Alumnus Magazine | Summer 2020

MSU President Mark E. Keenum speaking with senior campus leaders and key personnel. The group met regularly while practicing social distancing guidelines to assess
the COVID-19 threat and guide the university through changes dictated by the pandemic.
LEADERS IN ACTION
Task Force team guides MSU through COVID-19
By Sid Salter
Like the rest of the nation,
Mississippi State University had
not encountered the onslaught of a
true global pandemic since 1918-19
when the worldwide outbreak of the so-called
“Spanish Influenza” claimed 9,232 lives in
Mississippi. Sadly, 38 students at what is
now MSU died during that outbreak with an
estimated 1,200 students infected with the flu.
Against that historical backdrop, modernday
MSU President Mark E. Keenum and
key members of the university’s leadership
team were called into action when the World
Health Organization declared a global health
emergency in late January due to the novel
coronavirus.
COVID-19 usually triggers a respiratory
tract infection and can impact the sinuses,
nose, and throat in the upper respiratory
tract and the windpipe and lungs in the
lower respiratory tract. The disease spreads
through person-to-person contact and is
believed to be airborne. Infections can range
from asymptomatic to life-threatening,
depending on age and underlying individual
health histories.
Events spiraled downward in February
and the WHO formally declared a global
pandemic on March 11. By April, more
than 1 million global patients had tested
positive for COVID-19 and over 100,000
died. By July, more than 11.3 million global
COVID-19 cases had been diagnosed with
over 532,000 deaths—and both numbers
were still growing by the day at the time of
publication.
Keenum and his leadership team were
tasked with seeking and complying with
guidance from the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, the Mississippi State
Department of Health, the Mississippi Board
of Trustees of Institutions of Higher Learning
and state elected officials including Gov. Tate
Reeves and the leadership of the Mississippi
Legislature. There was also the need to
maintain cooperation with Oktibbeha County
and City of Starkville governments and first
responders as the pandemic grew and spread.
Commenting during the early days of
MSU’s COVID-19 response, Keenum said
to his colleagues, “Since Mississippi State
first engaged in assessment of impacts of the
coronavirus and planning for operational
changes by our leadership team, the one
constant has been that there are no constants.
“Information is changing and taking on
different nuances on an almost hourly basis,”
he continued. “With guidance from federal
and state leaders, from global and national
medical and epidemiological advisers, and
from our own capable students, faculty and
staff, MSU’s leadership team has taken this
evolving information and is developing a
measured response. Yet make no mistake, this
is a new and unprecedented challenge playing
out on a massive scale.”
A RAPID RESPONSE
MSU established a webpage for
COVID-19 resources in February,
when there were still no known cases in
Mississippi. The university began to restrict
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