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Update March 17, 2020 – President Nora Miller has released a video message on The W’s response to the COVID-19 outbreak.

Dear Campus,
Late yesterday afternoon, the Governor of Mississippi entered two executive orders:  Executive Order 1458 and 1459.  EO 1459 mobilizes the Mississippi National Guard to assist state and local civil authorities with setting up testing facilities.  EO 1458 requires, in part, the university to identify which employees perform essential duties to carry out our core functions and where feasible, to allow these employees to work from home.  We are fortunate that we began that work first thing Monday morning.   At The W, every employee and the work you do is essential to our mission, now more than ever.  While many of you would prefer to work from the office, our task now is to minimize physical interaction with others to mitigate the risk of possible transmission between employees and the community.

Please continue to work thoughtfully and diligently to complete your telecommuting agreements with your supervisor and implement those plans as soon as you can.  Supervisors be as accommodating and lenient as these plans are put into action and prioritize tasks that are essential to the core functions of the university during this time of the declared State of Emergency.  It will not be perfect, and we will have to work together as we adapt to whatever the circumstances dictate.

Non-exempt employees will need to continue to document the hours they work each day (whether this is paper time log or recorded in Banner).  During these unprecedented times, all employees who are unable to work for any reason will be placed on administrative leave with pay. 

We expect more guidance to come from IHL this week. Please check our coronavirus 19 response page on the website regularly for updates. Questions can be submitted to covid19info@muw.edu and we will direct your questions to the appropriate office for response.

Take care of yourself and your family – we will get through this!

And, on another note – Happy St. Patrick’s Day, and Erin Go Bragh!

Nora Miller
President, Mississippi University for Women

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March 16, 2020

A Message from the President:

On Saturday, March 14, 2020, Governor Reeves declared a State of Emergency for the State of Mississippi due to the spread of COVID-19. This week, starting Monday, March 16, 2020, our faculty are preparing to take the remainder of their courses to an online, virtual or alternate format. As an IHL system, we are also being asked to likewise have non-faculty employees prepare for ways and the manner in which the university can continue operations in the event of significant absenteeism for the next two weeks, and potentially longer.

I am first asking everyone to consider their own position and how their job functions could be performed at home. I am also asking departments to consider how work schedules can be developed within departments to maintain a limited physical presence on campus, and with the understanding that there may be individuals within your department and throughout the university who are working remotely and/or not working at all due to absenteeism. For those who can perform their work at home for the next two weeks, with your supervisor’s approval, I am asking that you do.

My hope is that this will only be a temporary modification to our university’s operation, and everyone will be flexible and patient as we do the work necessary to safeguard the mission of the institution and the health of our W family.

We each have a role to play, and now is the time for you to think about how your role can serve this institution as we face this challenge. Please remember that while everyone is being encouraged to work from home, when they can, there are offices who will need to maintain a physical presence. While we have encouraged all students to move home for the semester, we have many students who cannot. We will continue to support those students and make staffing adjustments within offices to meet their needs.

This is an opportunity for us to come together (literally, not physically) and work together in ways we have never before been asked to imagine.

There will be many questions, and I again ask for your patience and flexibility as we adjust to what these unprecedented circumstances require. Work with your supervisor as much as possible. You can direct questions to covid19info@muw.edu, and we will work with the necessary areas of campus to provide responses.

Below is a list of resources and forms that are on this website as well as important deadlines.

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Telecommuting Request

Document Attachments:

• Telecommuting Job Analysis – This form will assist you in gathering information from the individual benefits-eligible non-faculty employees you supervise regarding specific duties they perform and whether telecommuting is possible. Supervisors should provide each benefits-eligible non-faculty employee in their department with a copy of this form ALONG WITH a copy of the employee’s job description to assist in completing the form (see number 4 for accessing job descriptions).
• Guidelines for Temporary Telecommuting- Supervisors and employees should carefully review this document.
• Supervisor Checklist – Supervisors and employees should carefully review these documents.
• Temporary Telecommuting Agreement – Supervisors and employees should sign the agreement before telecommuting can be allowed.
• Accessing Job Descriptions in People Admin – Supervisors follow these instructions to access job descriptions for all of your direct reports.

