I hope everyone had an opportunity to enjoy Fall Break last week. I wanted to begin this month’s letter with an update about our search for a new dean of the Bagley College of Engineering. The search firm assisting the search committee and our chair, College of Business Dean Scott Grawe, reports a strong and growing pool of applicants. The committee members will soon begin their review of the applications, and we will then host candidates for campus interviews the week after Thanksgiving. We’re confident that we’ll be able to announce our new dean before the break begins in December. I appreciate Dr. Grawe and the committee members for their commitment to this critical undertaking, and I also thank Interim Dean Robert Green for his strong leadership of the Bagley College through this leadership transition.

MSU Again Named ‘Great College to Work For’

It was great to see that Mississippi State has again been named a “Great College to Work For.” It’s the ninth year in a row we’ve received this recognition, and we were also named to the Great Colleges Honor Roll for achieving outstanding results in multiple recognition categories: job satisfaction and support, compensation and benefits, professional development, mission and pride, confidence in senior leadership, shared governances, and faculty experience. The Great Colleges to Work For program is one of the largest and most respected workplace recognition programs in the country, and the results are based on feedback from employees. It’s good to see positive feedback from so many of our colleagues, and I think it reflects the university’s commitment to further enhancing our workplace culture whenever we can. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7787.

Applications Open for Community Engagement Awards

I want to encourage interested faculty, staff, and students to apply for a 2024 Excellence in Community Engagement Award on behalf of a project in the following categories: Community-Engaged Service, Community-Engaged Research, and Community-Engaged Teaching and Learning. A $3,000 award will be given in each of these areas to recognize outstanding work and support its continuation. Projects that achieve honorable mention will receive $1,000. And a reminder: the MSU CE Awards are not a grant proposal process but a recognition of existing projects. Submissions are due Oct. 30. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7812.

University Teaching Awards Application Period Now Open

Applications are also open for the 2025 Grisham Master Teacher, Donald Zacharias Early Career Undergraduate Teaching Excellence and the Alumni Association Graduate and/or Professional Teaching Excellence awards. Interested faculty must submit an electronic application in PDF form to my office via email to grishamaward@provost.msstate.edu by Oct. 27 if their teaching can only be observed in the Fall 2024 semester or by Jan. 5 if their teaching can be observed in the Spring 2025 semester. All current full-time faculty members at MSU with the required years of service, regardless of rank, are eligible to apply for these awards. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7818.

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:

* Congratulations to Peter Allen, a professor in the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Aquaculture, who is the university’s 2024 Ralph E. Powe Research Excellence Award winner. Dr. Allen is most deserving of this prestigious recognition. Read more about him and the other research and innovation honorees at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7821.

* Kudos to Scott Willard, dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and director of the Mississippi Agricultural and Forestry Experiment Station, who is concluding his term as chair of the Association of Public and Land-grant Universities' Academic Programs Committee on Organization and Policy (APLU ACOP). Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7824.

* Congratulations to Wes Burger, dean of the College of Forest Resources and director of the Forest and Wildlife Research Center, who has been inducted into the National Bobwhite and Grassland Initiative Hall of Fame. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7775.

* Kudos to Donna M. Pierce, an associate professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, who is leading a five-year, $1.2 million grant from the National Science Foundation’s Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program to advance science, technology, engineering and mathematics education in rural school districts, along with Mohammad Sepehrifar, an associate professor in the Department of Mathematics and Statistics, and Dana Franz, a professor of secondary mathematics education in the College of Education, who also is director of academic quality and professor with the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7784.

* Congratulations to Kemeshia Swanson, an assistant professor with a joint appointment in the Department of English and the African American Studies program, who has been awarded the 2024 Eudora Welty Prize for her new book titled “Maverick Feminist: To Be Female and Black in a Country Founded upon Violence and Respectability.” Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7822.

* Kudos to Shalyn Claggett, a professor in the Department of English, who has been honored with a 2024 South Atlantic Modern Language Association Book Award for her work titled “Equal Natures: Popular Brain Science and Victorian Women’s Writing.” Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7806.

* Congratulations to Jun Wang, as assistant professor in the Rula School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, who has been awarded an NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) award to further her research in integrating safe, efficient interactions between robots and the construction workforce. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7794.

* Kudos to Maggie Hagerman, an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, who was recently honored with the Distinguished Early Career Award by the American Sociological Association’s Section on Children and Youth. Read more at https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2024/09/msus-hagerman-wins-asa-distinguished-early-career-award-contributions.

* Congratulations to the team led by Frank Owens, an associate professor in the Department of Sustainable Bioproducts, that includes Assistant Professor Adriana Costa, Department Head Rubin Shmulsky, and USDA Forest Products Laboratory’s Center for Wood Anatomy Research Team Leader Alex Wiedenhoeft, recently recognized with the George Marra Award from the Society of Wood Science and Technology. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7807.

* Kudos to Kevin Armstrong, an associate professor in the Department of Psychology, who has been appointed to the Mississippi Board of Psychology by Gov. Tate Reeves. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=7793.

Final Words

Thank you for reading this month’s letter. As always, your thoughts, suggestions, questions, and concerns are welcome at david.shaw@msstate.edu.

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.