IHL Commish Emphasizes the Need for MS’s Future Success: More College Grads
IHL Commish Emphasizes the Need for MS’s Future Success: More College Grads
COLUMBUS – Info courtesy of the Dispatch
Glenn Boyce – IHL commissioner (courtesy photo)
Glenn Boyce, commissioner of Mississippi’s Institutions of Higher Learning, recently spoke to the Rotary Club about what he feels is needed for the state to continue its success in business going forward: Namely, getting people into college – and more importantly – seeing them through to graduation.
“Mississippi’s future economic growth is post-secondary training,” Boyce said. “The simple truth is that if we don’t get Mississippians through college with a degree, our economic growth is going to stagnate. By 2020 — that’s just three years from now — studies show that 65 percent of all new jobs will require a post-second degree or specialized training.”
Educating residents is one thing, though. Keeping them is another important issue, Boyce said.
He pointed out that students in Mississippi have been making great strides in recent years in terms of both education in general and the college graduation rate, but that we still lag far behind the national average. He also spoke about the need to provide viable work opportunities for new graduates in-state: “You hear a lot about what’s called ‘The Brain Drain’ in Mississippi,” he said. “It’s disturbing. We’re losing as many as 50 percent of our graduates to other states. It’s not because they don’t love Mississippi. It’s because there aren’t opportunities for them here. If they have the opportunities, they will stay. In fact, we know that Mississippians come back to the state at a high rate when opportunities arise.”
Fortunately, things are looking up – step by step. “Thanks to the (IHL) board, we’re starting two bio-medical engineering programs at Mississippi State and Ole Miss,” Boyce said. “We want to create a wave of engineers specially trained for the bio-medical industry and then go after those companies. But we have to create the labor pool of qualified workers before we can go after those companies. We can’t bring in the companies and then train workers.”
Here are some highlights:
Teenage residents of Columbus’ Palmer Home for Children have been helping fans on MSU game day to find parking at Cadence Bank, right across the street from The Mill. The teens collect the $20 parking fees – all of which goes to the Palmer Home locations in Columbus and Hernando, as well as a partner location in Tennessee. In addition to helping them to raise much-needed funding, it also raises awareness of the fact that the children’s homes even exist. The local Palmer Home provides a home, food, clothing, and education for about 112 local children who might not otherwise have had ready access to any of those things.
Roughly a hundred MSU student volunteers recently joined forces to pack and ship five thousand meals to be sent out to hungry families in Mississippi and beyond, as part of a project to help raise awareness of food insecurity.The Oxfam Hunger Banquet model was used for their pre-work meal, where students were divided up into several groups meant to proportionally represent various “income levels” and what families at those levels might find themselves eating. The smallest group by far – those randomly chosen as the “high income” group, sat down at the tables for a multi-course meal with real plates and silverware; the largest two groups – the “low income” ones, sat on the floor with paper plates, plastic forks, a mound of mashed potatoes – and precious little else. Students reportedly ate relatively little, many of them never having previously known just how bad many families in need really have it.