Mississippi Today
Wynbridge State University of Mississippi, proposed new name for MUW, has support from area lawmakers
More than 40 years after going coeducational, Mississippi University for Women will ask lawmakers this session to approve a new name: Wynbridge State University of Mississippi.
President Nora Miller asked the university community to support the new name Tuesday during a presentation in front of the university’s historic Poindexter Hall. It comes out of a multi-year process that saw the university engage a consulting group, conduct listening sessions and surveys, propose a name that flopped, apologize to alumni who felt excluded, then pivot to keeping โThe Wโ brand it had decided to move away from.
โAfter all, it is โthe W’ that bridges us all together,โ Miller said to cheers.
The word โWynbridgeโ is a portmanteau of an Old English rune for the letter โWโ and the word โbridge,โ which is meant to symbolize the university’s relationship to its history, Miller said. Though the new name is similar to ideas proposed by Chernoff Newman, the consulting group, it was created by alumni and faculty.
In Jackson, Sen. Charles Younger, R-Columbus, told Mississippi Today he filed a bill Tuesday to open the code sections pertaining to the university’s name. In the House, Rep. Kabir Karriem, D-Columbus, said he will co-sponsor a bill next week with the chair of the Colleges and Universities committee to support the university’s desired new name.
Younger said he likes Wynbridge State University of Mississippi compared to two other options the univeristy had floated โ Wynbright and Welbright โ and that the new name will support the university’s efforts to grow its male athletic teams.ย
“This is gonna make things better for the W,” he said.
Karriem said he thought the proposed name has a stately and literary quality that he feels everyone can get behind.
“Hopefully this will bring a new light to the W and increase enrollment,” he said.
If lawmakers approve the bill, the university’s new name would be effective July 1. The Commercial Dispatch reported MUW has budgeted $500,000 โfor recruiting, advertising and marketing to prospective students.โ
During the presentation, Keith Gaskin, the mayor of Columbus, said the new name is for the betterment of the university and his town and that he will be calling lawmakers to ask them to support Wynbridge State University of Mississippi.
โThey have my unwavering support,โ he said.
Samuel Garrie, the student government association president, said the new name demonstrates the university’s forward-looking approach.
The university was founded as the Industrial Institute and College for the Education of White Girls.
Laverne Greene-Leech, who was one of five Black students to integrate the university in 1966 when it was known as Mississippi State College for Women, said each of the past four names have symbolized progress.
โThe mission did not change, the building did not change, just the name,โ Greene-Leech said. โChange brings about progress, progress brings about change.โ
MUW’s push for a new name is just one way the regional college is attempting to reposition itself to meet an uncertain moment for higher education in Mississippi while maintaining its mission to provide educational opportunities for women.
The number of high school graduates โ and the rate at which they pursue higher education โ is poised to fall, which will force increased competition among the state’s community colleges and universities. As a result of declining enrollment, tuition dollars will drop.
This demographic reality, called the โenrollment cliff,โ will be tougher on regionals like MUW. In the last 10 years, enrollment has fallen from 2,366 to 1,933 in fall 2022, according to federal data. Since 2019, the tuition-dependent university has seen its operating deficit outpace state appropriations and its total cash flow dip into the red.
Lawmakers, aware of this shaky outlook, held a hearing on the enrollment cliff last month.
Read more: โMississippi University for Women is betting its future on a new name. Will it work?’
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
On this day in 1875
Nov. 2, 1875
The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.
A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.
Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.
The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.
John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: โIt was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.โ
A federal grand jury concluded: โFraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.โ
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Mississippi Todayโs NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi
High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.
In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Here at Mississippi Today we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories free for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.
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This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special opportunity to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in funding, bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.
Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday lifeโwhether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.
Special Event: โFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impactโ
As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual event, โFreedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.โ Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi Today and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s โ25-foot law,โ which affects journalists’ ability to report vital news.
We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!
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Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.
Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we loveโnot only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to come.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
Mississippi Today
Hinds County loses fight over control of jail
The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.
Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.
However, the appeals court called the new injunction โoverly broadโ in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.
The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.
The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as โfederal intrusion into RDC’s budgetโ โ especially if the receivership has no end date.
Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.ย
In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.
โBut the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,โ the appeals court wrote.
This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.
The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.
The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.
Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.
But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.
The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.
Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.
This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.
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