University of Southern Mississippi
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| The University of Southern Mississippi | |
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| Established: | March 30, 1910 |
| Type: | Public University |
| President: | Martha Dunagin Saunders |
| Faculty: | 712 |
| Students: | 16,050 |
| Location: | Hattiesburg, Mississippi, USA |
| Campus: | Urban, 1086 acres (1.7 m²) |
| Athletic Conference: | Conference USA (NCAA Division I) |
| Colors: | Black and Gold |
| Nickname: | Golden Eagles |
| Mascot: | Seymour d'Campus |
| Website: | www.usm.edu |
The University of Southern Mississippi (USM, but frequently referred to as Southern Miss) is a four-year public university located primarily in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
Established on March 30, 1910, The University of Southern Mississippi was originally known as Mississippi Normal College, a college for training teachers. Southern Miss has multiple teaching sites that include the Gulf Park Campus in Long Beach, MS, Stennis Space Center, Jackson County, Keesler Air Force Base, J.L.Scott Aquarium, Gulf Coast Research Lab, and Pontlevoy, France. The university, through its Center for International Education, operates a number of international programs, and is consistently ranked as one of the top universities in the nation for the number of students studying abroad each year. It is particularly noted for its flagship British Studies program, which regularly sends over 200 students each summer to live and study in the heart of London.
The university is home to a major polymer science research center, a nationally recognized writer's center and one of the strongest music programs in the southeastern United States. The Southern Miss Wind Ensemble is considered to be among the nation's best, as is The University of Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, which has performed with such world-renowned figures as singer Ray Charles, cellist Yo-Yo Ma, violinist Itzhak Perlman, violinist Joshua Bell, flutist James Galway, trumpet player Doc Severinsen, and tenor Plácido Domingo. In the past few years, the Southern Chorale, the university's top choir, has come into national and international prominence with invitational performances at the National American Choral Director's Association Conference in Los Angeles, Carnegie Hall, and abroad.
Originally called the Mississippi Southerners, in 1971 they became the Golden Eagles. The school’s colors, black and gold, were selected by a student body vote shortly after the school was founded, and while mascots, names, customs, and the very campus itself have changed through the years, the black and gold colors have remained constant.
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[edit] Institution
The University of Southern Mississippi is a comprehensive research university; in fact, it holds the prestigious "Carnegie Doctoral Research Extensive" designation. The University's primary mission is "to cultivate intellectual development and creativity through the generation, dissemination, application, and preservation of knowledge." Southern Miss is accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and its programs are fully accredited by 30 state and national agencies.[1]
Southern Miss is a four-year institution offering approximately 189 programs leading to baccalaureate, master’s, specialist, and doctorate degrees. A faculty of about 715 serves about 13,000 undergraduate and 3,000 graduate students. Southern Miss has traditionally drawn many of its students from Mississippi schools and community colleges, hailing from every county in Mississippi, though today the majority of undergraduates come from public schools across the southern United States and around the globe.
The University of Southern Mississippi offers more than 250 clubs and organizations, as well as intramural athletics and special events. Prominent student organizations at Southern Miss include the Student Government Association, The Legacy, The Student Printz (the biweekly student-produced newspaper), The Southerner (the yearbook), Southern Style (the University's student ambassadors), national fraternities and sororities, prestigious honor societies, and various religious organizations. Southern Miss has over 300 cultural events every year. In addition, the school participates in the NCAA's Division I-A, and Conference USA featuring year-round athletics in 17 sports.
The institution's strengths include its large research endowment, its emphasis on accreditation at the departmental and college level, its respected music and art programs, and its athletic prowess. Several degree programs at the University rank among the best of their kind in the nation. The New York Times Book Review rates the University's Center for Writers as one of the Top 10 in the country, and the Polymer Science and Engineering department is consistently ranked among the nation's top 10 by U.S. News and World Report.
