It’s hard to believe that another successful fall semester is quickly drawing to a close with Thanksgiving, final exams, and commencement on the horizon. It certainly is a busy time of year, and we’ve had a number of special events and activities the past few weeks — the official ribbon-cutting of the new Music Building, the opening of the Mississippi Cyber Center with Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and our state and federal partners, and a meaningful Veterans Recognition Ceremony on the Drill Field, to name just a few examples. Before we enjoy a brief break next week, please let me take a few minutes of your time for an update from the Office of the Provost and Executive Vice President.

General Education Task Force Completes Final Report

As I mentioned in my October letter to you, the task forces that my office launched in 2019 continue to finish their work and share their final reports. Last month, we posted the Faculty Development Task Force’s report, and I hope you’ve had a chance to review the findings and recommendations. Two weeks ago, we posted the final report from the General Education Task Force, and I appreciate the work of chair Angi Bourgeois and task force members who examined this essential component of our academic mission. They were charged with redefining and reimagining the goals and objectives of our General Education efforts, and I believe they have done an exemplary job. I look forward to productive discussions with you as we move forward with considering and implementing their recommendations. I’d invite you to review this report at https://www.provost.msstate.edu/initiatives/task-forces.

New Grade Distribution Tool Now Available to MSU Community

I appreciate the questions, comments, and suggestions we received during the process to develop a new grade distribution tool. This effort stemmed from a Student Association resolution requesting that the university develop a website with grade distribution information. I want to thank Assistant Vice President Tracey Baham and her team in the Office of Institutional Research and Effectiveness, as well as Information Technology Services, for building this site. I also am grateful for the leadership of the Robert Holland Faculty Senate, our senators, and the faculty as a whole for the productive dialog and discourse as we have worked to implement important improvements. As I stated in an email earlier this week, launching this site is an excellent example of the MSU family working together to develop an outcome that no one segment would’ve created. It also embodies the shared governance approach that is a hallmark of our university. The new site is online at https://ir.msstate.edu/research/grades.php and an MSU Net ID is required to access it.

Phi Kappa Phi Wins Fifth Consecutive Circle of Excellence Award as National Model Chapter

Congratulations to our Phi Kappa Phi honor society chapter. It is once again being recognized with a Circle of Excellence Platinum Award — the highest Phi Kappa Phi honor given to a chapter. Our chapter has been a Circle of Excellence winner for five consecutive years since the awards program’s inception in 2018 and has been looked to as a national model by other university chapters across the country. The MSU PKP chapter and its members have continued to bring recognition to the university with several achievements. Recently, wildlife, fisheries and aquaculture doctoral student Rebecca Bracken was awarded with a PKP national Love of Learning Award; and Professor Missy Hopper, a former PKP national president who also served terms in the president-elect and past president roles, was honored with a named dissertation fellowship. Read more at https://www.msstate.edu/newsroom/article/2022/11/msu-phi-kappa-phi-wins-fifth-consecutive-circle-excellence-award-national.

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 Vice President for Student Affairs Regina Hyatt, who has been named a 2023 Pillar of the Profession by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators for her career contributions in student affairs. Dr. Hyatt is most deserving of this recognition, and I am honored to call her a colleague and friend. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6877.

* Kudos to Kristin Boyce, an associate professor in the Department of Philosophy and Religion and a Shackouls Honors College Faculty Fellow, who has received a $5,000 grant from the American Society for Aesthetics, for the project "Philosophy, Race, and the Arts in Nashville Ballet's Lucy Negro Redux." The conference is organized around Nashville Ballet's Lucy Negro Redux, created in 2019 and based on a collection of poems by Nashville-based poet, Caroline Randall Williams. It imaginatively explores the hypothesis that the "dark lady" of Shakespeare's sonnets was a woman of African descent. Read more at https://aesthetics-online.org/news/618201/ASA-Trustees-Fund-Project-on-Philosophy-Race-and-the-Arts-in-Nashville-Ballets-Lucy-Negro-Redux.htm.

* Congratulations to this year’s Institute for the Humanities Fellows: Ted Atkinson, an associate professor in the Department of English; Sol Pelaez, an associate professor in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures; and Anne Marshall, an associate professor in the Department of History and executive director of the Ulysses S. Grant Association and Ulysses S. Grant Presidential Library. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6849.

* Kudos to Scott DiGiulio, an assistant professor in the Department of Classical and Modern Languages and Literatures, who has co-edited a new book. “Documentality: New Approaches to Written Documents on Imperial Life and Literature,” a De Gruyter publication, was released last month. Read more at https://www.memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6848.

* Congratulations to Amy Knight, an instructor in the Department of Communication, who has been selected as the university’s first Luckyday Scholars Program Faculty Fellow. MSU’s program, established in 2019 by the Luckyday Foundation in Jackson, welcomed 24 new students this fall. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6870.

* Kudos to Saddiq Dzukogi, an assistant professor in the Department of English and author of “Your Crib, My Qibla” (University of Nebraska Press, 2021), who is the winner of the third annual Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry, a prestigious prize presented to a living poet who is not a U.S. citizen for a full-length book of poems published in the previous year. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6866.

* Congratulations to Brian Locke, the university’s veteran and military affairs director, who has been named a Veteran Champion of the Year in Higher Education by G.I. Jobs magazine. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6879.

* Kudos to Ashli Brown, Shahram Rahimi, Rebecca Robichaux-Davis, and Kathy Sherman-Morris for recently completing the Southeastern Conference’s Academic Leadership Development Program. These members of our faculty are part of the 13th cohort of fellows in the SEC program, which is designed to identify, prepare and advance academic leaders for roles within SEC institutions and beyond. Read more at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6858.

* And welcome to Tommy Anderson, the new dean of the Judy and Bobby Shackouls Honors College; Sean Fox, the new head of the Department of Agricultural Economics; and Jeff Gore, the new head of the Delta Research and Extension Center. You can read more about these leadership postings at https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6876, https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6863, and https://memo.msstate.edu/story.php?id=6868, respectively.

Final Words

In closing, I feel extraordinarily blessed to be a part of the MSU family, and I hope each one of you enjoys a very happy Thanksgiving next week. 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.