| Tuesday, June 2, 2015 |
| First female VP for Student Affairs named at Mississippi State | |
 | Mississippi State University has selected a woman to serve as the next vice president for student affairs, a first for the 137-year-old land grant institution. Regina Y. Hyatt will take over the position on July 1, pending approval by the State College Board. Hyatt has served for the past four years as dean of students at the University of Alabama in Huntsville. She will succeed former Vice President of Student Affairs William "Bill" Kibler. |
| Mississippi State To Hire Its First Female V.P. Of Student Affairs | |
 | Mississippi State University has selected Regina Y. Hyatt as its next vice president for student affairs, the first woman to serve in this role at the 137-year-old land grant institution. Hyatt's appointment, effective July 1, is pending approval by the Board of Trustees, Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning, and comes after an extensive national search by a diverse committee. Hyatt said, "I am so appreciative to President Keenum, Provost Gilbert and the search committee for their support and am delighted to become a part of the vibrant MSU community." |
| Keenum to offer updates on Mississippi State campus at Meridian Rotary meeting | |
 | Mississippi State University President Dr. Mark E. Keenum will be the guest speaker for Wednesday's Meridian Rotary Club meeting. Keenum will update local Rotarians on Mississippi State's expansion plans for its Riley Campus in downtown Meridian. The Kress Building is currently under construction and will house the school's kinesiology program. "Dr. Keenum will be providing an update on developments at Mississippi State University, and more specifically about MSU-Meridian and its partnership with the city, Lauderdale County and East Mississippi," said MSU Executive Director/External Affairs Kyle Steward. "Dr. Keenum will elaborate on our plans to strengthen the relationship with the city and what we are doing to offer greater opportunities for folks to pursue higher education options," Steward said. |
| MSU-Meridian Hosts Transfer Workshops | |
 | Students who are ready to take the next step in their education after community college have a helping hand over the next few months. Mississippi State University-Meridian put on the second of five summer transfer workshops for students who want to join the bulldog family Monday evening. Project coordinator Lisa Sollie says they keep a team on-hand for these workshops to help students through the process of applying and registering while answering any questions they have. The next workshops will be June 29, July 23 and Aug. 11. |
| School is back in session with Building Bridges for Kids | |
| Dytavia McClellan likes being back in class, but she entered the Building Bridges for Kids program a little skeptical. "My mom made me come here. I didn't want to, but then now that I came, I like it so I'll keep going," said McClellan. She and others in this classroom are in for a unique experience. On this day they are being taught life skills which just might last a lifetime. Next door, we find the young ones who are clearly having a good time. Lessons on mentoring come from their new mentors. They are Mississippi State University student volunteers. |
| Wiseman outlines 'aggressive' plan to pay Starkville Parks' late electric bills | |
 | Starkville Mayor Parker Wiseman says the city's parks and recreation department can bring its outstanding electric bill level by next spring with an aggressive repayment plan. Although documents show the park system still owes Starkville Electric Department $59,000 in previous back payments and $63,177 for this current fiscal year, Wiseman says the plan, which includes doubling the department's payments through September, will rely on a manageable-yet-aggressive schedule to erode arrearages as early as March. "This situation didn't develop overnight, and it isn't going to be resolved overnight," he said. "I believe in setting goals that are obtainable. It's not an easy goal to hit, but we can do it." |
| Mississippi a leader in women-owned businesses growth | |
 | When Julie Stockton found herself newly divorced and in need of a job so she could care for her two children, she began selling sweaters, leashes and other accessories for dogs from a kiosk at Northpark mall in Ridgeland. "I had to pull myself up by my bootstraps and try to do all I could and not have my children's lives affected," she said, explaining her motivation to start her own business in 2004. Nationwide, women-owned firms account for 30 percent of all enterprises and are growing faster in number and employment than most other firms. So how do women-owned businesses in Mississippi stack up? The number of women-owned firms in Mississippi surpassed the national number of 74 percent growth and increased by 87 percent from 38,321 in 1997 to 72,300 in 2015, according to the report that uses U.S. Census Bureau data. |
| Mississippi ID thieves preying on crooks | |
| Identity thieves, who steal more than $5 billion a year from Americans, have enlisted new partners in their scams: inmates and those hired to watch them. Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher confirmed Monday that his office is investigating allegations of identity theft at the Central Mississippi Correctional Facility. An employee there reportedly shared a list of inmates' Social Security numbers with other inmates, believed to have shared those numbers with identity thieves on the outside. According to the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, more than 9.9 million Americans last year became victims of identity theft -- the fastest-growing crime in the country. "It is mind blowing that it's a $5 billion industry," Fisher said. |
| Decision time: Voters select next 1st District congressman today | |
