| Thursday, June 25, 2015 |
| Summit launches next chapter in Mississippi State-led UAS project | |
 | A Mississippi State-led consortium and the Federal Aviation Administration are moving forward with groundbreaking work to integrate unmanned aircraft into the national airspace after a successful kickoff summit in the nation's capital. "We had a fantastic first meeting," said USAF Maj. Gen. (Ret.) James Poss, the executive director of the Alliance for System Safety of UAS through Research Excellence (ASSURE). In May, the FAA announced that ASSURE will operate the new National Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems. The early June meeting in Washington, D.C., brought together all 15 core university members of the coalition to meet with agency officials. |
| Camp Jigsaw: Helping Kids With Autism Find the Right 'Fit' | |
 | Camp Jigsaw is washing away fears and piecing together memories at Lake Tiak O'Khata in Louisville. Kids with autism are bowling, rock climbing and swimming at the five-day camp. Campers are also learning social skills, such as making eye contact and using a positive tone during conversations. Mississippi State University hosts the camp that's funded by private donations. |
| End of the reign: Jasmine Murray reflects on a year of serving Mississippi | |
| Saturday night, Jasmine Murray will step down as the reigning Miss Mississippi after she crowns her successor and will step into the next phase of her life. Once the crown is handed over, Murray said she has not completely decided what her future will hold. "I am exploring my options," she said. Returning to Mississippi State University to finish her degree in broadcast communication is among the options she is considering. "I would also like to continue with my music career," she said. During the 2015 Miss America Pageant, Murray was named as one of the top 10 finalists. Among the year's other highlights, Murray said performing at the National Prayer breakfast and singing in front of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama stands out. |
| 'Girls State' at Mississippi State memorable for two local students | |
 | Seniors Anna Daniels and Madeline Beasley of Madison were selected to serve as top government officials at the Mississippi American Legion Auxiliary Girls State convention held at Mississippi State University last week. Both girls returned home with a new appreciation for the U.S. governmental and electoral processes. They also received scholarships for their efforts. Participants learned also learned about colleges and universities located around the state. "We had a big college fair one day," said Daniels. "We left with so much more knowledge about college. I think that was super invaluable." |
| Brookhaven High student develops leadership skills at Mississippi State, MUW | |
 | A Brookhaven High School rising senior has been busy this summer attending two different leadership camps. Reid Roberson just finished up a three-week stint at Governor's School at Mississippi University for Women. Before that, he spent a week at Boys State at Mississippi State University. From education to social, Roberson said his summer has been full of great learning experiences to help him as he pursues his dreams. Currently, he is leaning toward studying aerospace engineering at Mississippi State after high school graduation. |
| Trees in Starkville to be measured, counted | |
 | Local volunteers are needed to help count and measure trees in Starkville for an assessment of trees on public property. Forestry experts from the Mississippi State University Extension Service are coordinating a research project with the Starkville Tree Advisory Board to better understand the health, age and species distribution of trees located on public property. The project will continue until November. The information will be published for use by community leaders to guide them in developing sound urban forest management policies. |
| Region's jobless rate rises in May | |
 | Northeast Mississippi's unemployment rate rose in May, primarily caused by the increase in the labor force as schools closed for the summer break. The jobless rates for the counties are not adjusted to reflect seasonal changes like school and holidays, so the figures will reflect big swings. Seasonally adjusted numbers smooth out those fluctuations. Still, the region's jobless rate was relatively low. For the 16 counties comprising the region, the cumulative unemployment rate was 7 percent in May, up from 5.5 percent in April. Clay County's 11.1 percent rate was highest in the region and 11th highest in the state. |
| More lawmakers endorsing flag change | |
| The number of Mississippi leaders endorsing changing the state flag is growing. On Wednesday, both of the state's United States senators -- Thad Cochran of Oxford and Roger Wicker of Tupelo -- endorsed changing the state flag to remove the controversial Confederate battle emblem as part of its design. Wicker's position on the issue is important nationally since he is head of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, meaning he will head up the effort nationally in 2016 to try to ensure Republicans maintain their majority in the U.S. Senate. |
| Flag economics: Does it drive away prospects? | |
