades each year and other nuances of their expansion.
Executive Director of Mississippi First Rachel Canter said it can be unfair to compare a charter school to a whole district when they don’t have the right age groups of students to capture data for a number of the accountability model’s components. But Canter still acknowledged the importance of charter schools being graded by the same metrics.
“It’s important for parents to have some kind of measure that is common across traditional schools and charter schools so that they can assess for themselves in a way that is transparent,” she said. “I absolutely believe charter schools should take the same assessments and they should get the same grades, but those grades are more comparable in years that are normal.”
Midtown Public Charter School, one of the first charter schools to open in Mississippi, earned a D rating this year and ranked 10th of the 13 middle schools in JPS. Kristi Hendrix, the executive director of Midtown Partners, the nonprofit that operates the school, said they were disappointed with the grade they received this year and expected a different outcome based on their internal benchmark testing.
“We are not where we plan to be academic achievement wise but are making the adjustments in the instructional program for the current students we have in efforts best serve their needs,” she said.
Midtown Public was also the only school to recieve a letter grade below the local district they operate in. Hendrix said she didn’t feel this was an accurate comparison since JPS serves all grades and thousands more students.
When pressed specifically about the success of Midtown Public, Karmacharya said it was too early to say how their grade might impact their application for re-authorization.
“The authorizer is always going to be aware of whenever a school is challenged in whatever that way is,” she said. “(It) is part of our responsibilities, to support them the best we can. If at some point in time a school is unable to demonstrate that they can provide a high quality education option for families and kids, then the board will have to make a tough decision.”
Leaders with RePublic Schools, the group that operates Smilow Collegiate, Smilow Prep and ReImagine Prep in Jackson, said the schools were on track to fully rebound from the pandemic. Angela Bass, the regional executive director of RePublic Schools, said she was pleased with their schools' performance compared to the Jackson Public School District. RePublic schools ranked fourth and fifth of the 13 middle schools in Jackson, though Bass also emphasized she is excited by the overall improvements JPS is seeing.
RePublic’s Jackson Director of Schools Lynzie Smith also drew attention to their schools’ growth scores, which is a measure of how many students improve from one year to the next on state tests. Smith said growth scores at their schools were both high and “on-brand” for what their schools produce each year independent of the influences of the pandemic.
“The vast majority of our kids are coming to school and growing from one proficiency level to another, and we just know that is going to translate directly into proficiency the longer (students) stay with us,” Bass said.
For Clarksdale Collegiate, which received a D, this was the school’s first time receiving an accountability grade. Executive Director Amanda Johnson said she thought their score would be slightly higher, explaining it was harder to predict what grade they would receive since they added extra students at the beginning of last year. She said she believes it was the right decision, as they had the capacity to add seats and students who wanted to come, but since the students were newer to the school it was less clear how they would perform on the state test.
Through small group tutoring multiple times a week to close learning gaps and continuous rigorous instruction, Johnson said she expects to be in a much better spot next year as they continue to recover from the challenges of the pandemic.
“It’s a new experience, but data is always helpful to have, to learn from and grow,” she said.
Ambition Prep and Revive Prep, the other charter schools in Jackson, both did not receive scores this year as they do not have have enough grades of students.
Deion Sanders, right, shares a laugh with JSU play-by-play announcer Rob Jay at Tuesday press conference. (Photo by Rick Cleveland)
After recent visits to college football blue bloods Ohio State, Texas, Tennessee, Clemson and Oregon, ESPN’s College GameDay show comes to Jackson and Jackson State University this Saturday. They’ll set up at Veterans Memorial Stadium, right there between State Street and West Street to preview the Southern U-Jackson State game for three hours beginning at 8 a.m.
Deion Sanders says he was driving to his office Sunday when he got the news.
“I was excited, really excited,” Sanders said Tuesday morning at his weekly media gathering. “But you gotta understand, I expect stuff like this. Why not us? You know lots of people wear that shirt that says: ‘Why not us.’ But they don’t believe what’s on the shirt half the time. You better believe it. Don’t just wear it. Believe it. I really think like that. I think, ‘Why haven’t you come yet?’ Thank God, they pulled the trigger. We’re blessed to have them. It’s phenomenal.”
Rick Cleveland
The man they now call Coach Prime was just getting started….
“I just hope we, as a city and as a school, understand the magnitude of what’s about to transpire. I hope we do our homework as a city and come out and support College GameDay, support what it is and then some. We need to put on for our city for real. Southern needs to be a big part of this as well.”
So, Sanders was asked, what does this unprecedented exposure mean for Jackson State?
