I am definitely not anti-ole miss. I live in north mississippi–nomiss for short.

Just out of curiousity why the name nomiss? It sounds anti Ole miss.

But so far as leadership in creating the core of the honors college that the Phi Beta Kappa committee saw, Dr. Payne’s vision and leadership was responsible. That’s not to diminish the work and commitment of the faculty, especially those who had worked so hard on the Phi Beta Kappa application for so long and fully and enthusiastically supported Dr. Payne with their work.

Dr. Payne was hired with the expressed goal of establishing a “world-class” honors college with an academic program that would help the school achieve Phi Beta Kappa membership, a goal that had been previously attempted without success.
Frankly, I don’t think Khayat had any clue as to what a superior honors college involved insofar as its creation, direction, and administration.

DM, your question, without Khayat, could Payne have done such a great job? The answer is yes; she did such a great job at the University of Arkansas where she was the architect of a nationally acclaimed honors curriculum at the Fullbright College of Arts and Sciences, a program which the Walton family endowed with $200,000,000. She brought to UM the benefit of a vast network of academic scholars based on her previous academic work. For example, she was well known by the national award committees for her work she had done with award-winning students in Arkansas. It was Dr. Payne who nominated Khayat for membership on the Truman Foundation Scholarsip committee on which he serves today.

Once the Barksdales donated the money, Khayat did see that a building was available for the honors college. It was Dr. Payne’s idea to add the deck on the back which the students really enjoyed. It was her sofa that was installed into the students common area. She chose the laminate to go on the lounge and dining tables and on the countertops. She put in vines in the courtyard that are still growing there today.

When she left the honors college, Dr. Payne left everything established and intact, including the templates on the computer for recruiting letters, etc. She hired and trained the full-time staff who are still there today.

Dr. Payne also trained faculty to supervise student applications for national awards, such as Rhodes Scholars, Truman scholarships, and Goldwater scholarships. She also mentored award winning students and supervised their winning applications. During the five years that she was the director, she supervised the application of one Rhodes Scholar, as well as the applications of two other students who were semi-finalists in 2001. As the Truman Faculty representative, she mentored three Truman Scholars in their competion and recruited a fourth to the university. She also recruited a student who won the Marshall Scholarship. She mentored and supervised the applications of three Fullbright Schoars and four Goldwater Scholars. Within six years after she began as director of the SMB Honors College, in part due to her efforts, the university produced a Rhodes Scholar, a Marshall Scholar, four Fullbright Scholars, four Truman Scholars, and five Goldwater Scholars.

It was Dr. Payne who spent days with the Phi Beta Kappa committee, describing the SMB Honors College and answering their questions about the honors college, a college that earned rave reviews from the Phi Beta Kappa visiting committee.

I saw first-hand the vision, leadership, and hard work that this one person put in to creating and establishing this honors college. Therefore I can state that while Khayat raised the money, the credit for the success of the SMB Honors College goes to Dr. Payne.