Telecommuting Job Analysis Guidelines for Temporary Telecommuting Supervisor Checklist Temporary Telecommuting Agreement Accessing Job Descriptions in People Admin

Deadlines:

• The Telecommuting Job Analysis should be completed by each employee and submitted to supervisors no later than 5:00 pm on Monday, March 16, 2020 so that employees may start telecommuting as soon as it is approved and deemed necessary. If you have employees currently on scheduled leave, you will need to complete the form for those employees by the deadline.
• Supervisors need to be prepared to discuss these with your Cabinet-level supervisor no later than 5:00 pm on Tuesday, March 17, 2020 so that approvals for telecommuting may be given to individuals for no later than Wednesday, March 18, 2020.

Supervisor/Department Head/Unit Manager Responsibility

• Supervisors have the authority to allow telecommuting after the approval of the Supervising President’s Cabinet Member. It is the sole responsibility of the supervisor to ensure reported work time for telecommuting and any paid leave time reported is verified, true and accurate before approval of employee time sheets or leave records.
• The university’s leave policies for approval of medical and personal leave remain unchanged and supervisors are responsible for requiring and approving all applications for leave.
• Some offices will need to maintain physical regular office hours (Mon-Friday, 8am-5pm) on campus and can use a rotating schedule for employees within that department. Your supervising President’s Cabinet member will inform you if this applies to your department.

Each fall brings about excitement! Good news abounds and campus is full of activity. The Welty Writers’ Symposium and Gala will take place this week – this is always something that I look forward to attending.

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The evidence is abundant that The W continues to have a meaningful impact locally, in the state of Mississippi and beyond. The W continues to lead the state’s public university system with the highest degree completion ratio. We had a 32.8% degree completion ratio per 100 undergraduate full-time equivalent students, compared to the IHL System’s overall average of 21.2.

This remarkable achievement is the result of much hard work and collaborative efforts of our talented faculty and staff. I am proud of The W’s role in raising the educational attainment level of our state and proud of the dedication of our faculty and staff.

We know that our faculty and staff are undercompensated. The IHL’s legislative budget request for fiscal 2021 includes the first step of a multi-year plan to address faculty compensation, but staff salaries were not addressed. We will be updating the market analysis of salaries to identify the amount needed to adequately compensate our staff. With the trend of public higher education’s greater budgetary reliance upon tuition, it is likely that we will have to factor staff salary increases into future tuition rates.

We continue to have strong relationships with community colleges whose students transfer to complete their education at The W. We have signed agreements outlining pathways to degree completion with Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College and Copiah Lincoln Community College, with a scheduled signing with Itawamba Community College October 18.

The IHL System will not release official enrollment numbers until early November rather than publishing preliminary figures that have traditionally been released mid-September. The goal is to minimize confusion between preliminary and final enrollment numbers. The later release of enrollment numbers is the result of a consensus reached several months ago by the Chancellor/Presidents to establish an enrollment census date later in the fall semester that facilitates more accurate enrollment reporting and better positions our universities in comparative outcome metrics used by the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) that is part of the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES). I look forward to sharing our enrollment news at the appropriate time.

While on the subject of enrollment, our strategic enrollment planning efforts, combined with the demographic projections for the future, indicate that future enrollment growth opportunities will be increasingly tied to our academic programs and delivery methods.

With Dr. Jennifer Miles’ leadership over the past several years, we have reworked our admissions recruitment and scholarship processes to effect strategic recruitment and leveraging of scholarships. Within our available scholarship resources, I think we have maximized what we are able to do at this time to affect enrollment with this current structure. 

To better align our recruitment efforts with our academic programs we have reorganized our enrollment management and financial aid offices to become a part of Academic Affairs. These offices now report to Dr. Scott Tollison, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, effective Oct. 1. 

With this reorganization, we will not be filling the Dean of Students position. In addition to the University Police, Student Life, Counseling, and Housing and Residence Life will be direct reports for Dr. Miles. She is also assuming responsibilities for Title IX. 

The progress that has been made in the areas of recruitment and scholarships is attributed to the work that Dr. Miles, Shelley Moss in Admissions and Nicole Patrick in Financial Aid have done to hone these strategies. We can now focus on aligning these efforts with our academic planning. Please join me in celebrating what has been accomplished to date, and in working to further our enrollment plans.