 | North Mississippi voters will decide today whether to send a Democrat or Republican to Washington to be the area's next congressman. Trent Kelly of Saltillo and Walter Howard Zinn Jr. of Pontotoc are competing today for the 1st District U.S. House of Representatives seat left vacant by the death of Congressman Alan Nunnelee. Polls are open from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. Only 88,364 votes were cast during the first round of voting in the special election, and Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said Monday he hopes those numbers increase significantly today. "There is no reason to have such a low turnout for any election, much less an election for United States Congressman," Hosemann said. |
| Democrat hopes for underdog win in Mississippi US House race | |
 | Democratic candidate Walter Zinn says he sees himself as David to the Republicans' Goliath in a race to fill a vacant congressional seat in north Mississippi. He faces some tough realities in Tuesday's special-election runoff. A 34-year-old attorney and political consultant, Zinn is making his first run for public office, and he has struggled to get support from national Democratic campaign groups. He is being outspent by Republican Trent Kelly, a 49-year-old military veteran who is district attorney for seven counties -- about one-third of the 1st Congressional District. The two are running for a seat that has been in Republican hands for most of the past 20 years. |
| Bryant enters Mississippi House fray, backs Moak challenger | |
| Gov. Phil Bryant is endorsing Republican House candidate Vince Mangold, who is challenging House Democratic Leader Bobby Moak of Bogue Chitto for the District 53 House seat. Moak, an attorney, has held the District 53 seat, which serves parts of Amite, Franklin, Lawrence, Lincoln and Pike counties, for 32 years. Bryant's re-election campaign announced that he will be headlining a campaign kickoff rally and fundraiser for Mangold on Tuesday in Brookhaven. Moak has been fundraising for his Leadership PAC and is helping lead the state Democratic Party's efforts to regain control of the House with this year's elections. |
| Push on to keep inmate work program | |
| Three powerful political groups are joining forces to try to thwart the decision of Corrections Commissioner Marshall Fisher to close a Joint State County Work Program. The Mississippi Association of Supervisors, the Mississippi Municipal League and the Mississippi Sheriff's Association are asking Gov. Phil Bryant and the Legislature to reverse Fisher's decision. Fisher, who previously served as executive director of the state Bureau of Narcotics, was appointed in January by Bryant as Corrections Commissioner to replace Chris Epps, who was indicted on federal charges after being accused of accepting bribes for the awarding of state contracts. |
| Judge's rewrite of ballot title is final, attorneys argue | |
| The Mississippi attorney general's office and attorneys for an Oxford parent say there's no legal right for anyone to appeal a circuit judge's rewriting of a short description for one of the school funding proposals on the November ballot. Both groups of attorneys filed arguments Monday with the Mississippi Supreme Court. They say state law specifies if a circuit judge rewrites a ballot title for a proposed constitutional amendment, that decision is final. |
| Struggling third-graders to get free eye tests | |
| Poor vision could be contributing to the struggles of some Mississippi third-graders in learning to read. If so, the state's eye doctors want to help. Those who have failed the state third-grade reading test will have access to a free eye exam, the Mississippi Optometric Association, the Mississippi Vision Foundation and Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves announced on Monday. The statewide initiative runs through July 31. "Improving the reading abilities of Mississippi schoolchildren is going to be a community effort, and this is an example of how we have to pull together to make sure our third graders are reading well," Reeves said. |
| Supreme Court Sides With Muslim Abercrombie Job Applicant over Head Scarf | |
 | The Supreme Court on Monday buttressed religious expression at the workplace, ruling for a Muslim job applicant Abercrombie & Fitch Co. rejected because she wore a head scarf. The 8-1 decision underscored employers' obligation to accommodate, within reason, the religious practices of workers and applicants unless they impose an "undue hardship" on the business. It is the latest in a line of Supreme Court cases that have elevated religious rights over secular interests, whether exercised by powerful corporations, government agencies or prison inmates. The majority opinion by Justice Antonin Scalia stressed two points that outline the role religion can have in the workplace. |
| Landowners form a pipeline rebellion in the Deep South | |
 | When the letter arrived from a Texas pipeline company asking permission to enter his land, Alan Zipperer refused to allow surveyors onto his property. But they came anyway, he said, traipsing through his corn fields and pine forests and sticking wooden stakes in the low-country land his family has owned since the 1700s. Zipperer, 60, is one of many Southern landowners challenging the nation's largest energy infrastructure company, Kinder Morgan, as it plans to run a petroleum pipeline through 360 miles of bottom land, river forests and freshwater coastal wetlands across South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican, entered the fray May 7, announcing that the state would fight the $1-billion project in court. The dispute is one of a growing number of skirmishes over pipelines nationwide. |
| There Are 200 Million Fewer Hungry People Than 25 Years Ago | |
