Jackson Jambalaya

Dr. Lewis Nobles, former President of Mississippi College, passed away this weekend.

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070527/NEWS/705270385/1001/news

He was another man whose talents were overcome by his personal flaws. I had the luck of interviewing him for the school newspaper when I was a student at Mississippi College. I spent an hour with him and learned quite a bit of information about him. It is forgotten that Dr. Nobles was a brilliant chemist. He held several patents, including the one for the gel formula that is used in all toothpastes, shaving creams, and other gel-based products (he worked on the team that invented the formula). He was the Dean of the Pharmacy School at Ole Miss. He even kept a lab for some time at MC and even after becoming President, he would go "putter" around in his lab one afternoon a week. He had impeccable academic credentials and was a true genius.

Although he was very nice and professional in the interview, one thing I did notice was that he never would look me in the eye. During the entire interview, he always looked away from me. At the time, I thought it was odd and several people told me he was like that when I commented on it to them. Then two years later, the scandals exploded at MC and then much fell into place. What happened since then is well known to everyone in Jackson. Its a shame that this had to happen and that whatever demons possessed him drove him so.

On one hand, I look at his life and am saddened by his fall. I take no pleasure at all in what happened to him. However, as an MC alumnus, I still carry anger towards what he did to my school. I think Dr. Nobles was President for far too long. MC had become ossified. The administration was made up of people who had been there for what seemed to be forever and had tenures dating back to the early 70's. There had been no new buildings built for some time. There had been no major endowment drives . There was no pre-registration for the fall semester even though this was the standard operating procedure at colleges and universities for years. It seemed MC was always behind when it came to technology and student services. Some of the dorms were in pretty bad shape. The business school did not even have intern/externships for its students. Then there was the double standard. Some of you will remember these oldies but goodies. The no smoking rule for women only. The curfew for women that was non-existent for men. Its hard to believe that this rules were in effect until the mid-90's when Dr. Todd assumed office.

However, the faculty was awesome. I am still friends with some of my teachers. They were dedicated and truly committed to teaching us and pushing us in the classroom. However, for a very long time, they were poorly paid (which made me admire them even more) and given little in the way of benefits. I remember one professor of mine telling me that even though she had been there for over ten years, she only made $27,000 a year teaching a full-time load. She told me if she earned her PhD, it would mean at the most a $5,000 a year raise. I remember the cars in the faculty parking as usually being older, cheaper cars and shaking my head at the unfairness of it. Those faculty members were truly dedicated to their jobs and are the main reason I do not share the sentiments of those who are praising him in some of the news stories. Every time I read a word of praise about him, I think of the $3 million he stole and the professors trying to scrape by on crumbs while trying to feed their families and constantly being told there was no money for anything. I think of the poor health insurance plans they were given by the Nobles Adminstration. Imagine being 45 years old with a PhD and trying to support a family on less than $40,000 a year while the President is stealing millions.

I remember the football scandals that wrecked our athletic program and how Dr. Nobles bore repsonsibility for a good part of them. We were the only team in NCAA history to be stripped of its national championship. The emphasis at MC during his tenure was football. He fired our coach and treated him pretty shabbily, thus incurring the suspicion that the Coach had turned in MC to the NCAA as revenge. As small a campus and as heavily involved as the administration was in the number of illegal scholarships and other practices, Dr. Nobles ultimately bears a good deal of responsibility for MC going on probation and the surrounding controversy.

I am sad that Dr. Nobles has passed away. He did mean something good to alot of people and is obviously missed by more than a few. I would call his life a tragedy as I would any life that is filled with such promise and talent but takes such a wrong turn. I have no idea why he went down the path that he did. Others have a much better idea, of that I am sure. Here is to hoping he finally made peace with his maker and sought comfort in the arms of our father, whose capacity for forgiveness knows no bounds.


PS) on a sidenote, once again, the Clarion-Ledger gets it wrong. He did not try to commit suicide with cyanide. They reported it was strychnine at the time. I guess they are too lazy to read their own news stories.