To the Members of the Mississippi State Legislature:

I am a tenured faculty member at the University of Southern Mississippi and I write to you out of grave concern for what is happening at the place I have come to love over the past ten years.

I am sure you are aware of events here at USM. I write to you now out of grave concern because I fear only further harm and damage can come to the state given the most recent action of the president. Imagine, if you will, that the governor of a state one day decided that he is tired of the legislature. He decides to create The Governor's State Council. He has his cabinet hand pick and appoint 18 members to it. Then he directs all discussion of legislation to them rather than to the 100 or so legislators in the two houses of government. That is exactly what President Thames has done with his new University Council announced just yesterday, May 5, 2004.

Please understand that this new undemocratic, unelected bureaucratic institution, The President’s Council, will be the only institution on campus with direct access to the president.  Please understand that this council is created by the same five deans who were threatened by a university lawyer for “communicating” information just last Friday April 30,2004. Few of these deans have tenure. Each of these deans was hired by the president. Will healing and communication be established when such Deans are asked to choose members to a body that no one elects?

As of today, no democratically elected institutions at USM have direct access to this president. USM currently has a democratically elected faculty senate, staff council, student government, and academic council. Each of these organizations exists only to facilitate communication. Why then is there need for a new entity? Why spend new administrative money on a new institution? Why waste time creating a new, non-elected hand-picked group of 18 people to do what already can be done if  our university president were willing simply to meet with the elected bodies that already exist?

After two years, I am sorry to report that communication and healing will not occur under this president. Please recall that even before its vote of no confidence the faculty senate asked for a mediator and the president refused. Since asking for that mediator, the senate has had to resort to the Mississippi open records act just to communicate with the president. Is there any other elected representative body in a university in the United States that has had to resort to the law just to talk to the university president?

Recently, I spoke to a former law school dean who has served on numerous accreditation visits for SACS. Rest assured, subversion of democratically elected representative bodies does not sit well with SACS. Mississippi higher education can ill afford the stain a lack of accreditation or even probation would make on one of its principle universities. Certainly, the state of Alabama is not pleased with the situation that happened at Auburn.

The College Board according to the state constitution is the only entity with the power to correct what is clearly a problem. Please, let us know that the rule of law does exist in this state. I urge you, help us out in our time of need.

Jonathan Barron

*CAUTION: As was revealed in hearings that were ordered by the Mississippi state attorney general and held at the USM campus on April 28, 2004, all email is subject to monitoring by the Office of the University President. Since he has used this authority to attempt to fire two tenured professors, please be aware that anything you say in an email sent to a USM email address is subject to be read by third parties and possibly disclosed to the public.