 | So what does it mean to be hungry? That's a question that occurred to us as we read some encouraging news: The world isn't as hungry as it used to be. A U.N. report has noted that 795 million people were hungry in the year 2014. That's a mind-boggling number. But in fact it's 200 million lower than the estimated 1 billion hungry people in 1990. The improvement is especially impressive because the world population has gone up by around 2 billion since the '90s. The U.N. report notes that the overall progress has been uneven. |
| How Europe's climate policies have led to more trees being cut down in the U.S. | |
 | For the sake of a greener Europe, thousands of American trees are falling each month in the forests outside this cotton-country town. Every morning, logging crews go to work in densely wooded bottomlands along the Roanoke River, clearing out every tree and shrub down to the bare dirt. Soaring demand for this woody fuel has led to the construction of more than two dozen pellet factories in the Southeast in the past decade, along with special port facilities in Virginia and Georgia where mountains of pellets are loaded onto Europe-bound freighters. European officials promote the trade as part of the fight against climate change. Burning "biomass" from trees instead of coal, they say, means fewer greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. But that claim is increasingly coming under challenge. |
| Two Mississippi prisoners on the run, escaped while cutting grass at community college | |
 | Authorities are searching for Quitman County Community Work Center inmates Caleb Lee Davenport and Zachary Curtis Reed, who escaped from their worksite shortly after noon on Monday. They were last seen at 12:20 p.m., cutting grass at Coahoma County Community College. The two white males were wearing MDOC state-issued green and white striped pants and a white MDOC shirt with "MDOC Convict" printed on the back. |
| Repurposing the rubble: U. of Alabama salvages bricks from Bryce Hospital property | |
 | Amid the brick rubble that was once the outer ward of historic Bryce Hospital's east wing, workers scrape old mortar from bricks with the claws of hammers. The men clean the bricks -- made by hand from local clays on the Bryce grounds more than 150 years ago -- under tents made of black filter fabric and PVC frames to shield them from the rays of the late spring sun. The university hopes to salvage about 275,000 bricks during demolitions on the historic property for future reuse. The university is demolishing sections of the north, east and west wings of the main Bryce building as part of a $20 million stabilization of the historic main structure in preparation for its use as a welcome and cultural center, museum, and facility for UA's department of theatre and dance. |
| Louisiana regents again delay action on proposal to adjust admissions standards for universities | |
 | The state Board of Regents on Monday again delayed actions on a proposal to adjust minimum admissions standards for state universities. The board held a special meeting Monday after several members last week raised concerns about whether the state would be lowering standards and doing a disservice to education in the long run. But after discussing the tweaked proposal for an hour Monday, the board didn't have enough members to take a vote either way. The state higher education board is expected to again debate the proposal at its regular meeting on June 17. |
| Citing growing enrollment, U. of South Carolina wants to end car traffic in front of Russell House | |
 | The University of South Carolina wants to close for good the section of Greene Street in front of the Russell House student union to cars. In a request to city of Columbia leaders to cut off traffic on Greene from Sumter to Pickens streets, USC cited its growing enrollment. The area has become more congested over the past decade as USC's enrollment has grown by 22 percent. USC has nearly 33,000 students on campus. Columbia City Council will discuss the school's request at a work session Tuesday. |
| Temporary student center opens at U. of Kentucky | |
 | The new temporary student center at the University of Kentucky opened Monday amid mud and rain. The student-named Bowman's Den -- in reference to UK's founder, John Bryan Bowman -- will house many of the former student center's dining facilities and retail shops. There is also a new temporary bookstore about a block away. The $4 million Bowman's Den building will serve as the student center until January 2018, when the new student center will open. Its dining choices include Starbucks, Chick-fil-A, Greens to Go, Panda Express and Subway. |
| Health Science Center CEO Brett Giroir leaving Aggieland after being asked to resign | |
 | Texas A&M Health Science Center CEO Dr. Brett Giroir walked into President Michael Young's office at 9 a.m. Monday prepared for a meeting to discuss the legislative session set to wrap up later in the day. Instead, the biomedical researcher was met by Young, several lawyers and an ultimatum: resign or be fired. Giroir, 54, said he was "surprised" by the morning's events, but a resignation or termination was not out of the question after A&M System Chancellor John Sharp requested on April 16 that all university vice presidents turn in resignation letters by Young's May 1 start date. Giroir told The Eagle that he found no reason to create turmoil, so he chose to resign. A&M spokesperson Shane Hinckley confirmed a signed resignation letter from Giroir was in the university's possession. |
| AAAS pulls 'sexist' advice column amid outcry from readers | |
