I hope you are having a great summer and finding time to spend with family and friends. Campus continues to be busy with many activities such as camps and conferences, Orientation, and summer classes, and while we are looking forward to the start of a new academic year in August, I want to again say thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of commencement last month. It was exceptionally challenging to move our Starkville ceremonies to Davis Wade Stadium, but I don’t think it could have gone any better. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7101.

Please let me take a few minutes of your time for an update from the Division of Academic Affairs.

New College to Sharpen Focus on Nontraditional Students

In May, we were pleased to receive approval from the IHL Board of Trustees to create a new College of Professional and Continuing Studies. The new college – led by Dean Susan Seal – brings together the Center for Distance Education and the Center for Continuing Education to create many more opportunities to reach more students with innovative program offerings and services. I believe this approach will enable us to meet the needs of our students, especially non-traditional populations, as well as enhance the state’s workforce as higher education continues to evolve. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7108.

New Agreement with Louisiana Delta Community College Streamlines Pathway to Bachelor of Applied Science Degree Program

Our institutional partnerships for the Bachelor of Applied Science degree program recently expanded with the signing of a memorandum of understanding with Louisiana Delta Community College in early June. With this agreement we have committed to working together on numerous initiatives streamlining the pathways between LDCC and MSU, including identifying LDCC classes that will count toward the bachelor’s degree, reverse-transfer credit options, resource-sharing opportunities, and other inclusion efforts. As I stated in an Office of Public Affairs news release, this collaboration is what we envisioned the B.A.S. achieving – taking students outside of traditional educational pathways and creating opportunities for them to be extraordinarily successful in life. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7126.

Frank Named Dean of College of Veterinary Medicine

We were very pleased to name Nick Frank as our new dean of the College of Veterinary Medicine in mid-May. Dr. Frank is a skilled administrator and scholar with a great appreciation for the mission of a land-grant university. I am confident he will continue to build on the college’s long and successful history of teaching, research, and service to our state. I appreciate College of Agriculture and Life Sciences Dean Scott Willard for chairing the search committee, as well as the contributions of the search committee members. I also commend and thank Dean Kent Hoblet for his exemplary service to the college, our university and the state of Mississippi during his distinguished career. Kent — congratulations on your well-earned retirement! Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7095.

Staff Performance Evaluation Task Force Created

Shortly after being named provost, I launched a number of task forces to take a look at a wide range of programs, operations, and processes. Thanks to the work of our task force members, we have implemented a number of enhancements throughout the Division of Academic Affairs and campus wide. For some time now, MSU has needed to examine our staff performance evaluation process, and we’ve created a new task force charged with this mission. I appreciate Dallas Breen for agreeing to serve as chair and thank the staff who have agreed to serve as members: Joey Bailey, Nicole Cobb, Susan Heath, Jamie Larson, Jack McCarty, Jamie Perry, Andrew Rendon, Julie Rester, Susan Seal, Delaney Vampran-Foster, and Anna Webb. You can read more about the Staff Performance Evaluation Task Force and our other task forces at https://www.provost.msstate.edu/initiatives/task-forces.

Kudos and Congratulations

Every month, I look forward to sharing faculty and staff success stories with you, and here are a few that have crossed my desk recently:

* Kudos to Dean Terry Jayroe and her team in the College of Education for their A+ rating from the National Council on Teacher Quality (NCTQ) for their efforts to prepare our students to teach reading. Last week, the NCTQ announced that MSU’s undergraduate program in elementary education is one of only 48 in the U.S. to earn its highest distinction for preparing aspiring teachers in the most effective, scientifically based methods for teaching children reading. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7127.

* Congratulations to Ling Li, an assistant professor in the Department of Biological Sciences, who has been awarded a National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development award. The grant marks the department’s fourth CAREER award in the past two years, with researchers receiving a total of $2 million from the competitive funding program since 2021. Dr. Li joins Matt Ballinger, Amy Dapper and Andrew Lawton as biological sciences faculty to receive CAREER funding. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7120.

* Kudos to Department Head Beth Miller, Assistant Professor Ashley Hughes, and our two teams of Interior Design students who won top honors in an international interior design project competition. MSU claimed first and second place in the 18th annual International Interior Design Association student competition that challenged teams to design an innovative assisted living facility. Read more at https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2023/05/mississippi-state-interior-design-students-win-first-second-place.

* Congratulations to Tonya Hays, an assistant professor in the Department of Communication, who has been honored with the Dr. Penny Wallin Lifetime Achievement in Arts Education Award from the Mississippi Alliance for Arts in Education. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7097.

* Kudos to Merrill Warkentin, the James J. Rouse Endowed Professor of Information Systems and a William L. Giles Distinguished Professor. In a published study of over 8,000 cybersecurity articles published from 1996 to 2021 (found in the Web of Science), his research articles were the second most cited. He is co-author of four of the top 30 most-cited cybersecurity articles.

* Congratulations to Leah Kemp, the director of the College of Architecture, Art and Design’s Fred Carl Jr. Small Town Center, who has been named state scholar for “Crossroads: Change in Rural America.” The exhibit is being presented by the Mississippi Humanities Council through a partnership with the Smithsonian Institution’s Museum on Main Street division. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7096.

* Kudos to Sadık C. Artunç, professor and head of the Department of Landscape Architecture, who has been inducted into the Council of Educators in Landscape Architecture’s Academy of Fellows. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7106.

* Congratulations to Lourdes Cardozo-Gaibisso, an assistant professor in the Department of English, who has been honored with a Promising Scholar Award from the North American Systemic Functional Linguistics Association, or NASFLA, for her excellence in the field of linguistics. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7107.

* Kudos to Rachel Allison, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, who is visiting Poland this summer as a 2023 Visiting Scholar at the University of Gdańsk. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7113.

* Congratulations to Derris Devost-Burnett, an associate professor in the Department of Animal and Dairy Sciences, who is the new national president of the Minorities in Agriculture, Natural Resources, and Related Sciences (MANRRS) organization. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7123.

Final Words

Thank you for reading this month’s letter. As always, I welcome your thoughts, questions, concerns, and ideas about these topics or anything else on your mind.

Hail State!

David

Dr. David R. Shaw is Provost and Executive Vice President at Mississippi State University. His email address is david.shaw@msstate.edu.