Arrival at USM

View of the University of Southern Mississippi (then Mississippi Southern College) at the time that Joseph R. Greene began his tenure. 

With veterans enrolling under the G.I. Bill, President Cook recruited Greene as head of the Division of Commerce to develop a business program. The Division of Commerce, which had been established only eight years earlier, consisted of three faculty members and two concrete-floored classrooms brimming with students who sat on wooden benches. “Typewriters,” Greene recalled, “dated back to 1918. But I also found a tremendous number of young men who were eager and willing to learn. They wanted to be accountants, economists and business men.” These were the students, in ever-growing numbers, who graduated to successful careers and held their former dean in lasting admiration.