- The Board also approved a Miss. State career center funded through the U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration.
Members of the Board of Trustees for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning unanimously elected a new Vice President / President-elect along with creating two new academic degrees during last week’s meeting.
The Board also approved the creation of a new center at Mississippi State and approved contracts for services to be provided to the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
Ogletree elected VP
The IHL Board nominated and unanimously approved Gee Ogletree to fill the Board’s vacant Vice President / President-elect seat.
Ogletree was appointed to the 12-person Board by then Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant in 2018 for a nine-year term to represent the Central Supreme Court District.
He is an attorney with the law firm Adams and Reese and formerly served as an adjunct professor at the Mississippi College School of law. He is general counsel for the Mississippi Forestry Association and the Mississippi Manufactured Housing Association. Ogletree is also a member of the USM Alumni Association Hall of Fame and is a Fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation.
In addition, the IHL Board approved the appointment of Board member Teresa Hubbard as chair of the Academic Affairs Committee. She was appointed to the Board for a nine-year term by Governor Tate Reeves in May 2021 to represent the Third Supreme Court District.
Hubbard is the founder, president and CEO of CITE Armored, a Mississippi-based armored truck manufacturing company.
New degree paths and Miss. State Career Horizons Center
In regular business, the IHL Board approved establishing a new academic unit, two new degree paths, and a new center.
The new academic unit will be offered at Mississippi State University. Called the College of Integrative Studies, it will be housed under the College of Academic Affairs and will act as an incubator for new disciplinary degree paths, said Dr. Casey Prestwood, Associate Commissioner for Academic and Student Affairs for the IHL.
She informed the Board that the cost to implement the new unit will be roughly $8.5 million total, which includes $1.8 million in new funds. It will offer three degree paths: the Bachelor of Science (BS) in Data Science, a Master of Applied Science (MAS), and a Graduate Certificate for Data Science Pedagogy.
Four new staff members will be needed for the new academic unit.
One of the two new degree programs approved by the IHL Board will be the Master of Applied Science in Organizational Leadership to be housed under Mississippi State University’s College of Professional and Continuing Studies.
“This 30-hour degree program is designed to fill a gap in advanced applied education for working adults,” Prestwood told the Board.
Emphasis within the program will be on practical skills, ethical leadership and strategic decision making. Such skills can be beneficial to those in the military, working professionals and those who have earned a Bachelor of Applied Sciences.
“Organizational leadership skills are increasingly recognized as vital effective management in technical fields,” Prestwood added.
The Project Management Institute has estimated there will be a global demand of more than 87 million individuals with those skills by 2027. Estimated median annual wages for individuals with those skills would be more than $100,000 annually.
The second new degree path will be offered at the Mississippi University for Women. The Master of Education in Multiple Exceptionalities will be housed under the School of Education at The W.
Described as a 30-hour program, it will be split between 12 hours focused on a specialty license endorsement in gifted studies along with a 12-credit hour specialty license endorsement in special education. Finally, the program will include six hours of “research to address educational practices appropriate for the multivariate nature of giftedness and special education,” Prestwood described.
It is estimated between 2 to 5 percent of school-aged children are exceptional learners, indicating a demand for the program.
“Mississippi University for Women has a steady enrollment of graduate students with interest in gifted studies,” Prestwood elaborated.
Average wages for a teacher with this degree are estimated to be between $43,000 to $66,000, depending on experience and other factors.
Prestwood said it will be the only program of its kind within Mississippi.
The new center approved by the IHL Board will be located at Mississippi State University and will be named the Career Horizons Center. It will be housed in the Mississippi Institute on Disabilities within the College of Education.
Prestwood said the center will help Mississippians aged 16 to 70 who have been impacted by long-haul COVID to be fully integrated back into employment settings. Funding for the center, to the tune of $10 million, is being provided by the U.S. Department of Education Rehabilitation Services Administration. So far, about 25 centers such as this one have been established nationwide, of which only 12 were established at universities.
“The career horizons center will be the only center of its kind in the state of Mississippi,” Prestwood described.
UMMC contracts
In other business, the IHL Board approved requests from the University of Mississippi Medical Center.
One was to enter into an agreement with Bristol-Myers Squibb Company to purchase autologous cell therapy products that can alter T-cells and subsequently provide patients with an immunological response to cancer. The five-year contract will cost about $23.6 million and can be cancelled with 90 days notice.
The Board also approved a request to enter into a contract with Covidien Sales LLC to purchase and receive maintenance for equipment related to pulse oximetry monitoring, capnography, and cerebral/somatic monitoring. The five-year contract has an anticipated cost of $15.9 million.
Jeremy Pittari