 | Joe Max Higgins has been in the Golden Triangle 12 years and has landed more than his share of economic development mega-projects. Companies like Paccar Engine Co., American Eurocopter and Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. are three of the biggest scalps on his mantle. Those deals are a big chunk of the $5 billion in total investment he's been part of securing. The number of times the Mississippi state flag was a topic at any point of negotiations: Zero. "It's never come up," Higgins said. Some of his prospects arrive with preconceived notions about Mississippi, Higgins said, but they have nothing to do with the flag. Instead, it has everything to do with the reputation the state has either created for itself or had assigned to it. |
| House chairman: Confederate car tags should go, too | |
| Debate over removing the rebel flag has extended to car tags, in part from a Supreme Court ruling last week that Texas can deny applications for specialty license plates featuring the Confederate banner. Mississippi currently doesn't offer a specialty plate with the rebel flag among its 190 offerings. It has only one with a small image of the state flag, which has the Confederate emblem in one corner. But that is set to change July 1, when the Mississippi Sons of Confederate Veterans specialty plate will revert back to its old design. State House Transportation Chairman Robert Johnson III, D-Natchez, is head of one of the legislative committees that has to approve special car tags. Johnson said he would like to see the Confederate battle emblem removed from "anything official for the state of Mississippi." |
| Confederate flag: Mississippi GOP senators reverse course on state flag | |
 | Mississippi GOP Sens. Roger Wicker and Thad Cochran changed their positions on Wednesday to call for the removal of the Mississippi state flag, which contains a depiction of the Confederate flag. Earlier this week both men declined to say whether their state flag should be changed. As of Monday, Wicker, who leads the GOP's Senate campaign arm, was deferring to his state Legislature and citizens on the matter. And on Wednesday just after 1 p.m. Cochran was still demurring when asked about the flag. But less than two hours later, Cochran joined Wicker in denouncing the Mississippi flag amid mounting Republican opposition to any Confederate symbolism. |
| Mississippi Senators Defend Jefferson Davis | |
 | Mississippi's two senators are ready to change the state flag, but they still honor and defend Jefferson Davis, the man who served as the president of the Confederacy and whose statue stands prominently in the U.S. Capitol's National Statuary Hall. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell tossed Jefferson Davis under the proverbial bus Tuesday -- calling for the Davis statue in Kentucky's Capitol to be moved to a museum -- part of a wave of efforts across the nation to roll back Confederate symbols after images emerged of Dylann Roof, accused of killing nine in a racially motivated massacre in Charleston, S.C., posing with the Confederate battle flag. But Republicans Thad Cochran and Roger Wicker of Mississippi stood by Davis Wednesday in separate hallway interviews at the Capitol with CQ Roll Call. |
| Mississippi's black congressman hopes Confederate flags become 'artifact of history' | |
 | Rep. Bennie Thompson, the only Democrat and African-American in Mississippi's six-member congressional delegation, has waited decades for a groundswell of opposition to the Confederate flag. He just wishes it wasn't spawned by the killings of nine black members of a Charleston, S.C., church, allegedly by a young white supremacists who posted an internet photos of himself holding the battle flag of the Confederacy. Through more than 22 years in Congress, Thompson has never displayed the Mississippi state flag with its Confederate markings outside his office in the Rayburn House Office Building. To do so, he says, he'd have to pretend that it was something other than a symbol of slavery and "second-class citizenship for my ancestors." |
| Beauvoir director: Confederate flag means so many things, 'just like a cross does' | |
 | Greg Stewart led the charge in 2001 for a referendum to let Mississippi voters decide whether to keep the state flag. Now as executive director of Beauvoir, the last home of Confederate President Jefferson Davis, he is defending the Confederate battle flag as a symbol of the state's history and heritage. He calls the attacks against the flag since nine people were murdered in a South Carolina church "a perfect storm," and said the outrage against the battle flag is being driven by emotion and political agendas. The flag means so many different things to people, "just like a cross does," he said. The rush to condemn the flag should be disturbing to the public, said Stewart, a member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans. |
| Charleston debate: Is domestic extremism bigger threat than terrorism? | |
