Phil Hardwick

Recently I had the opportunity to facilitate a discussion with a group of 27 high school counselors about college counseling. The issue was framed as "How do we help low income/ underserved students reach college and be successful there?" There were many inspiring and enlightening examples, as well as a sharing of some of the barriers faced by the counselors. At the end of the day the following options emerged as ways of dealing with the issue: - focus on parents and their roles/responsibilities/needs; - instill more college information in the high school curricula; - more ACT test prep; and - provide more information about the benefits of going to college.

District 31 Senator Terry Burton of Newton, has been recognized as Mississippi's "Champion of Aging" by the Southeastern Association of Area Agencies on Aging. The association honored Burton recently at their annual conference in Louisville, Ky. Burton was chosen for his "initiatives, dedication, courage and determination," to better the lives of Mississippi's senior citizens through authoring legislation like Senate Bill 2416 during the 2008 Session, which defined adult foster care facilities and set standards that required informal operators of senior care facilities to meet licensing standards to continue operating. The five-term Republican senator who represents District 31, comprised of Lauderdale, Newton and Scott counties, has authored numerous other items of legislation to educate and protect senior citizens and to enhance punishment of those who would exploit, neglect or abuse vulnerable adults. Other than authoring laws that created the Lea

The National Conference of State Legislatures has named Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith of Brookhaven , Vice Chairman of the Agriculture and Energy Standing Committee. In the position, Senator Hyde-Smith, who serves as Chairman of the Mississippi Senate Agriculture Committee, will share her knowledge of the industry with peers from across the country, as well as gaining from their insight. Massachusetts Senator and NCSL President Richard T. Moore made the appointment. NCSL officials will use Hyde-Smith’s keen knowledge of agricultural for framing their debates on Capitol Hill. “I am very pleased to be selected as the national Vice Chairman of the Agriculture and Energy committee of such a respected organization. I have been a member of NCSL for many years and I am honored to be asked to serve in a position of leadership. This provides the opportunity to promote Mississippi Agriculture throughout the country. It also allows me to have a bigger voice in Congress concerning farming

The image says it all. Well, most of it anyway. When unemployment is high in a community it is difficult to sell real estate. Special appreciation to Bill Bishop and the folks at Daily Yonder who focus on rural America issues. For more info read this post on the Daily Yonder Web site.

The state's Republican unity may breakdown in 2011, as Gov. Haley Barbour's term comes to an end, predicts Dr. Marty Wiseman the director of the John C. Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State University. Click here to read the article in The Jackson Free Press.

The Department is providing advance notice that it is considering revising the regulations implementing title II and III of the ADA to establish specific requirements for State and local governments and public accommodations to make their websites accessible to individuals with disabilities. The purpose of the Department’s proposal is to solicit public comment on various issues relating to the establishment of any such Web accessibility requirements and to determine the costs and benefits of any requirements that the Department might adopt. Click here to read the notice.

There is a strong link connecting education and economic development in a community. Recently retired state economist Dr. Phil Pepper knew it and preached it. He told just about every group he spoke to that education is the key. Counties with population growth have good schools, he would remind them. He often said, “The primary economic development tool for any county is the education level.” He is not the only one. Click here to continue.

Pittsfield, Massachusetts and Meridian, Mississippi are over 1,300 miles from each other. Pittsfield is in the heart of the Berkshires, while Meridian is in the foothills of Appalachia. Pittsfield's average household income is around $35,000; Meridian's is closer to $25,000. But they may have more in common than first meets the eye. Each has a population of about 40,000 residents, both are over 80 miles from the nearest metropolitan area and both lost population beginning in 1960, although it appears that recently there has been population growth in both places. What struck me about these cities is how each is using the arts as a catalyst for revitalization. In Meridian, the Riley Center attracts over 60,000 visitors for concerts, conferences and other events. In Pittsfield, the Barrington Stage Company is bringing in over 45,000 visitors annually. For more on how Pittsfield is using arts to revitalize the community, click here to read an article in the online editi

When adjusting for size of the pool of graduates, those with undergraduate degrees in Economics are shown to have had a greater likelihood of becoming an S&P 500 CEO than any other major, according to research by the Social Science Research Network. Click her e to read the report.

