USM Crisis GLOSSARY

AAUP < 1. American Association of University Professors; 2. not a faculty union (collective bargaining is not an option in Mississippi).

Abbenyi, Abbenyi < well-known editorial cartoonist at The Student Printz, made famous by spoofing the Thames administration.

academic freedom < 1. freedom granted to the professorate (by tenure) to explore controversial, though important, subject matter, without fear of reprisal or recrimination; at USM, it is a special freedom or privilege held by the president to change the locks on the doors and seize the computers of the professoriate, while he has them in his office demanding their resignation or be fired.

accepted students vs. student acceptances < 1. on 4/8/04, The Hattiesburg American published a statement from Joe Paul indicating that there is a 9% increase in students accepted by USM for this Fall (2004) compared to last Fall (2003). That figure represents an increase of 222 students accepted by USM this Fall. However, truth4usm correctly pointed out that same day (see geocities.com/fireshelby message board) that "students accepted for admission by USM" and "students choosing to enroll at USM upon acceptance of admission" (paraphrasing) are two different occurrences. Whole press release now, given truth4usm’s correction, looks like a variation on Mader math (see also USM enrollment) with some phantom students thrown in for flavoring and texture; 2. the kind of chicanery that a respectable institution, like Texas A&M, would likely never draw its Vice President of Student Affairs into.

ACLU < 1. American Civil Liberties Union; 2. monitoring the USM crisis; 3. assisting attorney Mike Adelman in his defense of ousted USM professors Frank Glamser and Gary Stringer.

Ad Hoc Committee on Credentials, Hiring and Tenure Processes < 1. an ad hoc committee of USM’s Faculty Senate; 2. released a report near the beginning of April 2004 recommending that Angeline Dvorak no longer participate in recommendations made to USM President Shelby Thames about tenure and promotion; 3. recommendation based on the fact that Dvorak does not currently hold tenure at USM, and has only been tenured in two community college systems (see Ashland Community College and Enterprise State Junior College).

Adelman, Mike < 1. attorney representing Professors Glamser and Stringer; 2. could not get his calls returned by USM attorney Jim Keith, who was inserted into the process in a non-neutral way by the IHL Board and Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood as a measure to "ensure fairness" (see Jim Hood and Jim Keith).

ADP < 1. Area Development Partnership of Hattiesburg; 2. public-private joint venture to attract business spending to Hattiesburg area; 3. uncomfortably close the Shelby Thames’ administration at USM; 4. correction on 3, apparently now being run by Shelby Thames from his office in the dome (see J. Phillip Halstead).

agent provacateur < 1. secret agent who infiltrates an organization in order to incite trouble designed to make its members commit acts that will incur punishment; 2. term perfectly used in Neil McMillen’s speech to USM’s faculty on the night of the no-confidence vote to describe the cadre of individuals plucked from the "hostile outside" by Shelby Thames, whose members are entirely devoid of knowledge about and interest in academic life and culture, deliberately plotting through consistently bad advice to lead Shelby Thames over the edge; 3. see John I. Hanbury, Lisa Mader, Angeline Dvorak, Ken Malone, Mark Dvorak, etc.

Albertson’s building < 1. large, vacant facility at Cloverleaf Mall; 2. purchased early in the Thames administration for a reported $1.2 million sum; 3. was to be renovated with state bond issue money amounting to $3.5 million, but Thames wanted to divert these funds to construct the Economic Development Center, or so the story on the street goes (see Trent Lott and Haley Barbour). 4. this site is now rumored to belong to Forrest General Hospital, in return (to USM) for the old Southern Aire Motel next to Wallgreens at the corner of Hwy 49 and Hardy Street; 5. the theory is that without a nursing facility to renovate, the dome can now use the funds to complete the ED Center (of course, the nurses get hosed).

American Pride Paint < 1. odorless paint invented by Shelby Thames; 2. available in only one color (beige).

Anderson, David < 1. former Vice President of Property and Physical Plant at USM; 2. leaving USM for the greener pastures in Jackson; 3. was rapidly developing lower back pain and joint problems fulfilling all of Thames’ requests to have locks changed on faculty offices; 4. also became bored applying American Pride Paint (it comes only in a single color, beige).

Anderson, Reuben < retired MS Supreme Court Justice appointed by Jim Hood to "ensure fairness" in the upcoming Glamser-Stringer hearings.

Apocalypse Here < black market digital video disc depicting the current horror at USM.

APPEAL < automobile license plate of USM’s Risk Manager, John ("aka" Jack) Hanbury.