More cause for celebration – the renovation and expansion of Turner Hall has been completed. The former Demonstration School is the new home for the department of Speech Language Pathology and the Speech and Hearing Clinic. The move from Cromwell has been a gradual one, making the fall break a busy time for that department. The formal ribbon-cutting ceremony will take place in late January. A Demonstration School reunion will be held at a later date so that those W Alumni can see the transformation of their former classrooms.

The area around Taylor and Keirn Halls has been fenced off to secure that site for the demolition of those buildings. Once the asbestos abatement has been completed a “muncher” will be brought in to do the actual demolition. It won’t be nearly as dramatic as an implosion, but it will be great to see progress being made in clearing the site for the new Culinary Arts building.

We continue to welcome external recognition from multiple national sources.

For the seventh consecutive year, The W was named one of the best colleges in the nation to work for, according to a new survey by The Great Colleges to Work For program. It also is the seventh consecutive year for The W to be named to the prestigious Honor Roll for institutions in the small enrollment size (500 – 2,999 students).

Additionally, U.S. News & World Report recently ranked The W No. 5 as a best value among public Southern regional universities and 18th among best public regional universities in the South. I am particularly proud of a new ranking from U.S. News & World Report. We are listed as having the lowest Median Amount of Debt at Graduation ($14,000) for regional universities in the South.

Washington Monthly magazine also ranked The W as the highest among Mississippi’s public universities in the 2019 Best Bang for the Buck–South category. The magazine placed The W at No. 53 of 203 universities in the South.

Congratulations on a job well done and for making The W a “best value” and a top tier university.

Lastly, in just three years, our athletics program has become an integral part of The W’s campus life with 17 sports and approximately 214 student athletes. Last year, our athletes had a collective grade point average of 3.04, proving that they are truly student athletes. The Owls logo is visible on clothing, sports venues and countless merchandise—a visible sign of our presence in the community.

The key to this growth has been affiliation with athletic associations that have allowed competition against a host of schools. In 2017, The W was added as a new member of the United States Collegiate Athletic Association, with the fielding of The W’s first intercollegiate athletic teams since 2002.

In March 2019, the athletics program was accepted as a provisional NCAA Division III member, a division that also includes Millsaps College and Belhaven University in Mississippi. The three-year process of becoming a full Division III member should be complete in the 2021-22 season, opening even more opportunities for The W’s Owls.

Adaptability. Positivity. Responsibility. These three themes will continue to be hallmarks of my presidency. I am so grateful for the loyalty and generosity our faculty, staff, students, alumni and friends continue to demonstrate in advancing The W and helping it shine more brightly. Together we continue to make a difference.

Dear W Campus Community,

Thank you for your support of The W, and I appreciate having the opportunity to serve as the President of this institution that I love so much.  I look forward to working together with all of you to build on our long tradition of excellence in liberal arts and professional education, as well as our historic focus on academic and leadership development for women.  The W will to continue to be a university that prepares both women and men for success by providing a high-quality education in a personalized environment. 

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At the press conference following the IHL presidential listening sessions, I spoke of three themes that I plan to weave into what we will be doing over the next few years.  These themes are adaptability, positivity, and responsibility.  We are constantly scanning the horizon for changes in the economy, in regulations, in student demand, and in the workforce.  This university has always adapted to better serve our students and our state.

I will be asking a small group of faculty and staff to work together to develop and implement plans for events that celebrate our common purpose.  The enthusiasm and loyalty of our faculty and staff was very evident in the recent listening sessions with the Commissioner.  The 65% participation rate in our Faculty/Staff campaign is further proof of our love and support for this institution and each other. Let’s find ways to celebrate that which makes us aWesome!

On Friday, October 5th, the Administrative Council and Academic Department Chairs will participate in a workshop led by two individuals from the National Association of College and University Business Officers.  The purpose of the workshop is to gain insights into our economic model and identify our roles and responsibilities in enhancing its sustainability.  I expect the outcome to be some questions for further campus consideration and discussion as we embrace our future with all of its possibilities. 

I look forward to continuing to listen, talk and work with all of you.  Thanks for all that you do for our students and this campus community.

Sincerely,

Nora R. Miller
President