 | The Charleston, S.C., church attack is serving to underscore the idea that when it comes to the threat of terrorism on American soil, fear is often in the eye of the beholder. Loaded with deep emotional currency since 9/11, the word "terrorism" usually evokes images of radical Islam. But Charleston has already rekindled debate about what constitutes terrorism, and a new study is pushing the conversation further. It finds that, since 9/11, there have been nearly twice as many people killed in the United States by antigovernment radicals, white supremacists, and other non-Muslim groups than by jihadists -- though both numbers are vanishingly small. In some ways, law enforcement recognizes this. |
| Officials Masked Severity Of Hack | |
 | The Obama administration for more than a week avoided disclosing the severity of an intrusion into federal computers by defining it as two breaches but divulging just one, said people familiar with the matter. That approach has frustrated lawmakers as they probe the administration's handling of one of the biggest-ever thefts of government records. Agents with the Federal Bureau of Investigation suspect China was behind the hack of Office of Personnel Management databases discovered in April, and that those hackers accessed not only personnel files but security-clearance forms, current and former U.S. officials said. |
| GEOINT 2015: Big data competency is key to info sharing | |
| Intelligence agencies and the organizations that work with them face a growing problem in making sense of a data deluge, including turning volumes of multi-faceted data into visually understandable and actionable intelligence. Standards, interoperability and partnerships with industry are all ingredients in the needed solutions, say top leaders. It's a problem being combated in some corners through the establishment of frameworks that provide standards and guidance for data-sharing. "Big data is no more special or different for this community than it is for any other potential use. It faces a lot of the same challenges – do people actually have the right architecture, do they actually have the data sciences and the skills to process, do they have the training and the workforce enabled to take advantage of big data?" Michael Howell, ISE deputy program manager, said June 24 at the GEOINT 2015 Symposium in Washington. |
| What led Google to choose north Alabama for new data center? | |
 | No single reason attracted Google to north Alabama, where the company announced Wednesday it would build a $600 million data center in Jackson County. Two state incentive packages, however, grabbed the high-tech company's attention. "Alabama offers data center-specific incentives so that they benefit the data center industry, which was an important part of our decision to locate here," said Gary Demasi, director of global infrastructure at Google. The seed that helped land Google and the 75 to 100 high-paying jobs at the new data center was sown three years ago when the legislature passed the Alabama Data Processing Center Economic Incentive Enhancement Act. State Rep. Dan Williams, R-Athens, sponsored the bill. |
| Removing Confederate Symbols a Step, but Changing Campus Culture Can Take Years | |
 | It's hard for Charles K. Ross to shake his first image of the University of Mississippi. He was watching a televised football game, and the Ole Miss stadium was a sea of Confederate-flag-waving fans. Mr. Ross, who was completing a doctorate on African-Americans in sports at Ohio State University, was appalled. "To see that many flags waving -- it felt like very hostile territory," he recalls. That was in 1994, two years before he took a job at the university, where he is now an associate professor of history and director of the program in African-American studies. Today, when he walks across the campus, the signs he sees are far more welcoming. Perceptions of the historic campus, in Oxford, Miss., before and after the changes provide a glimpse at how statues, symbols, and relics of the past can affect a college's racial climate. |
| Donations wanted to improve safety on Oxford roadways | |
 | Oxford and the University of Mississippi are working together to make the roadways safer for pedestrians and cyclists. They are also asking for the community's support. The city of Oxford Pathways Commission and the University of Mississippi Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Committee are joining forces to temporarily transform a section of University Avenue to include two bicycle lanes, mid-block crosswalks and other infrastructure. It's part of something the city is calling a Complete Streets pop-up, referring to an experimental street design used to determine the safest mode of transportation for all roadway users. Donations are being sought to help implement the project. Up to $2,000 of the funds raised will be matched 100 percent by the Oxford Cycling Club and the UM Office of Sustainability. |
| U. of Alabama may display Civil War cannonballs found on campus | |
 | Cannonballs uncovered on the University of Alabama campus last week could become part of the university museums' collection once they are rendered safe. UA spokesperson Chris Bryant said the 10 Civil War-era cannonballs had been removed from campus and are in the process of being defused. Once defused, the cannonballs are to be returned to the university for restoration, said Matt Gage, director of UA's Office of Archeological Research, adding the projectiles could be returned to the university as soon as next week. The university expects to add them to its museum collection and possibly display them in the future, Bryant said. |
