USM: Press Release from the Paving Company Putsch

Courtesy of a poster on the AAUP-USM message board, here is the press release that was read out loud by Bob Mixon, owner of Courtesy Ford, at the Warren Paving Company meeting last Thursday, March 10. One of the 10 organizers of the meeting, and its designated spokesman, Mixon is widely regarded as a kingmaker who helped insure that Shelby Thames would become President of the University of Southern Mississippi in May 2002. In 2001, Mixon was instrumental in securing the ouster of a previous USM President, Horace Fleming. What supposedly made Fleming unacceptable to Mixon and his friends was asking the Athletic Department to share in a university-wide budget cut. As a reward for helping to elevate Thames to the presidency, Mixon was considered for a seat on the Mississippi IHL Board last year, but the seat went to Robin Robinson of Laurel instead.

All misprints are said to be from the original. Any emphasis in bold was added by me.

I should note here that supporters of Shelby Thames always refer to him, in solemnly reverential tones, as"Dr. Thames." They never refer to any faculty member as Dr. Smith or Dr. Martinez or Dr. whoever. The apparent implication is that Thames is the only employee of the University of Southern Mississippi ever to have earned a Ph. D.

I have always disliked"labels." When you try to put everyone under a label like"faculty," and then say something about them, you nearly always misrepresent someone in that group.

We have some very fine faculty members at Southern Miss. Tops in their field-dedicated to their work of teaching and advising our students-involved in writing and research-trying to do their part in making the University the best it can be...and I have nothing but respect for them.

Then, we have some with other agendas. If my remarks offend any faculty members, it will be only those who know they are part of the group with other agendas.

Some of us thought it would be a good idea to get some of the business community together and tell you about some of the great things happening at Southern Miss. Things you may not be aware of. If all you know is what you get from the media, you may not have all you need to help you make an informed opinion.

We have no other agenda, really, other than to tell you that in our opinion, based on what we have observed, on balance, Dr. Thames is doing a good job in difficult, difficult circumstances, to give you some data to support that contention, and to suggest to you that he and the University needs our help and our support.

It should be clear to all of us by now, that funding from the legislature has been and will likely continue to be woefully inadequate in the days ahead. For Southern Miss to fulfill its mission, funding from federal and state sources, grants, research allocations and private donations will all be necessary. In addition to trying to raise more new money, better and more efficient management and expense control with existing funds has to abe a priority. Beyond that, new sources of revenue that we haven't had in the past will have to be developed. The Technology Center that has been proposed should help some there.

Basically, we believe that the College Board is the group that needs to set policy and directives for higher education in our state; and it's their job to hire Presidents'. It then becomes the President's job to implement the policies and directives he or she has been given by the College Board.

We beleive that the faculty's job is to teach, write, do research, advise students, and do other tasks assigned to them by the administration. Those are distinct and separate responsibilities from those of the President. If the President isn't doing the job that the Board expects fro that office, the Board can make a change, But whether a President stays or goes, is a decision that should be made by the Board-not by the Faculty Senate.

I was just told the day before yesterday, that a group from the faculty (possibly the same group that not long ago was screaming that their rights to free speech, their rights to openly criticize the administration, and their rights to assemble, were being infringed upon) have now posted a message on one of their internal websites asking their colleagues to boycott the businesses of those of us hosting this meeting tonight and have even suggested that some of us need to be killed. I guess they believe those rights are theirs exclusively.

When the faculty uses a label like"business people" and includes people like me in the groupo and criticizes me for my involvement, the criticism that is stated is usually one of the following three things:

1. You don't know anything about how academic operates. Stay out of it!
2. A University is not a business and cannot be run like one. You run your bisiness and let us run our University.
3. You believe athletics are more important than education.

As for #1-I'll give 'em that. I don't know how academia operates. But, it doesn't matter. I'm not trying to tell them how or what to teach.

I do take issue with the second criticism. If you don't believe that an institution that has employees, payrolls, offers a product to the public for a fee, has income and expenses and other financial obligations is a business-you are incredibly naive. The government is the only entity I know of that can continue to operate even if the money to do it is not available.

As for the part about"You run your business and let us run our Univeristy."

