President Malcolm Portera

FROM STEPHEN D. LEE TO MALCOLM PORTERA:
A LEGACY OF LEADERSHIP

photos by Fred Faulk

INAUGURAL ADDRESS OF
MALCOLM PORTERA
PRESIDENT OF MISSISSIPPI STATE UNIVERSITY
FEBRUARY 6, 1999

John K. Bettersworth wrote that Mississippi A&M was created as the People's College-an institution that would seek to respond to the educational needs of the people whose tax dollars brought it into being and kept it going over the years. A&M College was to serve the sons of Mississippians. The citizens of Mississippi would be offered an opportunity for higher learning-they would learn as Bettersworth wrote, "the art and science of improving man's condition on this Earth."

This was to be a first-class institution where Mississippi's youth would acquire a "common school education and scientific and practical knowledge of agriculture, horticulture, and the mechanical arts . . . without excluding other scientific and classical studies."

By every measure, A&M College was created to meet a need of the people of the state. Born of humble beginnings, Mississippi State is today a very special institution of higher education. As president I have been deeply involved in the affairs of this university for more than a year now. But for 25 years my wife, Olivia, and I lived in another state where we worked to help others to lead a major state university system. As the initial two-year stay in Alabama turned into 10, then 25, it appeared less and less likely that we would ever return to our home state. Then, in October of 1997, we re-discovered our alma mater when the Board of Trustees asked that we consider coming home. Over the past 13 months, I have sought to determine what it is about this institution that makes it so special.

My experiences over the past year and, of course, those gained as a student here, lead me to conclude that there are at least four powerful forces at work at Mississippi State that make it somewhat unique.

First, this university, more than most, offers people hope-hope for a better life, a secure future, and a key to unlock the potential that all parents see in the eyes of their offspring. Like the parents of thousands of young people in Mississippi, mine had no formal education beyond high school.

They saw Mississippi State as a place that removed obstacles and offered the promise of a better life. A determined woman from Attala County, my mother was fond of saying that my father was educated in the school of "hard knocks." They both longed for a better life for their sons and they were convinced that the road to a promising future could be found at the People's University.

Top: Mace Bearer Tip Henry Allen Jr., professor emeritus of political science, leads the inauguration processional. Middle: President and First Lady Malcolm and Olivia Portera share a moment at the lectern. Bottom: Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs David Cole.

Like so many other ambitious Mississippians, my father worked from daybreak to dark with his hands. He was often heard advising his sons, almost prophetically: "I work with my hands-you, you must work with your minds. Knowledge gained through education will provide you with the tools that I could never possess." How many Mississippians have had that very same conversation with their children?

Krish Bhansali has been a faculty member in political science here for 33 years. He has known me and my family upbringing since I was a student here. Professor Bhansali recently shared with me an ancient Sanskrit verse that describes the importance of knowledge and captures the essence of so many parents' admonition that "You must get an education." It goes like this:

Thief could not steal it;
Brother could not demand a share of it;
Government could not tax it;
And it is not a weight for one who possesses it.
Above all, the more it is used, the more it increases.

Born in a tradition of populism and reared in an air of optimism, Mississippi State is very simply-a place of hope.

It was in 1878, it is today, an institution whose faculty works to give opportunity to the young people of the state and undying hope to their parents.

It is a place of hope.

The second powerful force is exposure to new ideas, new influences, and different ways of thinking. The university is a community of scholars-some of this region's best and brightest people-who have come together here to shape and nurture young minds.

John C. Stennis once said about this institution:

"When I got off the train on the campus at Mississippi A&M in 1919, I arrived as an uncertain youngster with no real sense of purpose or direction . . . . Classes began to open new dimensions to me, and over the next four years, I began to develop a desire to pursue a career which would somehow involve government and the law."

Stennis graduated from A&M in 1923 and during his career rose to the position of President Pro Tem of the United States Senate. John Stennis, like thousands of others, stepped off that train onto the road to the future here at the citizen's college.

This commitment to exposing young people to new ideas and different viewpoints caused Stephen D. Lee, the college's first president, to be criticized. Some in Mississippi felt that "a large number of capable instructors in the state were being overlooked for the purpose of giving chairs to Northern teachers." Aware of the new forces and rapidly changing landscape in the South in the late 19th century, President Lee simply wanted the best talent, the latest ideas to help shape the fledgling college.

