Guest Blog from Steve Thompson - SCUPSO

On April 2-4 I had the opportunity to attend the annual SCUPSO (Southern Consortium of University Public Service Organizations) conference, held this year in Biloxi, Mississippi, and hosted by the Stennis Institute of Government at Mississippi State. Dr. Jinks has been active in SCUPSO in the past, as has Chuck Shoopman, and this year I attended with Dr. Jinks and Keith Groves of CIS. Keith lead an interesting and well-attended discussion on LEAN government and principles, and provided a major piece of the conference.

I’ll take just a moment both to talk about Biloxi in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, and the experience of working with and discussing issues common among university-based public service organizations, such as ours.

Over the past few years most of us have witnessed severe storm damage in Tennessee and across the southeast, and during the conference we heard and saw a number of videos and presentations on the 2005 storm and the on-going recovery of the area. Clearly the communities and businesses in the Biloxi area were not prepared for the storm event or for the aftermath, and for those of us in MTAS this demonstrates the need for effective emergency management systems and proper emergency planning. I personally witnessed the impact and recovery of Hurricane Hugo on the Charleston, SC area, and while there are a number of differences between the areas, after 7 years, and unlike Charleston, the Mississippi gulf area continues to struggle with economic recovery and reconstruction. Biloxi appears to have lost almost 1/3 of the city population, and many homes and businesses have not been rebuilt. In addition to emergency preparation there are a number of factors in this discussion that are of interest to all of us working with cities and towns, but despite federal grants and private insurance claims neither the population nor the economy have fully returned. Economic recovery measures are certainly important to communities in Mississippi and in our state, and are often overlooked in emergency planning.

We also discussed the need for public service organizations, and the growing role of these organizations with data analysis, convening of public forum discussions and facilitation, and public policy research and support. A number of these organizations also provide “boots on the ground” technical support for local governments in their states, somewhat similar to the work of MTAS, CTAS, and CIS, but while there were similarities I am not aware of another organization that provided the depth and detail of IPS services. The other organizations are, however, very effective in the areas of public policy, research and training, and there clearly are opportunities for greater sharing of information and resources.
As we constantly look for other organizations that can assist us in our service, the colleges and universities of SCUPSO offer contrasts and models that will continue to serve us in the future.

And I’m quite sure that the others will agree - Dr. Jinks, Keith and I enjoyed the seafood of the gulf coast.