| Stench from refrigerator prompts evacuation, decontamination at U. of Kentucky | |
 | A smelly refrigerator prompted the decontamination of about a dozen people Wednesday at the University of Kentucky. Workers smelled a strong odor when they arrived Wednesday morning at the Dimock animal pathology building on Veterans Drive, UK spokesman Carl Nathe said. The workers realized the stench was coming from a refrigerator, and when someone opened it, the smell was overpowering, Nathe said. A UK researcher had moved the refrigerator Tuesday evening from the Gluck Equine Research Center to the Dimock building, Nathe said. "There was nothing that the researcher thought was awry or anything," he said. After the workers opened the refrigerator, they pulled an alarm, and the Lexington Fire Department's hazardous materials team responded, Nathe said. |
| Meigan Aronson named Texas A&M's dean of science | |
 | Meigan C. Aronson, a professor of physics and astronomy at Stony Brook University in New York and a physicist at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory, has been named dean of science for Texas A&M University, effective Oct. 1. Aronson will succeed H. Joseph Newton, who has served as dean of science since 2002. Newton's service as science dean was preceded by two years as executive associate dean and eight years as head of the Department of Statistics. A&M Provost Karan Watson praised Newton's work at the university. |
| Texas A&M Health Science Center graduate returns as associate dean | |
| Dr. Jennifer M. Griffith, a member of the school's inaugural graduating class of 2000, has been named associate dean for public health practice and associate department head in the Department of Public Health Studies at the Texas A&M Health Science Center School of Public Health. In her role at the school's newest department, Griffith will help oversee curriculum design, delivery and evaluation. She said her dual roles will help the department better prepare graduates for the future. |
| U. of Missouri course on Zionism canceled | |
 | Pro-Israel groups are rejoicing over the cancellation of "Perspective on Zionism" -- a one-credit-hour University of Missouri honors course that Professor George Smith planned to teach during the fall semester. Posts published on Jewish news websites attacked Smith, a professor of biological sciences, citing a bias against Israel. In the end, a lack of enrollment led to the course's demise. The class description said the coursework would "consider the history of Zionism from the turn of the 20th century to the present day" and "consist of discussions, five formal debates, and occasionally an in-class film screening." Yossi Feintuch, a rabbi at Congregation Beth Shalom, questions Smith's objectivity. |
| U. of Missouri to offer military discount for online classes | |
| University of Missouri officials said at a news conference Wednesday that MU will immediately start offering a 10 percent tuition discount for online courses to current military members and veterans and their spouses and children. The discount applies to base tuition for a maximum of 150 hours of undergraduate credits and 75 hours of graduate credits through Mizzou Online. Recipients must be seeking a degree. Those who qualify for the award must maintain a 2.0 GPA to continue receiving it. The discount is needed because many veterans have already exhausted their military educational benefits or don't qualify for full coverage, MU officials said. Loftin said during the presentation that the tuition discount will improve access. |
| Black Programming Committee brings the beach to U. of Missouri | |
 | Missouri might be landlocked, but it didn't feel that Wednesday way at the Summer Beach Bash hosted by MU's Black Programming Committee. The free event brought the beach to MU with water slides, sand volleyball, games, food, music and giveaways. Even the 94-degree weather contributed to the beach atmosphere. The Black Programming Committee hosts shows and activities that appeal to the cultural and popular interests of the African-American student population, as well as the cultural enrichment of the MU student population as a whole, according to the Department of Student Activities website. |
| Ed Department says rating system will be consumer tool rather than comparison of colleges | |
 | The federal government will not compare colleges or pass judgment on their relative merits as part of the ratings system the U.S. Department of Education plans to release before the end of the summer, department officials said Wednesday. But the department isn't bailing on the idea entirely, as some would have liked. Instead, the system will be more of a consumer-facing tool that students, their families and high school guidance counselors can use to learn more about how undergraduate institutions stack up, said Ted Mitchell, the under secretary of education. The new tool will feature a broad range of data about college costs and outcomes, officials said, some of it publicly available for the first time. |
| Schools Fear Gay Marriage Ruling Could End Tax Exemptions | |
