Ginger Freeman, Director of Alumni Relations

As director of Alumni Relations, I am committed to finding ways to keep alumni informed and updated on the ever-increasing programs and activities of our diverse campus. We want to be sure that you have all the information you need to stay informed and involved with your alma mater. It’s an important part of everything we do, and to do that effectively, we need your help.

Over the past 20 years, the tools we have to communicate with alumni have changed dramatically. Gone are the days of all paper mail—increased postage and printing costs have significantly affected our ability to send everything out by mail. Today, with nearly 100,000 alumni, we increasingly rely on electronic communication, web pages, and social media to provide you with the information you need. Not only is it cost-effective but also electronic communication allows us to reach you much faster. With the tools we have now, we can keep you informed of upcoming events, reserve your spot at an alumni activity, allow you to connect with classmates in your own MTSU community, and even provide you with campus news in real time.

But to do that, we need your help. Our success is heavily based on our ability to communicate directly with you, and to do so we need your email address! I’m not sure how many times I have been asked, “How do I find out about upcoming events?” It’s easy. Give the Alumni Office your email address, and we will send you a monthly email newsletter with a calendar of events. We also send messages specific to your major, where you live, or what you were involved in while at MTSU. This is your university, and we want to give you the opportunity to be involved and informed about what’s going on at the Alumni Office and MTSU.

Five Minutes with the President

You are currently serving a second term as the Sun Belt conference’s representative on the NCAA Division I Board of Directors. As one of just 18 voting members, you are in a position to wield significant influence on some of the off-the-field problems afflicting big-time collegiate sports today. You have also been quite active alongside other university presidents nationwide in seeking NCAA reform. Update us on new measures in place to curb improprieties in collegiate sports. 

Last summer, I spent two days in Indianapolis, where a retreat of 54 university presidents and administrators called for swift and serious actions on a variety of fronts. These were the most serious and engaging meetings of presidents and chancellors I’ve seen since I’ve been associated with the NCAA. There were a number of significant issues on the table. The impact of what is happening will be felt throughout the NCAA membership. There was absolute resolve to address these issues.

Gone are the days when college coaches—some of them, at least—thought that because they led a nationally regarded program they could cheat, get wrist-slapped, and forge ahead without serious consequences. Going forward, cheating in programs will be handled with swift and severe penalties. We want to get out of the business of enforcing the ticky-tack rules and focus on the major rules and strengthening the penalties.

Also, our board voted to ban Division I teams with a four-year academic progress rate (APR) below 930 from postseason play of any type. Prior to that vote, any team with a four-year APR of 925 or less faced only a loss of scholarships. Had these new standards been in place last March, several teams—including defending men’s basketball national champion Connecticut—wouldn’t have been eligible to participate in the NCAA men’s basketball tournament.

University presidents are the key to fixing this problem. They simply must dictate a culture of ethics and of following the rules on their campuses. Cheating, lack of accountability and low academic expectations have plagued college athletics for too long. What we are seeing now, I believe, will be the most sweeping fundamental changes to the college sports landscape in decades.

Fans should be encouraged by these recent events. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stated after the meeting in Indianapolis that college presidents had acted courageously and were leading the way to real reform.

Alleged incidents of child sexual abuse by athletic coaches at Penn State and Syracuse universities have also dominated news headlines in recent months. What is MTSU doing to ensure nothing of the kind occurs on its own campus?

As part of our efforts to maintain a safe campus, I have reminded all faculty and staff of their obligation, as set out in law in University  policy, to immediately inform local law enforcement of suspected child abuse. I have also asked our Office of University Counsel to develop a program to provide information and training concerning risk management and best practices for camps and clinics held on campus.

Thank you for your time Mr. President.

[Editor’s Note: The NCAA Scholarly Colloquium on College Sports, designed to spur scholarly research on intercollegiate athletics and held in conjunction with the NCAA Convention, took place Jan. 10-11 in Indianapolis. Anchoring the agenda was a panel of college officials – including Dr. McPhee – discussing the NCAA’s latest iteration of academic reform.]

The MTSU Poll provides a semiannual glimpse into who we are

By Suma Clark

Ken Blake, Director of the Twice-Yearly MTSU Poll, remembers an interesting call from the BBC in Great Britain, prompted by the dead-heat Senate race between Bob Corker and Harold Ford Jr. in 2006. “The whole world covered that race,” recalls Blake, who describes the independent, nonpartisan telephone poll conducted by MTSU College of Mass Communication students as “a mirror we hold up to the population—our goal is to make sure the mirror is accurate.”

Not every state is fortunate enough to have such a “mirror,” especially on a regular basis. Starting in fall 1998, the University’s Survey Group has collected public opinion data every spring and fall on major social, political, and ethical issues affecting Tennessee. Jason Reineke, associate director, whose decision to join the MTSU faculty was swayed by the opportunity to be involved in the poll, says, “I really believe that, after educating residents of Tennessee, the poll is one of the most important services that Middle Tennessee State University provides to the state.”

