USM: Wheels Are Coming off the Thames Machine

Last Friday, April 15, I had the honor and the pleasure to visit the University of Southern Mississippi campus, where I gave two talks to members of the USM chapter of the American Association of University Professors. I'm particularly indebted to Amy Young, the President of the USM chapter of AAUP, as well as to Michael Forster, Mark Klinedinst, and Myron Henry for being my hosts during different portions of my stay. I got the chance to meet many other USM faculty members who have been working to rescue USM from the misrule of President Shelby F. Thames, as well as some sympathizers from the surrounding community. I ate lunch and drank coffee at Javawerks, known in Hattiesburg as the" center of the resistance." I was given a handsome plaque by the AAUP chapter, which I will display in a prominent place--while remaining fully cognizant that the other two recipients of the same award, Frank Glamser and Gary Stringer, ran major personal risks standing up to the Thames regime.

The faculty members I talked to, far from being the lazy whiners of pro-Thamesian apologetics, struck me as tired but determined. They were bearing all the responsibilities that professors normally bear when the Spring Semester is about to end. Many were close to buckling under 3 years' worth of administratively neglected reports and committee work for the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, which accredits USM and has put the university on probation. The struggle to rid the university of Thames and his henchcrew has called forth whatever might be left in the reserve tank after they've attended to their primary responsibilities.

I wasn't there to rouse resistance against Thames by reminding everyone of the worst things he has done. I've done some of that in the past, and the audience scarcely needed reminding. Besides, a powerful three-minute video, apparently by the pseudonymous satirist See More, was played before both talks; it movingly (and sometimes hilariously) set images from the Thames era to"Paint It Black" by the Rolling Stones. My talks were about the faculty's role in running the university (known as"shared governance" in academic circles). I'll get to the substance of them in a later post. Instead of focusing exclusively on the ways in which Thames and crew have undermined shared governance, I also talked about some areas, such as financial reporting, that faculty members have traditionally conceded to administrators, but that I thought USM professors would be well advised to pay attention to in a post-Thamesian era.

Confidence is slowly growing that there will actually be a post-Thamesian era. I wish I could say that Shelby Thames is no longer enthroned at USM. Or at least that lame-duckitude has descended upon him. For in that case everyone could get to work neutralizing what's left of his power to do harm, while counting the days till his contract expires in March of next year. But the monthly meeting of the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees came and went largely as predicted. The communiqué that the Board issued after its meeting on Thursday April 21 indicated further movement toward a strong-commissioner model for the 8 univerisities in the Mississippi state system, while voting on the key components of the new system still won't take place for another month:

The Board also heard a subcommittee recommendation on annual performance goals to be used in evaluating universities and institutional executive officers. The goals, which will vary from institution to institution in order to take into account differences in universities’ missions, will be considered in final form in the May Board meeting. In addition, the College Board began considering a measure which would require annual evaluation of the institutional executive officers.

So May 19, when Thames opponent Virginia Shanteau Newton takes over as Board President from Thames cheerleader Roy Klumb, is the earliest that the Board can formally evaluate Thames' performance and decide whether his 4-year contract will be allowed to expire.

Action against Thames can still not be marked down as a done deal. Everything remains in the hands of an IHL Board that still has no formal channels of communication with professors or faculty bodies, and has made a whole series of incredibly irresponsible, high-handed decisions in his particular case. But the Board, seeking to recover from its biggest spate of bad press since the Civil Rights era, keeps grinding glacially toward internal reform, and desperation is rippling through Thames' supporters. This week, Shelby Thames lost a key component of his machine, and another has been discredited.

Yesterday, after months of rumors kept alive by her much diminished visibility in media stories about USM, the announcement came that Lisa Slay Mader is leaving the university on May 2.

Lisa Mader, who has served as spokeswoman for University of Southern Mississippi president Shelby Thames for more than two years, is leaving the university to join Wesley Medical Center, the hospital announced Friday.

The American even noted that she was Shelby Thames' private spokeswoman who only pretended to speak for the entire university.

Mader has ended up being loathed by just about everyone at the university, including those who doubt that she played any role in the decision-making. As noted in Reuben Mees' article, in today's Hattiesburg American:

Political science professor Joe Parker said Mader had a difficult role to fill in recent years and was not often well-liked by the faculty.

"I think she has been a spear-carrier for Shelby Thames and she collected a certain amount of hostility from the faculty," he said.

But he also said some of the tension could have been avoided by varying her approach to the issues.

"Her PR style is more political and more attack-oriented and it really showed up in the Glamser-Stringer incident, when she alluded to criminal charges and tried to put the faculty on the defensive," Parker said, referring to Thames' attempt to fire two tenured professors last year."It really made her look more like a political flack than a public relations person."

Her move to Wesley Hospital, another Hattiesburg institution that is less prominent locally than the university, smacks more than a little of desperation. She will have to rebuild her credibility with the local media, all the way up from zero. Many observers had thought that she would prefer a job in a different part of Mississippi, if not in another state where her notoriety would be less likely to follow her.

Thames evidently feels some urgency about hiring a new spokesperson:

"But now we need to find an extremely competent person to replace her," Thames said."We'll start meeting next week and then start advertising to find a top flight PR person."

But why would anyone want to step into that job, while Thames is still president but his days appear numbered? Failing to toe the Thamesian line will get the new PR person fired instantly. Toeing it faithfully it will insure that the PR person will be replaced as soon as Thames' successor arrives. There is a good chance that Mader's former position will lie vacant till next March.

The second wheel to fall off this week is a prominent Thames supporter who currently serves as the President of the USM Foundation. He has not resigned, but has discredited himself so badly that Thames would probably be better off without him. His is the kind of story, however, that deserves to be told in baroque and lurid detail; it would take up several installments of a soap opera, and deserves at least an entire Liberty and Power entry to itself.

To be continued.