Welcome to the 396th episode of TigerTalk, the award-winning show from Northeast Mississippi Community College — proudly recognized as Mississippi’s longest-running community college podcast.
Northeast Mississippi Community College President Dr. Ricky G. Ford and Marketing and Public Relations Specialist Liz Calvery look at how President Ford approaches moments when decisions need to be reconsidered or reversed. Ford shares how new evidence and data play a critical role in shaping his leadership, emphasizing the importance of staying open-minded and responsive. He discusses the value of clear communication when changes occur and highlights how students help inform his perspective on policies, trends, and the evolving needs of today’s learners. Ford also reflects on the human side of leadership, noting how prolonged decisions can impact employee morale and why the feelings and concerns of faculty and staff must be considered. He underscores that changing course is not a weakness, but a strength—especially when it leads to better outcomes. By encouraging thoughtful reflection and a willingness to listen, Ford explains why leaders should avoid stubbornness and remain committed to doing what is right, even if it means revisiting past decisions. Plus, get the latest updates on athletics, academics, workforce development, and all the incredible things happening at one of the nation’s premier community colleges.
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Northeast Mississippi Community College proudly presents the longest running community college podcast in the state of Mississippi, Tiger Talk. Tune in each week, as Northeast President Doctor Ricky Ford talks about all things northeast, from academics to career in tech to workforce and all things in between. It's Tiger talk. And now northeast president doctor Ricky G. Ford.
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Hey, y'all. Welcome to this week's episode of Tiger Talk with president doctor Ricky Ford and myself.
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Liz. Calvary. We can't wait to share with you all of the great things going on at Northeast Mississippi Community College. President Ford. What's something you've changed your mind about as president? Whether it's a decision, a belief about students, or how college should operate and what caused that shift.
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You know, changing your mind about decisions relating to students, instruction, employees, customer service and technology in the classroom.
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This can be both reasonable and beneficial, and it also very responsible. Anyone who's capable of changing their mind about things in order to to make a better decision is always very good. Some of the reasons for changing decisions would be receiving some type of new evidence or data. Feedback from your stakeholders. You know, regular input from your student or faculty and staff can indicate or highlight areas for improvement.
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Many voices and many people suggest a different path. It certainly would warrant reconsideration. And then changing needs is always the needs of students in the educational landscape can change quickly. Flexible approach always allows you to respond to evolving demands very, very effectively and then best practices. Staying updated with trends in education, technology or instructional methods can always reveal better practices that lead to improved outcomes.
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You know, I tell our folks all the time, nothing is ever in concrete. We live in an ever changing environment. When you're in education and you're dealing with student to student activities and student services, the landscape is constantly changing. So you've got to be constantly aware of that and be ready to change your direction in a heartbeat. And then we think about employee morale and retention.
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If they decision negatively impacts your employee satisfaction or retention. Certainly, revisiting that decision shows you value your staff well-being and the contributions that they make. And then we look at the customer service enhancements. Ensuring high quality customer service often requires revisiting policies or practices to better serve student needs and improve satisfaction. And then we look at accessibility and inclusivity.
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A new tools or methods may enhance accessibility for students with diverse needs, making it essential to adapt your strategies accordingly. And then there's an age old question that we always ask. Is it okay to change your mind? Absolutely. Absolutely. And leadership being open to changing your mind demonstrates adaptability. It demonstrates a commitment to improvement. Prioritizing the success of your students and faculty over stubbornness will foster a culture of continuous improvement, trust and respect.
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Acknowledging when a decision may not have been the best fosters an environment of trust. Encouraging others to voice their opinions. And their ideas. So when you ask the question, have you ever changed your mind about something as president? I've changed my mind many times, and you've got to me as a president or a leader of anything. You've got to be willing to change if the circumstances and the environment requires that to happen.
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So that's the mark of a great leader to be able to change directions and change course. As the old saying goes. You need to back up and punt and try again. That's exactly what I'm talking about. So it's always good to have great leadership if you're willing to change your mind and change directions.
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Now for everyone's favorite part of the week.
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Can you give us an update on the North East news?
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We just celebrated our honors ceremony last week, and we recognize a lot of our students that that excelled in a lot of different areas. Mathematics and science division standouts, our fine arts division standouts, social and behavioral applied Science division, a language and humanities division, health Science Division I Business and Engineering Technology division.
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I have a very distinguished leader. Awards. Our Excellence in Agriculture Awards. Northeast Way Awards are athletic awards such as the Tiger Woods and Things like that. Doing announced that a continuing education is host, hosting a vehicle tactical training for law enforcement in June, and we have coming up next week, actually next Thursday, the the 30th of April, we'll be hosting another field with the First lady.
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We'll have two sessions, one at noon for northeast employees in the morning at 6 p.m. for our community folks, the deadline is quickly approaching for our health science programs in May. The first would be the deadline to apply for any of our health science programs. Our Honors Institute hosted our five K. We had $4,800 raised for research. So that was a great opportunity for for us to join in with the community and be a part of the community, and also for a good cause.
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Campus police will be engaging vulnerable students with hands on law enforcement experience. Burgess is teaming with Big Dogs Martial Arts for a free self-defense class. We have a combined course from the continuing education for our law enforcement, which is coming up very soon. Our child care center is having open house and restoration. Are we having FFA burgers and bingo night?
