I have followed, with great interest and disappointment, the Mississippi IHL Board decision to not renew the contract of Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones. In the interest of full disclosure, I am a 1986 graduate of the Ole Miss law school. I received my undergraduate degree from the University of Southern Mississippi. While a student at Southern Miss, I was a friend and later a political opponent of the current IHL Commissioner Jim Borsig. I am a member of the Ole Miss Alumni Association and deeply care about the welfare of both Mississippi universities I attended.
While I don’t agree with all of his past decisions, Dr. Jones has done a remarkable job of advancing Ole Miss to a national standing among other universities. Student enrollment and fund raising are at record highs. New growth and significant achievements are evident all over the Ole Miss campus. Dr. Jones had the great advantage of building upon a solid foundation put in place by former Chancellor Robert Khayat.
As an undergraduate student at Southern Miss, I was heavily involved in student government affairs and, as a result, had occasional personal contact with IHL members. I found them to be out of touch and basically clueless to the concerns of students and faculty. IHL members were in their positions because they were political supporters of the governor that appointed them and they were not accountable to anyone else for their actions. Most IHL members had no background or qualifications to manage and run a university. Unfortunately, all these years later, nothing has changed.
When current IHL Commissioner Jim Borsig was appointed to his current position, it was revealed the IHL did not conduct a search or even interview other candidates for the job. It is obvious Borsig is in his current role because of inside political connections and back room deals. The citizens of Mississippi and students enrolled in the universities deserve better. There should have been a nationwide search for the most experienced and qualified individual to become the new IHL Commissioner. Instead, the board hand-picked an individual that has never worked for an educational institution outside the state of Mississippi and is not qualified himself to lead a great university like Ole Miss. According to the IHL website, Borsig is basically a career bureaucrat and has had a string of jobs working in local government positions.
In a recent video of questioning of Borsig by student reporters for The Daily Mississippian, Borsig dodged and weaved and never gave a solid explanation for the decision to end the employment of Chancellor Jones. Supporters of Ole Miss deserve straight answers to exactly why Dr. Dan Jones is now forced to leave his position.
I believe the current IHL system should be abolished and a new system, as suggested by former Chancellor Khayat, should be substituted in its place. I encourage the students and supporters of Ole Miss to not rest until the decision to remove Dr. Jones is reversed and the old IHL system is abolished.
David Ragsdale
Dallas, TX