Southern Miss is also the only institution within Mississippi, and one of only a dozen universities in America, to hold accreditation in all four fine arts emphasis areas (art, dance, theatre and music). The school of Communications is ranked among the top ten programs in the nation, according to the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication, and Southern Miss is one of only thirty percent of business schools in the nation accredited by the AACSB International Association for Management Education.
Dr. Martha Dunagin Saunders, a 1969 graduate of USM, was selected as the ninth president of the University in April 2007, giving her the distinction of becoming the first woman to hold that post.[1]
[edit] Organization
The University of Southern Mississippi is governed by the University President along with the Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning. The President of The University of Southern Mississippi is the day-to-day administrator of Southern Miss and is appointed by and responsible to the State Institutions of Higher Learning Board.
The University is organized into five colleges, offering academic programs of study in:
- College of Arts and Letters
- College of Business and Economic Development
- College of Education and Psychology
- College of Health
- College of Science and Technology
In addition to its five academic colleges, The University of Southern Mississippi also offers the following programs:
- George R. Olliphant Honors College
- Graduate Studies
- International Studies Program
- Fully Online Programs: Master of Science in Sport Management and Master of Science in Sport Coaching Education
[edit] History
Adapted from: usm.edu
Mississippi Normal College, eventually renamed The University of Southern Mississippi, was founded on March 30, 1910 to train educators. The college's first president, Joseph Anderson Cook, presided over the opening session of instruction on September 18, 1912 and oversaw the construction of College Hall (the academic building); Forrest County Hall (men’s and married students’ dormitory); Hattiesburg Hall (women’s dormitory); the Industrial Cottage (training laboratory for home management); and the president’s home (now the Alumni House). In its first session, Mississippi Normal College had a total enrollment of 876 students.
The school underwent more name changes in 1924, to State Teachers College, and in 1940, after instruction had expanded beyond teacher training, to Mississippi Southern College.
The college's fifth president, State Archivist Dr. William David McCain, was installed in 1955 and worked diligently to expand Mississippi Southern College. He oversaw the construction of 17 new structures on campus and convinced Gov. Ross Barnett to give Mississippi Southern College university status in 1962. This resulted in a fourth, and final, renaming of the institution to the University of Southern Mississippi. McCain's administration also superintended the inclusion of African-American students on campus beginning in 1965. The first African-American students to attend the University of Southern Mississippi were Raylawni Young Branch and Gwendolyn Elaine Armstrong. In 1972, the Southern Miss Gulf Park Campus was founded and the university athletic teams were renamed from the “Southerners” to the “Golden Eagles.” By the time McCain retired in 1975, enrollment had climbed to 11,000 students.
In the years following McCain's campus transformation, the University of Southern Mississippi continued to expand dramatically. Notable changes included: replacement of the quarter system with the semester system, creation of the Polymer Science Institute, reorganization of the university’s 10 schools into six colleges, affiliation with Conference USA, establishment of the School of Nursing as a college; the implementation of online classes; and an expansion of the Gulf Coast campus.
[edit] Presidents
- Joseph Anderson "Joe" Cook - 1912-1928
- Claude Bennett - 1928-1933
- Dr. Jennings Burton George - 1933-1945
- Dr. Robert Cecil Cook - 1945-1954
- Dr. Richard Aubrey McLemore (acting president) - 1955
- Dr. William David McCain - 1955-1975
- Dr. Aubrey Keith Lucas - 1975-1996
- Dr. Horace Weldon Fleming, Jr. - 1997-2001
- Dr. Aubrey Keith Lucas (interim president) - 2001-2002
- Dr. Shelby Freeland Thames - 2002-2007
- Dr. Martha Dunagin Saunders - 2007-Present
[edit] Recent developments
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On May 1, 2002, Dr. Shelby Freland Thames became The University of Southern Mississippi’s eighth president. Thames has an extensive history at Southern Miss, starting as a student in 1955 and earning his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The University of Southern Mississippi. These degrees were in chemistry and organic chemistry, respectively. His previous administrative positions at Southern Miss were chair of the Department of Polymer Science, dean of the College of Science and Technology, vice president for Administration and Regional Campuses, and executive vice president. In 1970, he was the founder of the Department of Polymer Science, and, in 1973, co-founder of the Waterborne and High-Solids Coatings Symposium. He was an inductee, in 1998, to Southern Miss’s Alumni Hall of Fame, and in that same year, the Polymer Science Research Center was named in honor of Dr. Thames and is now known as the Shelby Freland Thames Polymer Science Research Center. During Thames’ presidency, the state college board voted unanimously to establish a second campus for The University of Southern Mississippi, and on August 19, 2002, Southern Miss admitted its first class of freshmen on its Gulf Park Campus.