“I put it like this,” Sanders began. “It doesn’t matter whether you’re Black, white or Asian or whatever, when your father comes to see you play, whatever the sport, all he has to do is tilt is head and you know what that means: ‘I see you.’ Now your mama’s got to yell and clap and all that, but your father, all he has to do is nod and you know what that means. To me, that’s what what ESPN is doing. They are nodding in our direction. They see us.”
There have been decidedly different reactions around the country to ESPN’s announcement. The reactions range from, “Hey, that’s really cool, really neat,” to “Come on, Ohio State is playing at Penn State, Georgia and Florida are playing, Kentucky is at Tennessee. Why in the world would ESPN boost a SWAC game nobody cares about?”
Those people espousing that last line of thinking just don’t get it. This is unique. This is really cool. How many times do you really need to set up outside of stadiums Ohio State or Alabama? ESPN GameDay has featured those schools nearly 60 times each over the years.
This will be new, this will be different. And this will be great show if they do it right. SWAC games aren’t just about the football. They are an experience. ESPN should feature Deion, yes, and the two teams. But they would also feature the truly incredible bands, the drum majors, the dance teams, the ambiance of the SWAC experience. Show the ribs and chicken on the grills. Give the viewers a listen to the music that will be blaring all over the grounds and parking lots of The Vet. Tell them about the rich history of the SWAC and for that matter the rich history of The Vet, where SEC doubleheaders were once played and where Walter Payton ran the football and Jerry Rice caught it and Steve McNair ran and threw it. Tell them about one Sunday in 1984 when Alcorn and Mississippi Valley State packed the stadium and had TV ratings that blew away the NFL.
Tell them about W.C. Gorden and Eddie Robinson and Marino Casem. Tell them about how Jackson State leads all the Mississippi schools in production of Pro Football Hall of Famers with four.
This could be the best ESPN GameDay of the season if they do it right.
They can also tell viewers about last year’s Jackson State-Southern game, football’s version of a passion play. Sanders had missed three straight games after being hospitalized with blood clots in a leg. Two of his toes were amputated. He lost 30 to 35 pounds, he says. He returned to the field at Southern in Baton Rouge for a huge game. We’ll let Sanders take it from there.
“I can remember Shedeur (his son, quarterback Shedeur Sanders) coming to the hospital that week and saying, ‘Dad, I need you,’” Deion Sanders said. “So I was going to do whatever it took … My baby needed me.”
Deion Sanders coached from a wheelchair on the sidelines. And for three and a half quarters, it looked as if Southern was going to win. Then Shedeur Sanders threw a dramatic touchdown and Shiloh Sanders (Deion’s cornerback son) intercepted a Southern pass. And Jackson State prevailed 21-17. “That was a big, big win for us,” Deion Sanders said Tuesday.
So, with ESPN cameras in town Saturday, what will Coach Prime’s Tigers do for an encore? There’s no telling, but the matchup is intriguing. Southern, 5-2, has won four in a row and is in first place in the SWAC West. Jackson State has won seven straight and is in first place in the SWAC East.
So does ESPN’s College GameDay add to the pressure of an important rivalry game?
Not according to Deion Sanders. “A mother raising three kids by herself, that’s pressure,” Sanders said. “That father trying to fight drug addiction, that’s pressure. People trying to deal with the trials and tribulations of this country, that’s pressure. This is football.”
A Pennsylvania man is facing federal charges for allegedly sending a death threat to U.S. Rep. Bennie Thompson of Mississippi, the chair of the House Jan. 6 Committee that is investigating efforts to overthrow the results of the November 2020 presidential election.
Thompson, who represents Mississippi’s 2nd congressional district, reported just before the last round of public hearings by the Jan. 6 Committee that his Washington, D.C., office had received a suspicious item in the mail.
Robert Maverick Vargo, who is 25 years old, was also charged with threatening President Joe Biden, according to Axios and other national media outlets. Vargo faces charges of threatening the President of the United States, interstate communications with a threat and influencing a federal official by threat.
The letter to Thompson contained a white powder, but it was determined not to be dangerous.
The letter, according to Axios, referenced Thompson’s leadership of the Jan. 6 Committee that recently subpoenaed former President Donald Trump over efforts to throw out millions of votes and overturn the results of the election. The Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was part of that effort.
The letter to Thompson read, in part, according to Axios: “Im going to kill you! I will make you feel the rest of our pain & suffering. There is nowhere or nobody who can keep you from me. I am going to kill you & those you love. I promise you that I will keep my promise until the day of my death. … You & Joe Biden soon will face death for the wrongs you’ve done to US.”
Thompson has been vocal in his belief that the committee he chairs is important to preserving the right to vote for all American citizens.
“I want, as an African American, to be able to say to the world that I helped stabilize our government when insurrectionists tried to take over,” Thompson told CNN in the summer before the hearings began.