• I graduated from Southern.
• Two of my children graduated from Southern.
• I have served as President of nearly every major volunteer organization at Southern.
• I have supported Southern financially for over 40 years.
• My answer to them is this-Just because you draw a paycheck there, this doesn't make that University enymore yours than mine...and many of you can say the same thing.

As for athletics-I don't believe they are more important than education. How do you separate the two? They are, after all, student athletes. I do believe that athletics are vitally important. Athletic events bring graduates back to campus. They help us educate hundreds of young men and women. many of whom would never get an education. They provide us with a rallying point. They are a source of pride for our students and alumni. They give us national exposure for potential students. I could go on and on about their value, but you get my point.

Some of our faculty resents the athletic program and would like to see us de-emphasize organized sports and maybe just have an intramural program. I, for one, believe that would be devastating to the University as we know it.

We obviously have a very contentious situation here. I'm not sure how it will all play out. This is not all just about Shelby Thames. Their plan to unseat him, in my opinion, is only one step in a much more ambitious agenda. Many of them have battled him since his first day on the job. We believe he deserves a chance to move forward without having to constantly fight people off his back.

If you can, and if you will-help us to allow hime to have that chance.

As we wind up tonight, we hope you can see:

1. This is not a Shelby Thames rally, although we do support him;
2. This is not a faculty-bashing, although in light of the boycotts and other threats, we certainly question the actions of a few; and
3. We are certainly not foolish enough to think that all of you see things exactly as we do, although we hope many of you do.

Our hope is that all of you will leave here tonight with a renewed commitment to finding out what the issues really are, and to entering your particular sphere of influence and try to have a positive effect on the situation. Make your opinions known to anyone who can help resolve these issues-whether it is Dr. Thames, faculty members, College Board members or media representatives.

Open, candid fact-based opposition is not the problem. But, untruths and half-truths that go unchallenged are. We hope something positive will come from this meeting. With your help, I'm sure it will.

Neither Mixon nor any of his allies has specified what the"more ambitious agenda" of Thames' opponents might be. If asked, I am sure the vast majority of Thames' opponents would say that they would like to see USM once again functioning like a decent university, instead of being torn to pieces by an incompetent autocrat who is threatening an entire institution with extinction. But, of course, if Mixon had said what he thought the"agenda" was, it would have lost its power to frighten most of his listeners.

Mixon appears to be genuinely bereft of any notion of academic freedom or shared governance. It matters to the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools whether faculty members are in control of curriculum, or reviewing qualifications to teach different subjects, or deciding who will be hired to fill vacancies in their departments--and on and on--but it doesn't matter to Mixon. Unless, of course, they have had those tasks"assigned to them by the administration." Mixon is surely perplexed that USM has committees called the Academic Council, or the Graduate Council, or the Faculty Senate. He must imagine that department and college meetings are held only when needed to communicate orders from Dr. Thames to the troops.

What is less innocent, in Mixon's case, is his allegations of threats of bodily harm. Handouts were actually circulated to people at the meeting, consisting of excerpts from a few threads on the AAUP-USM message board. The obviously metaphorical language of a handful of posters, talking about"fighting" and"wars," was being taken as evidence of incitement to harm participants at the meeting. It has now become customary for posters on the board to issue"Metaphor Alerts."

Many would view all of this as supremely silly, but the alleged threats of bodily harm were taken seriously by Bonnie Drews (a local Republican activist who served as the spokeswoman for the group until her published remarks about getting rid of the liberal arts at USM led to her hasty replacement). In an article in yesterday's Independent (the Hattiesburg weekly that broke the story of the planned meeting two weeks ago), she alleged that"liberal arts professors" from USM demonstrated outside her husband's office (he is a prominent local dentist, and another organizer of the meeting) and committed acts of vandalism. No one else has the slightest idea what she was talking about.

The Mississippi College Board took steps yesterday that left Mixon and his allies sorely disappointed. There is still no guarantee that Shelby Thames will be removed from office, but it now seems much more likely than it did a month ago--or even 8 days ago when 185 members of the Hattiesburg business community gathered to listen to Mixon and his allies.