USM: More Fallout from Black Friday
It's only been a week since Dean Harold Doty read out portions of a memo from Provost Jay Grimes to a meeting of the College of Business at the University of Southern Mississippi.
The Black Friday memo is having so many repercussions that it's hard to keep up with them all.
On Wednesday, at the monthly meeting of his President's Council, faculty representatives asked USM President Shelby F. Thames about the possible threats that the Black Friday memo posed to the university's accreditation. (The memo ordered the College of Business to implement a partly-online MBA program by next August, without a go-ahead from the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools when USM is under probation. And it commanded the Business professors to lay off all"theoretical/basic research" in favor of contract work for businesses connected with the Thames administration.) Thames hypocritically insisted that he is 100% supportive of the College of Business retaining its accreditation with the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.
Yesterday, Dean Doty's vigorous response to Provost Grimes was made available to readers of the Hattiesburg American along with a further article on the Doty-Grimes dispute. And a second memo from Grimes to Doty was publicized, concerning a faculty position in Finance that the College of Business had not been allowed to fill, because allegedly none of the candidates had the required"private-sector experience" (actually, some of them did, but none had the requisite connections to Thames or to his chief enforcer, Ken Malone, who hopes to displace the College of Business in favor of a new operation centered around his Department of Economic Development). The College is now being"reluctantly" allowed to fill the position, but so late in the academic hiring cycle that the desirable candidates are unlikely to be available any longer.
Today, the American reported that the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees will be taking up the mano-a-mano between Doty and Grimes at its monthly meeting next week. The public bluster from Thames' most vocal backer, Board President Roy Klumb, was notably subdued. When last heard from, Klumb was insisting that the Board would not even discuss the USM Faculty Senate's recent resolution asking the Board not to extend Thames' term in office. Now he is admitting that Thames' conduct in office will have to be the Board's chief concern. And the interim IHL Commissioner, Richard Crofts, made clear that the threat to accreditation is being taken very seriously indeed.
Today, Shelby Thames issued a memo to Dean Doty claiming that no improper pressure was being applied to the College of Business over the"hybrid" MBA program, and the College should do nothing that would threaten its accreditation. Informed sources say that Thames went around the College earlier this week, on an unsuccessful search for faculty members he could bribe or bamboozle into dropping their support for Dean Doty's stand. When he could find none, and it became clear that the Board was going to intervene, he issued the memo.
Today, the USM Faculty Senate holds its regular monthly meeting. There is plenty to occupy the Senate, most notably some last-minute administrative tampering with USM's proposed policy on post-tenure review. One can only hope that resolutions condemning Provost Grimes and Multiple Officeholder Malone will be taken up.
Now that he has been left to twist in the wind, Jay Grimes' departure from the Provost's office could be announced any minute now. What will happen to Ken Malone--who was the real force behind the Black Friday memo--and to Shelby Thames remains to be seen.
Meanwhile, Thames' press secretary, Lisa Mader, is no longer being quoted in the news stories. Could she be planning to abandon ship?