Thames inherited a university in financial crisis with multi year cuts,some of 5 million dollars, by the state legislature. Twenty years ago, the state of MS funded 80% of operational costs, now only 20%. One of his first moves was to successfully advocate a restructuring the funding formula used by the state College Board. The formula is now based on the number of undergraduates. This change put USM on equal footing with the other comprehensive universities in state for the first time. Another move was to reduce the number of colleges at USM from nine to five. While this was an unpopular move with faculty, the state college board and retired president Dr Lucas endorsed the cost cutting move as reported in the Hattiesburg American.
Controversy erupted on campus when Dr. Thames attempted to fire two tenured professors, locking them out of their offices on March 4, 2004. The backlash from President Thames's actions resulted in a 40-0 vote of no-confidence in Dr. Thames by the Faculty senate. The full faculty responded days later with a vote of 430-32. The Hattiesburg American reported approximately 1,000 students and faculty protested against Dr. Thames in the immediate aftermath of the vote, while approximately 250 students and faculty rallied for Dr. Thames. Impeachment proceedings followed, as well as extensive debate among the public and the members of the state College Board. Eventually, it was agreed that Thames would serve as President until 2007, when he will return to being a professor. The two professors were placed on paid leave for two years, with instructions that they could be fired after their leave ended.[2]
Another minor scandal during Thames' tenure involved the reporting of enrollment. Eventually, a mid-level administrator admitted using an overly simplistic counting methodology for graduate students and was demoted. This controversy was essentially a public relations issue, since the enrollment numbers involved did not have any official bearing on funding.
In a separate incident, the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools [SACS] placed USM on a one-year accreditation probation in December 2004 because of concerns about distance education programs. The probation was lifted in December 2005. Using open records law, the Hattiesburg American obtained letters from SACS to Dr. Thames dating over several years. These documents indicated that SACS did not express concerns about the distance learning program until December 2004, and that the probation represented a complete surprise to the University.
Dr. Thames has been praised by many, including the faculty, for his response to the destruction wrought by Hurrican Katrina. The October, 2005 meeting of the Faculty Senate of the Gulf Park campus, for example, passed an official resolution of appreciation, and the Hattiesburg American reported that his post-Katrina address to the faculty at Hattiesburg was well-received. Furthermore, no University employees were released in the aftermath of the storm, although the Gulf Park campus alone sustained over $100 million in damage. Such was not the case at Tulane University, for example, where approximately 25% of the staff was released, and significant athletic and academic programs- including the Computer Science major and most engineering programs- were dropped.
The Thames administration has presided over the financing and execution of several construction projects on the campus, often in partnership with private-sector entities. A new addition to the student union holds the second-largest Barnes and Noble store in the southern U.S., for instance, and Barnes and Noble pays $1.5 million in annual rent on this facility. Thames also negotiated a financially favorable food services agreement with Aramark (who will donate $9 million to University construction projects). Other enhancements to the campus realized under Dr. Thames include the upscale Power House restaurant (at an old college power plant), the $15 million sorority village, additions to the football, basketball, and baseball facilities, and many enhancements designed to make the campus generally more open, green, and pedestrian-friendly.