 | Conservative religious schools all over the country forbid same-sex relationships, from dating to couples' living in married-student housing, and they fear they will soon be forced to make a wrenching choice. If the Supreme Court this month finds a constitutional right to same-sex marriage, the schools say they will have to abandon their policies that prohibit gay relationships or eventually risk losing their tax-exempt status. The religious schools are concerned that if they continue to ban gay relationships, the Internal Revenue Service could take away their tax-exempt status as a violation of a "fundamental national public policy" under the reasoning of a 1983 Supreme Court decision that allowed the agency to revoke the tax-exempt status of schools that banned interracial relationships. |
| TIAA-CREF survey reveals adjuncts' concerns about having enough savings in retirement | |
| Just 19 percent of adjunct faculty members say they're very confident they'll have enough money for retirement, while another 49 percent say they're somewhat confident at best. Nearly one-third of adjuncts (31 percent) say they're not confident they'll be financially able to retire at all. Those are the findings of a new report from TIAA-CREF Institute, the research arm of TIAA-CREF, which is a major provider of financial services and retirement planning to colleges and universities. The results -- based on a national survey of some 500 part-time and full-time, non-tenure-track faculty members -- are hardly surprising. That is, many adjuncts report that their relatively low pay makes it hard to make ends meet at the end of the month, let alone put money away for retirement. But the data nevertheless shed new light on a perhaps neglected subtopic of the national debate over adjunct working conditions. |
| SID SALTER (OPINION): Has Mississippi changed since 2001 flag vote? | |
| Syndicated columnist Sid Salter writes: "In the wake of the tragic South Carolina mass shooting in a house of worship by a young white supremacist, public debate over the official symbolism of the Confederate battle flag in general and the specific symbolism of its incorporation into the Mississippi state flag quickly escalated. ...It's clear the national debate renewed in South Carolina this month is one that dominated Mississippi political debate some 14 years ago. ...A fundamental political lesson looms from the 2001 voter referendum -- both black and white voters were fairly apathetic about engaging on the issue." |
SPORTS
| Mississippi State's 5 most important defensive players for 2015 | |
| Mississippi State owned one of the best run defenses in the country last year. It also tallied 10 wins despite the worst pass defense in the Southeastern Conference in terms of yards per game. Seven starters are gone from that squad. In order to keep the same level of play up front as well as improve the secondary, players will have to emerge as stars like Benardrick McKinney and Preston Smith did. Here is a look at the five most important defensive players for the Bulldogs in 2015. |
| Roller-coaster year for U. of Southern Mississippi athletics | |
 | There was plenty to smile about for the University of Southern Mississippi during the past year. The Golden Eagle football team tripled its win total from the previous two seasons combined. The women's basketball team reached the quarterfinals of the Women's National Invitation Tournament. Plans for a multi-million dollar renovation of Reed Green Coliseum were unveiled. But the excitement of the 2014-15 athletic year was tempered by a number of things, including the NCAA's investigation of the Southern Miss men's basketball program. A difficult situation for Doc Sadler to walk into, but Southern Miss athletic director Bill McGillis is pleased with the way his head coach has handled it all. |
| Former Vanderbilt football players Brandon Vandenburg, Cory Batey released with Bibles in hand | |
 | Cory Batey carried "The Bible Promise Book" with him when he took the witness stand to testify in his own defense on rape charges in January. When he walked out of a Nashville jail Wednesday, no longer imminently facing a minimum of 15 years in prison, he carried the same small red book and a Bible. Batey and one of his former football teammates at Vanderbilt University, Brandon Vandenburg, were released from the Davidson County Criminal Justice Center less than 24 hours after a judge declared a mistrial in their case Tuesday. A new trial date for Batey, 21, and Vandenburg, 22, has not yet been set. |
| Renderings, plans for new softball stadium to be presented to U. of Missouri board | |
| The University of Missouri Board of Curators will receive an update on Missouri's softball stadium project, including architect renderings and an updated projected seated capacity, at its meeting Thursday at the Reynolds Alumni Center. The stadium, which is slated to be completed by December 2016 and ready for the 2017 season, is projected to be a 1,500- to 1,700-seat venue, with additional seating for 500 to 1,000 fans in the form of berm seating beyond the outfield wall. The stadium project will displace 503 parking spaces, but the project will include the installation of 516 new, reclaimed or reassigned parking spaces. The project continues to carry an estimated $16 million price tag. |
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