The third force that is as old as this institution is the commitment to hard work, even in the harshest of times. Operating under conditions that warrant much greater financial support, this faculty and staff have achieved unparalleled success. Let me share four examples of achievement of this faculty and staff:

Cassie Pennington (right), president of the Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning, leads the investiture ceremonies as IHL Commissioner Thomas D. Layzell (left) looks on.

1. Mississippi State is ranked 66th in the National Science Foundation listing of the top public research universities in the nation.
2. This institution was designated last fall as one of just five Harry S. Truman Foundation Honor Institutions, along with Columbia University, Dartmouth College, the University of Chicago, and Claremont McKenna College.
3. The American Society of Mechanical Engineers in November of last year named Peter J. Umbdenstock of Biloxi as the top mechanical engineering student in the nation. This award had never before been given to a student in Mississippi.
4. And while our student-athletes excel and win championships on the athletic fields, they also lead the Southeastern Conference on the All-SEC honor roll-placing more football players on that list during the past five years than any of the other 11 SEC universities. And more than 70 percent of the football players who complete their eligibility at this institution have graduated for eight consecutive years.

The existence of this degree of commitment to hard work at MSU has amazed me. My father-in-law, a 1938 graduate of Mississippi State, phones about three times each week with a question-"Are you getting any rest?" Today, I will be honest with him and say that to keep pace with this faculty is a 15-hour-a-day job. But in reading the history of Mississippi State, one finds that early presidents and their faculties established this tradition of hard work.

In 1880, Stephen D. Lee commented on the value of work for A&M students by saying that, "Four years of study, without labor, wholly removed from sympathy with the laboring world, during the period of life when habits and tastes are rapidly formed, will almost inevitably produce disinclination, if not inability to perform work."

The final and very powerful force at work here is an undying quest to be better. Mississippi State people constantly strive to be better. The flame of desire to tackle the challenges and pursue the opportunities in the new century is an intense one at State. By the stroke of great fortune we have been given the opportunity to lead this faculty, staff, and student body into the exciting new millenium.

You are invited to get a brief glimpse of the future. In the Engineering Research Center, one of just 27 such centers sponsored by the National Science Foundation in this country, major new investments have allowed this institution to achieve a rank of 20th in supercomputer power among this nation's universities.

Or, catch a glimpse of the future . . . in our Chemistry Department's Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Center. Sponsored by the National Science Foundation, the center is replicated in very few departments in the South.

Or, catch a glimpse of the future . . . in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Center for Adaptive Biotechnology. Mississippi State researchers strive to develop new genetically enhanced varieties of seed that will grow the plants that will feed and clothe the people of the world.

The faculty and graduate students in these units and others at this institution are not at all intimidated by the challenges of the new century. You will sense the confidence that is shared by our faculty when you talk with people like Professor Joe Thompson, one of just 25 members of the U.S. President's Commission on Next-Generation Computing. This confidence and this commitment to inquiry are deeply rooted in the tradition of the modern-day land-grant university.

So, as we approach the new century, where in its development is this institution that was founded in 1878 to teach Mississippians how to live-not to die-on the soil where they fought?

• It is an excellent teaching institution, attracting many of the best and brightest young people from Mississippi, the 49 other states, and 80 countries of the world. The faculty of the citizen's college has expanded its sphere of influence to the people of the world.
• Enrollment is at an all-time high at 15,719.
• Scores on entrance exams are increasing.
• African-American student enrollment stands at 2,500 and growing.
• MSU faculty and graduate students are reaching new heights in research and scholarly activity.

• John F. Marszalek, Giles Distinguished Professor of History and a member of the faculty since 1973, is the author of several books on the Civil War and civil rights, including a 1992 biography of Gen. William T. Sherman that was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. His latest work, last year's The Petticoat Affair: Manners, Mutiny and Sex in Andrew Jackson's White House, received extensive notice in the national media. Dr. Marszalek also is one of 50 board members of The Lincoln Forum, an association dedicated to the study of Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War. He serves as mentor to the university's Schillig Scholars.
• Dr. Lesia Crumpton, associate professor of industrial engineering and head of the Ergonomics Laboratory in Human Factors Engineering, is being awarded the 1999 Dr. Janice A. Lumpkin Educator of the Year Award presented by the National Society of Black Engineers. She will receive the honor in March in Kansas City. She also heads a National Science Foundation-funded Industry/University Cooperative Research Center for Ergonomics, a partnership between Mississippi State and Texas A&M. In 1997, she was named Black Engineer of the Year in Education by the publisher of U.S. Black Engineer magazine.
• Dr. Dawn Luthe, a professor of biochemistry and molecular biology, has received numerous teaching and research awards, including the Outstanding Teaching Award of the National Association of Colleges and Teachers of Agriculture in 1994.
• And, in the Mississippi State University Extension Service and its Experiment Station branches, the Meridian Campus, and centers in Vicksburg and at the Stennis Space Center in Bay St. Louis, we are touching the lives of citizens in all 82 counties of the state.