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And then our PTK had a tremendous showing in our sales for our fundraisers and things like that that we had going on.
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So we sold a lot of cheese so close to two and a half tons. I think what they told me of cheese so that 2.65 tons. So that was a lot of money. And the PTK is a big face in northeast.
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They do a lot of things as far as activities and projects here on campus. It is time for students to fill out their fast for a free application for student financial aid. And that opened up this week and we had over 3400 fast. Once they came in to our financial aid office this week, we're working very hard on improving our Wi-Fi capability on campus.
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It's pretty good, but we really need to make it better, so we're looking for some areas that need to be upgraded. Also evaluating our security cameras. And we're looking at ways that we can upgrade all of our security cameras as we have every area on campus covered. We're currently evaluating the feasibility and identifying additional high traffic student areas for potential outdoor Wi-Fi expansion.
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We have football all star teams will be reporting to campus on May 11th. This is the Northeast Mississippi Football Coaches Association All-Star game. And then also on Wednesday, May the 14th at 6 p.m. will be kickoff for the NMC football All-Star game. Graduation is quickly approaching and our first graduation is May the 14th and the second one it will be May the 15th.
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We have two sessions on May the 14th at 2 p.m.. Our associate of Arts University transfer student with the last name ASU Ale. And then at 6 p.m., our Associate of Arts University transfer students with the last name beginning with M through Z o. Friday, May the 15th at 2 p.m. we will have our Career Tech Education Associate of Applied Science and their certificates for CTE students.
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And then at 6 p.m., we'll have our Health Science Associate of Applied Science and certificates at 6 p.m. the 15th, just completed at Perkins on it. And it went well. We just got through hosting the Regional and state science fair in March than I think there April and I it was a very, very successful affair. On the ninth we hosted the state science fair.
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We had students from all over the state of Mississippi. I think about 160 students that came in and displayed their science project. We just completed program reviews for
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buildings and Grounds, Foundation, Professional Development, computer services, human resources, and our technology program on April the 9th. And to say the least, the the reviewers were very impressed with northeast, and the things we have going on here made some recommendations, and that's what we wanted them to like, give us some recommendations on things that we could do to improve things here.
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We're working on application for Apple Distinguished Schools. This will be our third term for this. So hopefully we will be able to meet all the criteria there will be preparing for that and forward. We've got a lot of conversations lined up with other colleges. Our Lady of the Lake College and Community College of Rhode Island. We will be speaking with them and helping them with their infrastructure.
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As far as technology usage in the classroom, adult education is going strong. We're preparing for adult education graduation, which would be the May 18th at 6 p.m.. Currently, we have about 150 students that are going to be receiving their high school diplomas. There's some facility updates. We are working on our Corinthian building and our CTE build out. We're ready to start the first phase on that.
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Thankful to our Mississippi Legislature for 2026, giving us some funds to begin the first phase of that operation. We'll begin Whitehall renovation with the replacement of the vanities in the bathrooms painting new flooring. This project will begin in mid-May. Our Seth Pound's project. We've had completed the asbestos removal and the demo is complete. The contractors are working on the foundation piers, and we will be beginning the construction portion of that.
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Inside of that building coming up within the next week or two. We are working on developing a yearly strategic plan for our recruiting and what we want people to understand, our students that we come in contact with is we want to make sure that we get them from the day that we meet them, until the time we enroll them in classes and the time they leave in transfer, or go into the workforce and take ownership in those students and walk them all the way through that process.
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We'll be doing a lot of training this summer for our employees on making sure that happens. We are busy attending signing days and also working with our career coaches to help them assist students getting ready for graduation and the things that they will need to do in order to get enrolled in college, will attend a lot of our high schools graduations and awards, banquets and things like that.
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Awarding scholarships to them. Have cap and gown pick up for our students. It will be April the 28th and 29th at 1030 to 1230, in the Black and Gold Room. We're in the process of hiring a theater instructor, assistant, athletic trainer, two dorm supervisors. I just want to congratulate Doctor Emily Pollard and Jillian Goff. Doctor Pollard was just appointed as division head of social and behavioral science Jillian Gao, which is appointed math and science division head.
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I want to say congratulations to to the winners that will happen on that third annual employee cornhole tournament, which will be held April the 23rd. We will be reminding everybody about our Mobile learning conference on June the 8th and ninth. Registration is open. There's a $25 registration fee. Teachers can receive two QS for an additional $12 through our continuing Education department.
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Also this week in athletics, we will take on East Mississippi Community College and Southwest, and softball and baseball golf team compete in their first ever postseason event this week in women's golf and Oxford, Alabama. So those are some things that are going on or north of Mississippi Community College campus. And again, I can't emphasize enough how appreciative we are and how lucky we are to have the great employees that we have that makes North Face shine.
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So thank you, thank you, thank you for the great job that you do. And that keeps us on the high level. We are and we keep trying to move that NATO. So thank you all for everyone.
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And as always ladies and gentlemen, let's go Tigers.
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Thank you for listening to this week's Tiger Talk podcast. If you or someone you know wants to further their education through academics, career and technical programs or even continuing education and workforce, give northeast a call at 1-800-555-2154 Tiger Talk.
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It's brought to you by Northeast Mississippi Community College. For more information about northeast, visit WWW (dot) NEMCC (dot) EDU