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Funding crisis permeates public education

Both the Hattiesburg American and the Clarion-Ledger front-page a story today on Mississippi’s “long history of lousy education and a bad habit of not paying for it” in the K-12 public education...

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Last word on the last day of the year: Education!

I don’t always agree with Sid Salter’s views, but he’s right on in a December 27 piece in the Clarion-Ledger when underscoring the fundamental link between poor education, unemployment, and poverty in...

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Expect climate change and health to take center stage in 2015

After years of denial, climate change and its deleterious impacts are now squarely on the political agenda of a growing number of Americans.  Many of those impacts are directly or indirectly health...

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Still in the education cellar

Just in time to turn up the heat on legislative debate on education funding even higher, Mississippi has scored one more “51st out of 51″ K-12 education system rankings.   According to the Education...

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Oil price drop threatens Louisiana higher education

If ever there were a time for even a poor state like Mississippi to raid Louisiana’s public colleges and universities for good faculty, now may be it.  Already beaten down by seemingly endless rounds...

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Mississippi needs to plan for climate change effects

Suddenly, news related to climate change seems everywhere.  (Remember when – it wasn’t long ago at all –you couldn’t turn around without tripping over a climate change denier?)  Often, and for good...

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Scarce resources and poor performance = finger pointing

You hate to see public officials supposedly on the same team taking off after one another.  Last week K-12 state board of education member William Harold Jones blasted the Mississippi legislature as a...

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CoH Dean’s Council Leadership Change

Many thanks to Doug Higginbotham, CEO of South Central Regional Medical Center in Laurel, for two years of faithful service as chairperson of the College of Health Dean’s Council.  As a recent meeting...

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Mississippi Roads Are a Public Health Hazard

Mississippi has one of the one of the highest rural traffic fatality rates in the nation, in part because of the crumbling and highly dangerous condition of its roads and bridges. A new study by the...

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Refill, please – Good news on coffee keeps coming

Coffee and caffeine suffered a bad health rap for a long time, but the tides have decidedly shifted.  Now one research study after another points to significant health benefits connected to the natural...

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Change is in the air

At College Council with department heads this morning, it hit me just how much administrative change is taking place at mid-year, at least in the college and in the provost’s office. In the College of...

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Water shortage not just a California problem

Protracted drought conditions in California have drawn a lot of ink lately.  Not merely one of the more populous states, California is responsible for an inordinate amount of America’s corporatized...

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Sugary drinks kill

Newly published research indicates that sugary drinks are killing 184,000 people each year worldwide, via the diabetes, heart disease, and cancers that they either cause or exacerbate.  Knowing this,...

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Concluding fall 2015 convocation remarks

Following is some of what I would have said in closing remarks had time not run short at Thursday’s 90-minute college convocation. Ours is a time of change and challenge, to be sure.  At the university...

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New “navigator” project will expand health access in South Mississippi

The School of Social Work’s just been awarded a major federal Health and Human Services grant to connect medically uninsured low-income Mississippians living in the southernmost state Health Dept....

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Is California’s drought just the cutting edge of the climate crisis?

Governor Brown of California – a state reeling in the unyielding grasp of a 500-year drought and raging wildfires – had this to say on Sunday: “This is a crisis that’s not like a political problem,...

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Stop the public health mayhem; let’s get serious about gun safety

We’ve made automobiles much, much safer since the days they were massive hunks of steel hurtling down highways without impact absorbing bumpers, seat belts, or air bags.  The public’s health and safety...

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On-campus Social Work conference a smashing success

Yesterday and today, the School of Social Work hosted the 44th Annual Alabama-Mississippi Social Work Education Conference – the longest-running regional conference of its type in the U.S. 350 social...

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Let’s tighten up more on tobacco

I spent a good chunk of yesterday at a meeting in Jackson of the Mississippi Tobacco Control Advisory Council, of which I’m a member by virtue of my position as dean of the college.  Chaired by former...

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Kinesiology Faculty and Staff Carry Off Super 82nd Annual MAHPERD Convention

The Mississippi Association for Health, Physical Education, Recreation and Dance (MAHPERD) wisely brought their 82nd Annual Convention to Southern Miss this past Thursday and Friday.  Faculty members...

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