• The World-Class Teaching Program in the College of Education works with state teachers to prepare them for the rigorous National Board Certification. Thirty-six Mississippi teachers earned certification last year. Thirty of them prepared with the help of the World-Class Teaching Program at Mississippi State.
• The Small Town Center in our School of Architecture provides communities with resources for design issues such as preserving historic neighborhoods and reviving downtown business districts.
• The Office of Business Research and Services in our College of Business and Industry coordinates an array of services to the business community.
• College of Veterinary Medicine research in nutrition and disease prevention saves tens of millions of dollars each year for producers of catfish, poultry, beef, and swine.
• The College of Forest Resources and the Forest Products Laboratory provide assistance to the state's thriving timber and furniture industries.

The words of Mr. W. T. McKinney, President of the Delta Council, in a speech in the 1940s are as true today as they were then. He noted that, "There are two things that are fundamentally important to the Mississippi Delta-the levies that hold back the Mississippi River and the Mississippi State Experiment Station." As the citizens of Mississippi look to the future and ponder the uncertainties of the new century, this institution, the seven other IHL institutions, and the state system of community colleges are fundamentally important to the future of this state.

We have given careful and thoughtful consideration to the role of Mississippi State University for the next several years, and we have agreed to pursue some ambitious goals. Together, these priorities constitute our Leadership for the 21st Century Initiative. Among these are three:

1. First, we will strive to become recognized as the region's top teaching land-grant university.
2. Second, we will become a top-50 public research university and we will seek to join such prestigious institutions as the University of Illinois, Indiana University, the University of Michigan, and Penn State, as a Carnegie Foundation Research I institution.
3. Third, we will accelerate our economic development and service linkages as a land-grant institution-to change this state, to expand its economy, and to improve the lives of all its citizens. In so doing, we will make the Mississippi State University Extension Service a model for the nation.

Other goals in our institutional plan address our priorities in human and fiscal resources, management systems, campus life, physical infrastructure, and intercollegiate athletics.

My hope is that we have effectively demonstrated over the past 13 months that we will be guided by certain significant principles.

President Portera with Lamar Conerly Jr., 1999 national president of the Mississippi State University Alumni Association.

First, we will continue to approach this job in a partnership arrangement with the faculty, the staff, the students, and with the other institutions in the state.

Second, we will always have a plan-a consensus plan. Expect that we will develop three to five major research themes for the campus and invite participation across disciplines, especially with big-ticket research projects.

Third, we will work hard and smart, placing priority emphasis on doing the things that we do in a first-quality fashion. But we will have fun along the way. Never make the mistake, however, of assuming that the informal atmosphere we seek to create here represents anything less than the strongest possible commitment to our agenda.

Finally, we will always proceed in our work in ways that are consistent with the mission of this university. Ours is teaching, doing research, and extending ourselves to assist the people of the state.

As we prepared for this day, a friend asked me what we hoped to leave as a legacy. Not one to spend much time contemplating my legacy, especially this early in my tenure, I was nevertheless motivated to think about the answer to the friend's inquiry. Two questions came to mind:

1. What do we bring to this job? and,

2. What do we hope to attempt to do here at State?

John Bettersworth wrote about Fred Tom Mitchell, the 10th president of Mississippi State, "He brought no magic fire. . . . He merely brought himself; here was a grad who wanted to make his school the best it could be, and conditions were favorable."

On January 24th, Olivia, a graduate of Mississippi State, and I celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary. The presidents who are here today are the only people in this audience who can truly understand that the presidency is a partnership-the president and a supportive spouse.

You will please excuse me when I alter the words of Bettersworth and answer my friend's question about my legacy by saying:

Faculty, staff, and students-most of all people of Mississippi-Olivia and I have no magic fire, we are just grads who want to make our school the best that it can be, and conditions are favorable.

Thank you.