Finally, in addition to controversy and construction, the tenure of Shelby Thames has been characterized by a significant increase in the quality and quantity of research being done at the University. USM was recently assigned the "Doctoral / Research Extensive" designation by the Carnegie Foundation, a category that includes the largest, most important research universities in the nation, which number approximately 150. The most recent figures indicate that annual research funding entering the University exceeds $100 million per year.
The University experienced an unexpected, highly-publicized drop from "Tier 3" to "Tier 4" in the U.S. News and World Report college rankings beginning in the 2004 edition. It is worth noting, however, that USM ranks high in the college rankings developed by Washington Monthly, a persistent critic of the U.S. News and World Report rankings. In these rankings, which attempt to make a more holistic assessment of an institution's value, USM ranks 98th out of 245 doctoral institutions. This is the highest ranking of any school in Mississippi. A January 2006 college ranking list created by a graduate student at Stanford University based on Google hits also ranks Southern Miss rather high- 62nd out of over 1700 U.S. institutions.[3] The school's Carnegie Foundation categorization is of considerable value to its overall academic standing. In summary, existing measures of institutional quality other than the U.S. News and World Report rankings generally assess the University with high praise.
[edit] Campus and student life
Semesters at the university run from August to December and January to May, with a 10-week summer session. There are also two four-week accelerated summer terms.
In Fall 2006, The University of Southern Mississippi dedicated a 4-story, multi-million dollar addition to its R.C. Cook University Union. The Thad Cochran Center is now home to a 2-story Barnes and Noble Bookstore (proclaimed to be the largest college bookstore in the Southeastern U.S.), a ballroom, a stadium-style theater, student organization offices, and Southern Miss Dining and Fresh Foods Company.
At nearly 300, Southern Miss' student organizations appeal to a wide spectrum of interests and are categorized under the following areas: Business, Education and Psychology, the Arts, Games and Athletics, Graduate Studies, Greek Life, Health and Human Sciences, Honors Societies, Liberal Arts, the Military, Religious Life, Residence Halls, Community Service, and Science and Technology. The largest organizations based on student membership include the: Student Government Association, African-American Student Organization, University Activities Council, The Legacy Student Alumni Association, and Baptist Student Union.
[edit] Greek Life
Southern Miss' Greek system consists of a large number of fraternities and sororities. Those currently on campus are:
IFC Fraternities
Other Fraternities
Panhellenic Sororities
Other Sororities National Pan - Hellenic Organizations [edit] Gulf Park Campus
The University’s presence on the Mississippi Gulf Coast began in 1947 when then Mississippi Southern College first organized classes at Van Hook Hall, Methodist Camp Grounds, in Biloxi. In 1958, classroom space and facilities moved to Mary L. Michael Junior High School in Biloxi. To meet the educational needs of various occupational fields and interests along the Gulf Coast, the University relocated in 1964 to Keesler Air Force Base. Classroom facilities were obtained for night classes from the Jefferson Davis campus of the Mississippi Gulf Coast Junior College; the addition was called the USM Harrison County Resident Center. In September 1966, Southern Miss further extended its offerings by adding the Jackson County Resident Center, located on the Jackson County campus of the MGCCC in Gautier. The Jackson County Center was built for the University by the Jackson County Board of Supervisors, largely through the efforts of Dr. Shelby Thames when he was executive vice president of USM. The center was constructed with the hope that all four years of a number of degrees would be located in Jackson County through USM and MGCCC. Today, that wish is a reality. In March 1972, the USM Harrison County Resident Center program was moved from the Jefferson Davis campus of MGCCC to the campus of the former Gulf Park College for Women, located on Highway 90 in Long Beach. Gulf Park was a two-year private school founded by Col. J.C. Hardy, who also founded the Gulf Coast Military Academy. The school opened for classes September 10, 1921, and held its final commencement May 29, 1971. The school’s closing was attributed to the sagging economy, damage inflicted by Hurricane Camille in 1969, and the increasing ability of community colleges to provide quality education at a low cost. In July 1972, the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning established the USM Gulf Park and Keesler Air Force Base Center as an upper-level degree completion regional campus of the University, offering programs leading to degrees at the baccalaureate and graduate levels. On August 19, 2002, Southern Miss admitted its first class of freshmen on its Gulf Park Campus, making the university the only comprehensive university in the state with dual-campus status. Today, the Gulf Park campus serves as the central campus for several teaching centers, including:
In addition, other USM units in the Gulf Coast region are the elements of the College of Marine Sciences; the Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs; the J.L. Scott Marine Education Center and Aquarium on Point Cadet in Biloxi; the Hydrographic Science Research Center; and the Center for Marine Sciences at the John C. Stennis Space Center in Hancock County. In February 2000, the IHL approved the University’s concept of Gateway to the Gulf, a complex that will be located at Point Cadet and encompass a new marine sciences education facility to replace the existing structure, a public aquarium and other attractions designed to create a destination site for visitors to the region. On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina caused about $115 million in damage to Gulf Park and lead to the relocation of classes to a healthcare facility in Gulfport, Healthmark Center (1520 Broad Avenue, Gulfport, MS). As of July 2006, USM Gulf Park is still being rebuilt. The Friendship Oak, however, has survived this storm as it survived Hurricane Camille and countless lesser storms that have hit the area. [edit] Residential housingThe University of Southern Mississippi has 14 residence halls and about 5,000 students live on campus throughout the school year. Freshman Quad Residence Halls:
Triad Complex Residence Halls:
Upper-Class Residence Halls:
Special Housing:
[edit] Publications and media
[edit] Libraries
[edit] EaglepaloozaEaglepalooza is a play on the concert festival Lalapalooza. It is put on by the Southern Miss Student Government Association every year in association with local businesses and other campus organizations. The goal of Eaglepalooza is to bring nationally known musical acts to the campus of Southern Miss. Past performers have included Dashboard Confessional, Gavin DeGraw, Sister Hazel, Train, Better Than Ezra, Mya and Pat Green. This year's performance was originally slated to feature Sister Hazel and Chingy. Chingy cancelled the engagement mere months before it was to take place. Mýa was chosen as his replacement. The 2007 Eaglepalooza will feature R&B artist Eve (rapper) and Robert Randolph and the Family Band. [edit] Mardi Gras holidayThe University of Southern Mississippi is one of the few universities to allow a two-day holiday each year for Mardi Gras. Currently, the University does not hold classes on the Monday and Tuesday before Ash Wednesday. In the late 1970s and early 1980s, many USM students expressed a desire for the holiday, due to the University's proximity to New Orleans and its close ties to the Mississippi Gulf Coast, where Mardi Gras is celebrated with a devotion that rivals the annual New Orleans celebration. In 1981, Ken Stribling, who was at the time serving his first of two years as president of USM's student body, organized a student drive to institute a holiday that would occur annually on Fat Tuesday. After the University's Calendar Committee refused to allow the hoilday, Stribling appealed the decision to USM President Aubrey Lucas. At an annual Christmas celebration at USM in December of 1981, Lucas made a surprise announcement that USM would try the holiday on Fat Tuesday in 1982 to see how it worked. Stribling made a similar effort in 1982, and Lucas again allowed the holiday for Fat Tuesday in 1983. The next year, the holiday for Fat Tuesday was made a permanent part of the University's calendar. Subsequent efforts by the University's student government in 2003 led to the addition of the Monday before Ash Wednesday as part of the Mardi Gras Holiday, creating a two-day holiday for the event. While many USM students attend Mardi Gras during the holiday each year, the majority of students spend the four-day weekend preparing for mid-term exams or visiting loved ones at home. Regardless, the Mardi Gras Holiday has become a recruiting tool and an enjoyed novelty particular to Southern Miss. [edit] Athletics[edit] Alumni[edit] Entertainment
[edit] Journalism
[edit] Science and technology
[edit] Government and education
[edit] Business
[edit] Sports
See all Notable Alumni of The University of Southern Mississippi. [edit] See also[edit] External links
[edit] References
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