 | "His attention on your chest may be unwelcome, but you need his attention on your science and his best advice." With those words, Alice S. Huang, a senior faculty associate in biology at California Institute of Technology known for her pioneering research in molecular animal virology, and a regular columnist for Science, launched a wave of criticism Monday that resulted in the disappearance and subsequent retraction of her advice piece. Questions about the journal's editorial process also linger, along with commentary on what some have described as a "one step forward, two steps back" path to gender equity in the sciences. Huang, meanwhile, says she wrote her column with the best long-term interest of the person seeking help in mind, and that she hopes to address the controversy in a future column. Here's how it started... |
SPORTS
| Prescott, Jones headline Mississippi State's Phil Steele All-Americans | |
| The calendar flip to June brings with it freshman reporting to Mississippi State on Tuesday, the return of veterans and preseason football prognostications. Phil Steele released his national preseason All-American list as well as preseason all-conference selections on Monday. Mississippi State quarterback Dak Prescott, defensive lineman Chris Jones and cornerback Will Redmond were named preseason All-Americans. The trio along with wide receiver De'Runnya Wilson garnered all-conference honors. |
| Mississippi State-Southern Miss set for 9 p.m. kickoff | |
| This year's football game between Mississippi State and Southern Miss will kick off at 9 p.m., it was announced Monday. The season opener for both teams is set for Sept. 5 in Hattiesburg. It will be televised by Fox Sports 1. The late kickoff time was determined by the network and Conference USA. Neither school had input in the matter. The game is the second meeting between the teams in their renewed rivalry. MSU won last year in Starkville, 49-0. |
| Mississippi State women's hoops signee named a Parade All-American | |
| Teaira McCowan is bringing more than a five-star moniker to Mississippi State. The women's basketball signee was named a 2015 Parade All-American on Monday. McCowan earned the distinction following a senior season where she averaged 19.3 points, 17.1 rebounds and 4.0 blocks for Brenham (Texas) High School. "I am very honored and thankful to receive such a prestigious honor because I didn't think I would ever receive something like that," McCowan said in a release. "It definitely gives me more confidence in my abilities, and now I'm ready to transfer what I did in high school to college and continue to improve from there." |
| U. of Missouri unveils changes that will affect football, basketball parking | |
 | The Missouri athletic department has created a new fundraising system that will affect where fans park for football and men's basketball games beginning in the 2016-17 school year. MU's Tiger Scholarship Fund alerted donors to the new model on Monday and will hold public meetings in the next few weeks to discuss the changes with fans. The impetus for the change is a desire to increase giving at Missouri, which ranked 13th out of 14 Southeastern Conference schools in athletic fundraising last year. The Tiger Scholarship Fund raised $22 million last year, which led only Vanderbilt and was a quarter of the amount raised by SEC leader Texas A&M. "People are going to say it's all about money. I don't want to come on too strong, but it is," said Tim Stedman, the MU associate athletic director in charge of the TSF. "Our competitors in the SEC aren't apologizing for that." |
| Former UT coach Donnie Tyndall's mansion draws a bit of national attention | |
 | The "For Sale" sign at former Tennessee basketball coach Donnie Tyndall's Knoxville home has caught the eye of at least one national looker. A few weeks ago, Realtor.com's national Celebrity Real Estate column did a piece on it. "The lakeside retreat seems likes a perfect spot to sip some lemonade and forget your troubles. Alas, perhaps not even the quiet comfort of the residence could help the 44-year-old basketball lifer," Claudine Zap wrote in early May. Noting that Tyndall faces possible suspension from coaching by the NCAA and that Tennessee contends he is not due his buyout of $3 million, Zap wrote, "At least coach made one good call during his tumultuous time in Tennessee -- purchasing this prime piece of real estate." |
| UAB reinstates football but 'substantial work' still needed, says Ray Watts | |
 | UAB football is coming back but not without caveats. UAB is "taking steps" to reinstate the football, bowling and rifle programs, school president Ray Watts announced on Monday. The decision comes six months after Watts disbanded the three programs in a highly controversial move, citing financial feasibility concerns detailed in the CarrSports Consulting report. At the time, UAB was the first school to drop Football Bowl Series level football in nearly two decades since Pacific in 1995. Those financial concerns that dominated talk in December haven't gone away. |
| 21 of 24 Division I historically black colleges face possible postseason bans in 2016 | |
| Ten of the 16 institutions with teams facing National Collegiate Athletic Association penalties this year for poor academic performance are historically black colleges and universities. The ratio is striking, but not surprising. HBCUs are often the hardest hit by the NCAA's academic requirements. Last year, teams at 12 black colleges were penalized for not meeting the required academic progress rate -- the NCAA's four-year metric for measuring the academic performance of teams -- and eight were banned from participating in postseason games. In 2013, 15 of the 18 teams that received postseason bans were from HBCUs. When a new minimum APR kicks in next year, the NCAA's standards will grow even farther out of reach for struggling HBCUs. |
The Office of Public Affairs provides the Daily News Digest as a general information resource for Mississippi State University stakeholders.
Web links are subject to change. Submit news, questions or comments to Jim Laird.