Issues such as teacher tenure, illegal immigration, Muslims’ religious rights, and closing the budget gap were part of the spring 2011 poll. Results (available for view at www.mtsusurveygroup.org) based on calls made between February 14 and 26 to 589 adults chosen at random made headlines across the state. Blake and Reineke send out a press release after each poll, but the website also has the questions, responses, analyses, and raw data.

“We are very transparent and go for full disclosure. We consider that the data we collect is owned by the public,” Blake explains. Media across the state eagerly report on the findings, often doing follow-up stories as issues move into the forefront.

The availability of data over more than a decade fosters considerable research among faculty and graduate students. Two recent projects illustrate the depth of information. Heather Duggin reported her work in her thesis last year: “Birthers and Belief Gaps: Ideology’s Influence on Knowledge of Barack Obama.” During Scholars Week 2011, Misa Culley presented initial findings about political affiliation and opinions on the economy in “Polarized Lenses: Party Identification and Ratings of the National Economy, 2001–2011” and took first place among Mass Communication graduate students. (She plans to complete her thesis in fall 2011.)

Planning and executing the polls is a year-round process that Blake and Reineke fit in around classes and research. “Things really get going at the first of each semester. We visit classes [such as Journalism 1020, American Media and Social Institutions] and explain to students what they will be doing. There is online registration for them to sign up for specific times to call,” says Blake, adding that close to 1,500 students participate each year. Callers—26 at a time—converge on a room in the Business and Aerospace Building shared with Management and Marketing. The computer gives them a number to call, and they follow a script that adapts to responses through the code Blake writes. He hopes the students “come away with the sense that they did something important.”

After the data is collected, Blake and Reineke analyze it and prepare a release. Blake, who started the poll with Bob Wyatt, says with a smile, “There’s a 12–24 hour period when we know things no one else in Tennessee knows.”

Just as the queen in Snow White was not happy with the truth-telling “mirror on the wall,” not everyone is happy with the poll mirror. “Sometimes it’s pleasing; sometimes it’s not,” Blake says. But that doesn’t decrease the value of the reflection provided by the MTSU Poll to the citizens of Tennessee.

Dr. Michael D. Allen, MTSU vice provost for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies, worked more than 14 years at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico, where he spearheaded the study of nuclear reactor accidents similar to what occurred in Japan earlier this year. From using research reactors to melt the core of other reactors to conducting hydrogen explosions at desert test sites, Allen’s research background is a colorful one to say the least.

MTSU’s centennial in 2011 also marks my fourth year as vice provost for research and dean of the College of Graduate Studies. The University has made significant progress during the time I’ve been here, and I believe that the Office of Research and the College of Graduate Studies have contributed greatly to this success.

MTSU is in the process of transitioning from a primarily undergraduate institution to a doctoral research university with high research activity. Only a decade ago, MTSU was attracting less than $4 million in extramural sponsored awards for research, service, and instruction. Now, the University consistently garners between $35 million and $40 million annually.

A boost to the research enterprise was the addition of four new interdisciplinary doctoral programs that enrolled about 80 new doctoral students in their inaugural year—Molecular Biosciences, Computational Science, Mathematics and Science Education, and Literacy Studies. Building upon the initial success of the new Ph.D. programs, the University is developing programs to strengthen the research enterprise. Two newly established strategic centers, related to the Molecular Biosciences and Computational Science Ph.D. programs, are seeking extramural funding to support research in these areas. The most exciting development this fall is the promise of funding for the construction of a 258,000-foot biology and chemistry building that will expand space for laboratory research.

Building on this progress in key areas, I anticipate that the MTSU research enterprise will continue to make great strides in the coming years.

The commitment to further research and creative activity among our faculty and students is integral to MTSU’s mission. Faculty scholarship not only drives innovation and economic progress but also provides the foundation for the University’s strong undergraduate and graduate research programs.

Scholarship and research enterprises are at the core of MTSU’s academic master plan goals to enhance quality, foster student-centered learning, and develop and sustain partnerships.

Partnerships forged between MTSU researchers and industry are at the heart of MTSU’s crucial role in regional economic development. By becoming more strategic in our relationships with major players in economic development in the state and by creating institutes in partnership with business / industry, primarily supported by extramural funding, we have strengthened interactions in areas as diverse as aviation, construction and manufacturing, biotechnology, STEM education, health and wellness, and entertainment and tourism.

This edition of MTSU Research magazine shows how MTSU, founded a century ago as a teacher training college and tasked for decades with supplying the middle Tennessee region with top-notch undergraduate education, has in more recent years progressed by leaps and bounds as a center for research. On a purely quantitative basis, the number of articles reporting research from faculty members has increased, as has the dollar amount of extramural funding to support such research. The number of graduate programs increased by three with the introduction of Ph.D. programs in Computational Science, Molecular Biosciences, and Mathematics  and Science Education in the last year. The number of participants in undergraduate research programs has also grown along with the number of undergraduate and graduate students receiving national  and international recognition for their work.

We hope you enjoy these success stories and will come to believe, as we do, that the future is exceedingly bright for creation, innovation, and discovery at MTSU.