Community leadership programs are a good way to improve the quality of life in a community. My experience with such programs is that there are four distinct stages as presented below. Most management texts say that when it comes to group formation that the stages are forming, storming, norming, performing and adjourning, so my list is a slight variation of that theme. Most community leadership programs are managed by a local chamber of commerce or similar organization. The basic goals are to identify emerging leaders in the community, bring them together as a group, present issues that the community needs to address and then turn them loose with the skills and contacts necessary to make the community a better place. There are as many degrees of success of such goals as there are leadership programs. Stage One – Bonding, aka teambuilding, aka forming. In this stage the leadership class is taken on a retreat and engaged in teambuilding activities. Often there are personality tests

One of the more important contributions a person can make to his or her community is to get involved with the local public school. Public policymakers are finally realizing that there is a strong relationship between economic development and the overall success of communities. Nevertheless, it should be obvious by now that it takes more than just funding and government programs to create really good schools. There are critical roles for parents, educators, business, and the community at large. It also takes persons who are known as school-community connectors. A school-community connector is "a person whose job it is to find and build relationships with a wide range of neighborhood ―assets‘ -residents, voluntary associations, local institutions, businesses- and then to connect them to the neighborhood school and its assets -teachers, students, space, equipment, just to name a few." according to a recently released report from the Asset Based Community Devel

The Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Outlook Handbook, 2010-11 edition is now available. Here’s one of the more interesting charts for those wondering about which jobs will be in demand for the future. Click here for the full report.

Most of us multitask, i.e. have several things going on at once. Sometimes it is necessary, such as when preparing a meal or preparing a business conference. Some managers believe that multitasking is a required skill for a supervisor or manager. I recall one time when a leader of an organization told me that a certain employee would not be a good successor “… because he doesn’t know how to multitask.” The employee not only received the promotion, but became one of the best managers ever for the organization. He later told me that his secret was to focus on one thing at a time. So what’s the real story on this thing known as multitasking that we all seem to be caught up in? As it turns out, quite a few studies have shown that multitasking is not as efficient as some might think. Christine Rosen’s, “The Myth of Multitasking,” in the Spring 2008 issue of The New Atlantis , is an excellent summation of the subject. In it she provides an overview of several s

(May 4, 2010) I had the opportunity today to attend the Economic Symposium 2010: Economic Perspectives for Madison County, which was offered by the Madison County Business League . Featured presenters were Dr. Phil Pepper, Assistant Commission for Policy Research and Planning for the Mississippi Institutions of Higher Learning , Dr. Marty Wiseman, Director of Mississippi State University ‘s Stennis Institute of Government and David Altig, Senior Vice President and Director of Research for the Federal Reserve bank of Atlanta . Here are my rough notes. Dr. Phil Pepper Things are good and going to get better for Madison County. Things are not as good for Mississippi. Slower growth. More recessions. Education is the key. Counties with population growth have good schools. “The primary economic development tool for any county is the education level.” Dr. Marty Wiseman No county in Mississippi is insulated from the international economy. Public education is a key to economic developme

The Mississippi Center for Public Policy just announced a novel service as follows: MStweets .org is a new service that allows the public to see the Twitter postings (or "tweets") of Mississippi legislators. It also allows non-legislators to share their tweets on Mississippi government and politics by using the # MSTWEETS hash tag. MStweets .org is: Easy to use Non-Partisan No cost to you

Admiral William Frederick Halsey is credited with saying, “There are no great men. Just great challenges which ordinary men, out of necessity, are forced by circumstance to meet.” Leadership is often as much about opportunities for leadership as it about leaders. Often great leaders emerge in a crisis. What a person does when Plan A – the strategic plan – goes awry is a real test of leadership. In other words, a leader is someone who manages Plan B. And let use not confuse Plan B with the contingency plan. Plan B in the context I refer to is when there is no alternative plan. NOTE: The above is from the draft of “The ABC’s of Economic Development for Small Town Mayors,” by Phil Hardwick.

