Published: February 10, 2008 11:25 pm      

Khayat: Presidential debate tops list for 2008

University of Mississippi Chancellor Robert Khayat discussed the current state of Ole Miss, the upcoming presidential debate and other issues related to the university in a recent editorial board interview with The Meridian Star.

Khayat said the presidential debate, scheduled for Sept. 26, will be a great opportunity to showcase Ole Miss — and the entire state.



The Meridian Star: Tell me some of the things that are going on at Ole Miss right now.



Robert Khayat: We have lots of exciting things going on at Ole Miss. Item one is this presidential debate. We have been selected by the commission on presidential debates to host the first debate. That will be September 26th. And we're really excited about it, it's the first time we've ever had a debate in Mississippi... We're told by the commission that the first debate, and particularly in a year when no incumbents are running, is probably going to be the most heavily viewed and media-covered event in the history debates for sure, maybe in all of television.

We really do see this as a Mississippi event, because the history of these debates indicates that the 25,000 or more members of the media that will be covering this event will be in our town for a week, and they will be covering every aspect of life in Mississippi, and it's going to be a global message, so we will have a great opportunity to present Mississippi now to the world, and Ole Miss now to the world. That's what we're hoping to achieve with this... And the focus of this first debate will be on the domestic issues, it won't be on international. So that's item one on our agenda. We're real excited about that

The second thing that we're taking a leadership role on is in the creation of what we call residential colleges ... the historical approach in America to dormitories has been to have dorm rooms and bathrooms and then, zingo, you're out of the building. Residential colleges are designed to create a community, and they started in England, in Oxford and Cambridge. Places like Harvard and Yale and Princeton have them. And the difference between a residential college and a dorm is that a student becomes a member of (the) residential college, and stays a member of that college for four years.



Star: Would this, for instance, have one house for broadcasting majors and one for another kind of major?



Khayat: No, actually the idea is to have all different kind of students - have Freshman, Sophomores, Juniors and Seniors, and all disciplines, and not all honor students and not all probationary students. You want a good mix in there, because the idea is that you're building a community. You find in colleges that if students are members of a community within the larger community they tend to be more successful.



Star: What kind of a timetable are we talking about on that?



Khayat: Well, we'll start construction March 1st. We'll be done in August of 2009.

Another thing I'd like to talk about. We're the only state law school, and we're building a new 40 million dollar law school building. Construction is underway on this new building, and it'll open in 2010. It'll be a modern state-of-the-art law school building.

Another thing is, again, something really exciting and new. This is an outgrowth of the Toyota plant that is located near us, and we are



their educational partner. In addition to Toyota, it's expected that anywhere from 60 to 600 suppliers will locate in that 50-75 mile radius. So, working with Governor Barbour, we've created a Center for Manufacturing Excellence, and we're adding a building between the existing Engineering building and an existing classroom building, and it's become one big complex. The program is designed to prepare engineers for business so there will be joint degrees and a student will be a mechanical engineer, but he or she will also have some business courses or some accounting courses and learn to write well and that sort of thing.



The Star: Is that something you think you'll start to see more and more of, schools playing a bigger role in the manufacturing side of economic development?



Khayat: I think one of the interesting shifts is that employers want people who not only understand the business, but they are able to communicate well. They read and write and speak well, so they're looking for sort of a combination technical and liberal arts sort of training.