Contact: Sammy McDavid
A former Mississippi State administrator is returning to the state as head of the university's Meridian Campus.
Bev R. Norment, currently program coordinator for the University of Tennessee's Division of Continuing Studies and Distance Education, will become dean of the 800-student, degree-granting campus on July 1. He was Mississippi State's associate vice president for research 1987-1991.
Norment will succeed David Moffett, who retires at the end of June. Moffett has been dean of the Meridian Campus since it opened in 1972.
A Mississippi State doctoral graduate in entomology, Norment was a faculty member on the Starkville campus 1970-91. He was the elected head of the faculty council in the mid-1980s.
"The Meridian Campus will play an increasingly important role in the overall mission of the university and in the life of our state," said President Malcolm Portera. "Dr. Norment understands the unique strengths of MSU-Meridian and he is ready to work with the campus and Meridian-area leadership to help the campus reach its full potential as an educational and economic resource."
Portera noted that the university has directed additional funding to the Meridian Campus in the 1998-99 budget and is beginning work on a strategic planning effort focusing on how the campus can best serve the surrounding region.
"Dr. Norment's familiarity with the overall university and his experience in developing off-campus programs for the University of Tennessee will be great assets as we plan for the Meridian Campus of the future," Portera said.
MSU-Meridian primarily serves the adult population in 35 surrounding counties through day and evening classes. Enrolling about 500 upper division undergraduates and 300 graduate students, it offers courses in arts and sciences, business and industry, education, and technology. A nursing degree is provided in cooperation with the University of Southern Mississippi.
Formal approval of Norment's appointment is expected at a future meeting of the Board of Trustees, Institutions of Higher Learning. More than 100 applicants were considered for the top leadership post of the 26-acre campus located on state Highway 19.
Norment holds bachelor's and master's degrees from Memphis State University, now the University of Memphis. He also completed post-graduate work at Ohio State University. After leaving Mississippi State, he served as associate vice president and graduate school dean at East Tennessee State University. In 1995, he left ETSU to lead the Tennessee-based Oak Ridge Associated Universities/National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program. A year later, he moved into his current UT post.
Among his major accomplishments there is a pending expansion of off-campus engineering graduate programs. Set to begin this fall and available to students nationwide, the courses are to be initially delivered by videotape before moving onto the Internet in two years.