By Jeff Amy

The Associated Press

 

JACKSON — The University of Mississippi finds itself in turmoil after trustees ousted well-liked Chancellor Dan Jones, with more than 2,000 students and faculty rallying to his defense Wednesday on the Oxford campus.

Jones helped drive record enrollment and fund-raising, increasing the school’s national profile even as state funding was pinched. But the board that oversees the school became uneasy about the way he manages the university hospital’s finances and worried he may not be respecting their authority.

“We’re not backing down,” said Alex Borst, a sophomore and one of the protest organizers. “We’re going to continue organizing, emailing, calling, anything we can do.”

The demonstration spilled over online with social media messages ‘IStandWithDan.’ It’s the latest standoff campus standoff between a university president and its board and has been likened to what happened at the University of Virginia a couple of years ago. In that instance, the president was re-instated after a student and faculty uproar.

The College Board, which is appointed by the governor and oversees the state’s eight public universities, quietly moved last week not to renew Jones’ contract, but didn’t explain its reasoning, leading to wild speculation that included allegations that he was too liberal on race and made rogue financial decisions.

Trying to end the rumors, the board said Monday that Jones had failed to correct accounting and contracting problems at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson despite years of prodding.

The hospital complex is emblematic of how college has become big business — more than just classrooms and teachers. The complex has a $1.6 billion budget this year, about 38 percent of the entire budget of $4.2 billion for Mississippi’s eight universities.

It’s grown to 10,000 employees who occupy a maze of multistory buildings on a Jackson campus, about 150 miles south of the Oxford campus. Jones led the medical center to prominence before he was named chancellor in 2009.