Thompson — the dean of the Mississippi congressional delegation and indeed someone who has worked to avoid the limelight — has built his long political career on protecting democracy.
As a young adult in the 1960s, he worked to register African Americans to vote and to ensure votes were counted. Now leading the Jan. 6 Commission, he is effectively doing similar work: ensuring that legally cast votes are counted and that the nation’s representative democracy is protected from any future efforts to overturn the results of an election.
Thompson was selected to chair the special Jan. 6 Committee because of his leadership of the House’s Homeland Security Committee.
The closure of a neonatal intensive care unit in South Jackson will hurt the mothers and babies who need it most, say doctors and nurses who care for the patients in this majority Black, low-income area.
Dr. Samuel Brown, an OB/GYN at Merit Health Central, sees many patients with conditions that increase their risk of delivering early, like diabetes and high blood pressure. The vast majority of his patients are Black, and Black women in Mississippi are about 50% more likely than white women to deliver prematurely – the most common reason a baby is admitted to the NICU.
With a NICU at Merit Health Central, Brown’s patients who go into labor early and those with other complications could deliver at the hospital close to home and recover while their baby received care at the same facility.
But last month, Merit Health announced it was closing the NICU at Merit Central. Now, women who go into labor before 35 weeks of pregnancy aren’t supposed to deliver at Merit Central unless it’s an emergency and they can’t be safely transferred. If a baby born at Merit Central requires NICU care, they are “shipped off” to Merit River Oaks or Woman’s Hospital, both located in Flowood, said Laketa Johnson, who works with Brown as a nurse manager.
Since the NICU closed at Merit Central, 10 babies have been transferred to other facilities, according to Merit. Only four babies were transferred in 2022 before the NICU closed.
“This community is the community that needs doctors … because of obesity and preterm labor, diabetes, hypertension, all that stuff affects pregnancy,” Brown said. “And those are the patients that are going to need high-risk doctors or the NICU. And the fact is, that the NICU is gone. It’s just not a good thing for this community.”
The demographics of Flowood are different from those of the community surrounding Merit Central: The zip code that includes Merit Central is 93% Black, with 31% of residents in poverty and a median income of $29,600. The zip code that includes the two Merit hospitals in Flowood is 30% Black, with 20% of residents below the poverty line and a median household income of $69,000.
Black women and babies in Mississippi suffer the worst of the state’s abysmal maternal and infant health outcomes. Black women are about 2.5 times likelier to die of a pregnancy-related complication than white women. Black babies are more likely to be born early and to have a low birth weight. And they are twice as likely to die before their first birthday as white babies.
Alicia Carpenter, director of marketing at Merit Health, said the closure of the NICU at Merit Central was part of an effort to reduce duplication of services across their network. She said doctors help patients decide where to deliver based on their needs and health history.
“We will work with OB providers for patients who are less than 35 weeks to understand what is best for both the mother and baby at time of presentation and post-delivery,” she said in an emailed statement to Mississippi Today. “If an expectant mother presented in labor and could not be safely transferred to a higher level of care prior to delivery, Merit Health Central is prepared to safely deliver the mother and stabilize the baby for transfer to one of our sister hospitals that has NICU services or to one of the three hospitals in the neighboring Jackson area that offer NICU services.”
The closure of the NICU is part of a broader reduction in services at Merit Central, which is owned by Hinds County but leased and operated by the Nashville-based company Community Health Systems. The company reported a $326 million net loss in the second quarter of 2022.
Closures have included the hospital’s burn unit, the only such facility in the state, and its operating room. Anyone admitted to the emergency room who needs surgery will be transferred after being stabilized. Cardiovascular and endoscopy services have been moved to the suburbs, too.
Of the company’s nine facilities in Mississippi, Merit Central spends the largest amount by far providing care for patients without insurance, who in most cases have no ability to pay, meaning the hospital must absorb the costs. That figure was $16 million in the most recent fiscal year.
Merit has said labor and delivery services, including cesarean sections, will continue at Merit Central. But while Brown and his colleagues continue to see obstetrics patients and deliver babies at the hospital, the closure of the NICU disrupts care for many of their patients.
Dr. Edith Smith Rayford, an OB/GYN at the community health center Central Mississippi Health Services, Inc., has delivered babies at the hospital since 1996. She served as chief of the OB/GYN section and chief of women’s health and has seen the hospital change owners several times.
“I really, really had the vision that the hospital would remain a beacon for the community,” she said. “But I think that maybe I was wrong there.”
Roughly 700 to 750 babies were born each year at Merit Central from 2019 to 2021, according to statistics provided by the health department.
Carpenter said that 72 babies were admitted to the NICU at Merit Central in 2021, about 10% of all babies born there. At River Oaks, 172 babies spent time in the NICU, a similar share of all births.