April 28-29, 2004 < dates of the suspension appeal hearings for professors Frank Glamser and Gary Stringer, who are represented by Mike Adelman. Shelby Thames’ arguments and solid grounds are presented by Jackson attorney Jim Keith, while former Supreme Court Justice Reuben Anderson presides (and sends an opinion to the IHL Board). Finally, the UAC also forwards an opinion to the IHL Board along with one from Shelby Thames.

Ashland Community College < 1. one of four community/junior colleges where Angeline Dvorak got the requisite experience/training to hold a VP-position at a national university; 2. located in Ashland, KY (that’s not Lexington, KY).

bad karma < 1. A distinctively bad aura, atmosphere or feeling; 2. what follows members of the Thames regime anywhere and everywhere they go.

Barbour, Haley < 1. Governor of Mississippi; 2. persistently prods the Thames administration (in the media) to hurry up and get the Economic Development Center off the ground; 3. USM’s Spring ‘04 commencement speaker.

Bartlett, Thomas < 1. reporter for The Chronicle of Higher Education; 2. wrote a lengthy description of USM crisis in a March 2004 issue ("Move to Fire 2 Professors Roils Campus in Mississippi"); 3. outed the fact that Shelby Thames’ only basis for accusing USM history professor Doug Chambers of cancelling classes was fabricated information (i.e., solid grounds) given to him by his girl Lisa Slay Mader.

Beneke, Jill < 1. President and CEO of Pileum Corporation, one of a few companies reportedly under non-competitive contractual agreements to render services for USM; 2. private information technology consultant rumored to be making personnel decisions at iTech (i.e., termination decisions) under the signature authority of Angeline Dvorak.

bootyologist < 1. practitioner/teacher of bootyology, or the "science" of "extra-curricular activities" ["aka" eca]; 2. title acquired upon reaching a degree of proficiency in "eca" that comes only through extensive, "hands-on" field work in the "discipline."; 3. "pen and company ink" scientist.

a bow tie affair < party that will soon be held honoring Aubrey K. Lucas’ coronation, for the third time, as USM president.

Braswell, Janet < 1. Hattiesburg American reporter that usually presents a pro-Thames slant in all of her writing; 2. too lazy to do real reporting, so she usually regurgitates Lisa Mader’s press releases verbatim as if they were gospel; 3. the only reporter one can think of who could wade through a 1,000-person, anti-Thames rally in front of the Dome, find the only 3 Thames supporters in attendance, and take their photo and pen an article about a pro-Thames rally that occurred;

Brown, Riva < 1. reporter from The Clarion Ledger; 2. with assistance from geocities.com/fireshelby, she outed the IHL Board/Jim Hood scheme to give Shelby a little help in the Glamser-Stringer hearings.

Bryant, Phil < 1. Mississippi State Auditor; 2. Hey Phil, there are some untoward things going on over at USM — you should check it out when you get a minute or two.

Cabana, Don < 1. Associate Professor of Criminal Justice at USM, and former President of USM’s Faculty Senate (prior to its current President, Myron Henry); 2. famous for "30 pieces of silver" incident; 3. a recent Thames supporter, though as FS President, not completely so; 4. leaving USM in May of 2004 to become Superintendent of Parchman Prison.

Cade, Ruth A. < 1. former faculty member in COST; 2. stood for academic integrity in a battle against the Thames administration and lost, but may soon tell her story through legal channels (Neil McMillen); 3. one of the earliest Thames casualties.

Cain, Walt < newly-elected president of the Hub SGA.

Cameron, Jim < 1. Producer of WDAM-TV news; 2. noticeably) silent (relatively) on the USM crisis.

campus morale < 1. the state of spirits one finds in a university’s students, faculty and staff; 2. qualitative measure of the mood of a campus, that the institution’s president would usually measure by getting out into the "campus community"and listening to his/her constituents; 3. of course, Shelby Thames likes to use easier-to-gather quantitative surrogates, such as the number of grants and contracts won by a handful of the university’s faculty members and/or the number of student acceptances for the upcoming fall semester.

campus sign regulatons < 1. rules/policies governing placement of signs on campus property; 2. rules somehow now under the purview of Lisa Slay Mader and the USM Public Relations staff; 3. a living, breathing document that disallows anti-Thames placards placed by the hardworking CSUSM, but pardons "Students, think about what your professors have to gain by opposing President Thames" and "Students, what do you think the 2 fired professors are hiding?" signs that are printed and paid for by the Thames Underworld and placed across campus by Lisa Mader and her Hub SGA cronies (see also agent provacateur).