There are basically two approaches in the process of creating an economic development strategy for a community. The first approach is to determine what the community needs in order to be successful. It looks at things that the community does not have now, but if it had them would stand a good chance at economic success. For example, one rural community that I worked with last year determined that most citizens had to drive to another county for basic health care. It concluded that it needed a health clinic. Having a health clinic would keep money in the local area, and may even bring in more money. It was something that the community did not have now. Therefore, the strategy was to bring in a health clinic. The other approach does just the opposite. It looks at the resources that the community has now that it can capitalize on. The key phrase here is “that it can capitalize on.” I have found that two of the more common things that communities overlook as asset

The March 24th edition of QUORUM on MPB focused on the state's economic and employment prospects. The programs are now archived on YouTube . This one is well worth watching if you want to understand current economic conditions in Mississippi. Click here to view the program. The panel consisted of Gray Swoope, executive director of the Mississippi Development Authority ; Mississippi Economic Council president Blake Wilson; and Maury Granger, chairman of the Department of Economics at Jackson State University . To view archived editions of Quorum go to YouTube.com and search for quorum mpb.

The Southern Education Foundation just released a new brief, Miles to Go - Mississippi, Pre-Kindergarten: Time to Begin , which documents the impact of education on poverty and which makes the case for Mississippi to establish a Pre-K program. The brief gives the adult unemployment rates in Mississippi by educational level, as follows: high school dropout: 15.7% high school/GED graduate: 10.6% some college: 8.5% bachelor's degree and higher: 4.7% Those figures were as of December 2009. Education makes a huge difference even in distressed economic times.

A community is more than a place. It is a collection of people with a common interest. That interest might be anything from sports to religion to politics. It often amazes me how people who have the same interest have a way of finding each other in a crowd. But what about people who move to a new town and want to find others who share their same interests? It can be tome-consuming and difficult. Or what about people who want to start a community if people with a certain interest? Fortunately, there is an excellent online tool to assist in creating communities. It’s called Meetup , and it describes itself as follows: Meetup is the world’s largest network of local groups. Meetup makes it easy for anyone to organize a local group or find one of the thousands already meeting up face-to-face. More than 2,000 groups get together in local communities each day, each one with the goal of improving themselves or their communities. Meetup ’s mission is to revitalize lo

Are you conservative, moderate or liberal? Or are you traditional, neocon or libertarian? Republican, Democrat or Independent? Do you consider yourself a Progressive? Perhaps you are some of these some of the time, but not all of them all of the time. Whatever the case, political labels can be tricky. Certain labels mean one thing in one part of the country and another in another part of the country. Governor Bill Ritter presides over the "moderate" state of Colorado, but is having difficulty governing from the center . (Perhaps we should add "centrist" to the label list above.) Ritter ran as a pro-business Democrat. How many people do you know who would say that term is an oxymoron? City-Data.com is a Web site that gives people the opportunity to discuss just about everything related to places in the United State. Postings in the "Most conservative states, cities" section reveal how the label issue can be defined in many ways. The Gallup o

A just-released report by the Pew Internet & American Life Project and the Project for Excellence in Journalism has some good news for Howard, Maggie and their colleagues at WLBT-TV, a Jackson, Mississippi television station. The local television station is still the number one source for Americans. The rest of the story – actually the main story – is that we news consumers are utilizing multiple formats, and that the Internet has moved ahead of radio and newspapers as news sources. In this writer’s younger days it was network news and the local newspaper. These sources were supplemented by magazines. Today it’s the Internet, tv news, radio, newspapers, etc. Although the sources have changed, what is really new is the instant feedback from readers to news stories. Instead of waiting until tomorrow to discuss the news with a co-worker I can read multiple reader reactions posts on the news source’s Web site. Some other findings from the study: Portable : 33% of

The 2009 National Leadership Index is out. Among other things, it measures confidence of respondents to various sectors of leaders. Below is a list of those sectors. Average confidence is 100.0. The highest sector had a rating of 119; the lowest 69.7. Care to guess which? Wait! I’ll go ahead and tell you. Military leaders ranked highest and Wall Street ranked lowest. Check out how the rest of them fared at The Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University . Military Medical Nonprofit & Charity Supreme Court Local Government Education Executive Branch Religious Business State Government Congress News Media Wall Street