The NICU at River Oaks can accommodate 20 babies, while the facility at Woman’s Hospital can take 16, Carpenter said.
At the NICU, newborns get around-the-clock care from experts, with careful monitoring of their vital signs and temperature. Babies can stay for a few hours or for as long as months.
Rayford said that routine deliveries haven’t changed at Merit Central. But now, for more complicated situations, she doesn’t have the support she would like. And moms who deliver prematurely at Merit Central will likely be separated from their newborns.
“Already a bond is being broken,” she said. “Mom is in one facility, the baby in another. A newborn at that. I’m just not comfortable with that.”
Brown has one patient whose water broke at 32 weeks who has been admitted to River Oaks. Before the NICU closed, she could have been at Merit Central, where Brown sees his patients regularly and would be able to check in on her easily between other appointments.
“This is the type of patient that I need here,” Brown said. “She can deliver any time.”
Since the NICU closed, Brown has had patients who delivered at Merit Central only to have their babies sent to River Oaks.
Johnson, the nurse manager, recalls patients’ reactions to learning their babies would be taken to another hospital across town.
IHL named Joe Paul the next president of USM on Monday, Oct. 24. Credit: Courtesy Institutions of Higher Learning
Joe Paul will serve as the next president of the University of Southern Mississippi, the Institutions of Higher Learning announced in a press release Monday. The Board of Trustees took the vote last week during executive session at a monthly board meeting that was held in Oxford instead of Jackson, where the board traditionally meets.
The swift decision – announced less than a month after trustees conducted listening sessions at USM’s campuses in Hattiesburg and Gulf Park – comes on the heels of criticism from rank-and-file faculty and staff about the lack of transparency in IHL’s presidential search process. It also follows weeks of national scrutiny toward USM for its involvement in Mississippi’s welfare scandal.
IHL contracted a headhunting firm, Academic Search, for $130,000 to aid in a presidential search that was scheduled to end in spring 2023, according to the contract inked on Sept. 21. Academic Search was hired to help the board select semi-finalists, conduct reference checks and provide guidance on conditions of employment for the next president.
IHL brought Paul out of retirement to serve as interim president at USM following the departure of Rodney Bennett, the university’s tenth president and the first African American to fill the role, earlier this year. A longtime administrator, Paul is well-known at USM, having served as vice president for student affairs, faculty in the College of Education and Psychology, and as a fundraiser for the USM Foundation.
Paul will initially serve as president for the next four years, according to his statement in IHL’s press release. IHL did not include his salary in the press release.
“I want to assure all that I will attack these next four years with the energy and urgency with which I have approached these first four months,” Paul said. “We will chase audacious goals with passion and persistence. Our Southern Miss grit will prevail.”
Tom Duff and Gee Ogletree, IHL board members and USM alumni who co-chaired the presidential search, both cited the community’s feedback at the listening sessions and in an online comment form as a factor in the decision, per IHL’s press release.
At a listening session that Mississippi Today attended in Hattiesburg, multiple people said they wanted Paul or someone like him to serve as president, including Chuck Scianna, a high-dollar donor to USM; Toby Barker, the mayor of Hattiesburg; and Denis Wiesenburg, the president of the faculty senate.
In his statement, Ogletree also noted his personal experience with Paul.
“I have known and witnessed Dr. Paul’s exceptional contributions to the University for over four decades,” Ogletree said. “I recognize Dr. Paul’s energy, relationships, affection and years of service to Southern Miss have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that he is the right person to guide the University into its next chapter of leadership and excellence in teaching, service and research in the state and nation.”
In turn, Paul said in the press release that he was honored to accept the position and grateful to Ogletree and Duff.
“These two Southern Miss alumni have displayed courage, conviction and integrity through this process,” Paul said. “They love Southern Miss as I do, and they share a vision of the potential this institution has to positively impact our region, state and beyond.”
Paul is the first president that IHL has hired since the board earlier this year approved a series of changes to make its executive search process more confidential. In April, the board voted to make it so search committee members are anonymous, even to each other, and to decrease the role that campus advisory groups play in selecting the president.
In a special-called meeting at the end of September, trustees voted to roll back the change that made the committee confidential so they could announce members at the listening sessions on Oct. 3 and Oct. 4.
Faculty and staff hope that Paul will approach the role of president in a collaborative manner, a desire that Paul nodded to in the press release.
“I am also deeply committed to creating an unapparelled (sic) student life and leadership experience,” he said. “A spirit of shared governance will be front and center for me.”
A formal announcement will be held on Thursday, Oct. 27 at 3 p.m. in the Thad Cochran Center Ballroom in Hattiesburg.