Capps, Dr. and Mrs. Charles J., III < 1. relatives (descendants) of the late Albert J. Jaeger, former Assistant Vice President of Business and Finance at USM (for 30 years, until 1985); 2. staunch advocates of Thames’ ouster, and say their father is likely "turning over in his grave" at what Shelby Thames is doing to USM.

Chain, Bobby < 1. former Hattiesburg mayor and IHL Board member from Hattiesburg, 2. once supported Shelby Thames’ administration, but has since turned in the other direction.

Chambers, Douglas < 1. member of USM history department accused by Thames (at infamous press conference) of cancelling his classes to facilitate student protests; 2. had documentation of jury duty instead, and never received apology from Thames; 3. product of a national job search.

Chaze, Kim < 1. lawyer representing Melissa Whiting and other USM faculty in lawsuits against USM; 2. soon to be an even wealthier individual thanks to Thames.

The Chronicle of Higher Education < 1. the serial for academics worldwide; 2. recently ran a large photo of a picture of Shelby Thames wearing a Nazi uniform; 3. serial’s reporter Thomas Bartlett wrote a lengthy description of USM crisis in a March 2004 issue ("Move to Fire 2 Professors Roils Campus in Mississippi").

CISE < 1. Department of Curriculum, Instruction and Special Education at USM; 2. USM department chaired by Shelby Thames’ progeny Dana Thames; 3. many of department’s best/brightest are being shown the door (but are firing back with litigation), and department seems destined for future troubles.

contumacious conduct < sex with secretary.

The Clarion-Ledger < 1. unofficial state newspaper of MS; 2. employs reporter Riva Brown, who covers the Thames administration and current USM crisis; 3. other than Brown, has not impressed.

Clark, Cheryl < 1. Gary Stringer’s research assistant, now left without her major professor and her source of income (see my most prized possession); 2. worked with Donne Variorum.

Coffman, Homer < 1. first-ever Chief Information Officer hired by USM (April, 2004); 2. placed in charge of iTech.

College of the Arts < 1. now-defunct College from USM’s history; 2. a rare find in the nation, and one of the most well-known in the South; 3. a pleasant memory during this whole mess.

College of Bidness and Economic Development < (a Thamesunciation; check it out at commencement) see College of Business and Economic Development (see also Krandall Howell).

College of Business and Economic Development < 1. USM College housing Shelby Thames’ favorite departments/people outside of COST; 2. College where Angeline Dvorak, Tim Hudson, Ken Malone, and Cynthia Moore are based; 3. College administered by Thames’ favorite USM Dean, Harold Doty.

Concerned faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends of USM < creators of the online petition voicing no confidence in Shelby Thames (see petitiononline.com/usmtruth/petition.html).

Hewitt, Andrea < 1. heroic fighter for "T-R-U-T-H" (see firethames.com); 2. see truth4usm; 3. see petitiononline.com/usmtruth/petition.html.

Cornett, Chad < Hub SGA executive who recently admitted what we’ve all known for sometime: the SGA is a pawn of the administration.

cross-training Provosts < job-training technique invented by Shelby Thames where the Gulf Coast Provost trains for the job there by serving as Provost on the Hattiesburg campus, and the Hattiesburg Provost trains for the job in Hattiesburg by serving as Provost at the Gulf Coast.

CSUSM < 1. Concerned Students of USM; 2. courageous student activists fighting to restore integrity to USM against a tyrannical administration and a sometime hostile business community; 3. current slogan for Thames: "Don’t go away mad, just go away."

Darth Mader < 1. one of Lisa Mader’s more popular nicknames (circulating around USM community); nickname for Thames spokesperson Lisa Slay Mader, referencing the evil-doer Darth Vader in the Star Wars movie sequence.

Denard, Deborah < 1. Hattiesburg city councilwoman; 2. recent supporter of Thames because she wants the 1% sales tax increase for USM athletic facilities to pass so she can syphon off some of the funds for improvements in her ward/district.

Department of Homeland Security < 1. part of the executive branch of the U.S. government (i.e., The White House), and is responsible for making America more secure from the dangers of terrorists, criminals and hazardous materials; 2. agency now in limbo since its high-level meetings with Shelby Thames have been cancelled due to the crises taking place at USM (as Thames stated in his dome press conference, meetings were to have taken place the week after the professor firings, but Thames had to hold dome press conference and first-ever Tuesdays against Thames meetings instead).

Dome Gnome < 1. nickname given to USM president Shelby Thames; 2. his (ST’s) personal favorite.

Donne Variorum < (see variorum) 1. multi-volume edition of the poetry of John Donne. It is a collaborative work drawing on the labors of over 30 scholars from the United States and abroad. Organized in 1980, the project has enjoyed support from the National Endowment of the Humanities since 1986 (see donnevariorum.com). 2. General Editor of this very prestigious project is USM’s own Gary Stringer (see also Cheryl Clark).

Doty, Harold < 1. first-year Dean of the College of Business and Economic Development; 2. believed to be the only first-year dean who came with tenure; 3. believed to be the one first-year dean that Thames most wants to terminate; 4. pursued in the Spring of 2004 by Texas Christian University to fill their Business Dean opening.

Downtown Lunch Express < see 2 Trolleys.

Drug & Alcohol Policy < 1. USM policy regarding employee use of drugs and alcohol during work hours; 2. written by Jack Hanbury (see Mahogany Bar); 3. policy employs a "no trace whatsoever" standard (the chemistry equivalent to solid grounds) that would go so far as to disallow use of cough drops on USM premises; 4. policy delayed by USM under instructions (reportedly) from IHL Board given inconsistencies with policies of the other four-year institutions in the State.

Dude, where’s my Prof? < slogan popularized by student activists at the beginning of the Glamser-Stringer controversy.

due process < 1. important provision in the U.S. Constitution providing protection against tyrants; 2. superceded at USM by the will of the Dome Gnome.

Dvorak, Angeline < 1. currently the Vice President for Research and Economic Development at USM; 2. product of a Thames job search; 3. resume claims she was a Tenured Associate Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY from 1997-2000; 4. clinches her fist and makes her eyes turn red when she gets mad; 5. will sue anyone who questions her credentials.

Dvorak, Mark < 1. husband of Angeline Dvorak and former law partner of John I. Hanbury; 2. currently the Director of Human Resources at USM; 3. product of a Thames job search; 4. before being hired as HR Director at USM, he sat around Angie’s house watching Live with Regis and Kelly and Oprah all day; 5. said to have been asked to resign his board post (within only one year) with the Mississippians for Economic Progress (tort reform group) for incompetence.

Dvorak Variorum < (see variorum and Donne Variorum) 1. yeah, right; 2. not; 3. multi-volume edition of the many versions of Angeline Dvorak’s curriculum vita (see resume). It is a collaborative work drawing on the labors of Dvorak herself, several named agents provacateurs (see John I. Hanbury, Lisa Mader, Mark Dvorak) at Shelby Thames University, and anonymous lawyers in the Hattiesburg area. The project was organized in 1980/81, when Angeline Dvorak was a 19 year-old grad student at the University of Alabama and supposedly also teaching at Panama City Christian School (see 1981). The project has received financial backing from Shelby Thames since 2002 (year Angeline was hired on at about $120,000/yr.), and support was increased again in 2003 (year Angeline’s man Mark was hired, bringing support for the Dvoraks to around $250,000/yr. — all taxpayer dollars of course). The project has, however, received negative reviews by The Chronicle of Higher Education, the USM chapter of the AAUP, the Ad Hoc Committee on Credentials, Hiring and Tenure Processes, and numerous faculty in the English Department at the University of Kentucky in Lexington, where the variorum was reported to have been located from 1997-2000 by Dvorak and her agents provacateurs at Shelby Thames University. These reports were shown to be false, as the records place the variorum across the Commonwealth of Kentucky in a town called Ashland (much less prestigious).

Dvorak’s incredulity < 1. on 3/16/2004, The Hattiesburg American published the following quote made by Angeline Dvorak regarding inclusion on her vita of the line tenured Associate Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY: "Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought someone would interpret that I was trying to pass myself off as a person in the department of English at the University of Kentucky. I don’t even know where that department is. I’ve never even been there."; 2. this screams "pathological" (see the latest DSM); 3. if one is to believe Angeline Dvorak on this one, here is the moral of the story: if you ever interview someone who lists on their vita (or states the same) that they are a tenured Associate Professor of English at the University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY, please, for your own protection later, have 5 to 7 follow-up questions ready since words apparently don’t matter or mean anything in this instance. Here’s a starter: "Have you ever been to Lexington?" I think you can take it from there (and please feel free use more than 7 follow-up questions if the candidate is being peculiarly evasive about the matter; remember, the candidate may be an agent provacateur, so you want to protect yourself and your institution from him/her).