TUPELO – Put budget problems aside for a minute, new Ole Miss Chancellor Dan Jones told an audience at the BancorpSouth Conference Center Tuesday. These are happy days at the University of Mississippi.

It was the first speech to a communitywide audience in Tupelo for Jones since replacing Robert Khayat as chancellor July 1. Speaking at the Cellular South Networking at Noon event, he said the university is sitting in a unique position to truly serve its state.

“We are a great public university in the poorest state in the country,” Jones said in an interview following his 37-minute speech.

“The gap between what our university has achieved and the needs in our state is perhaps the largest gap of any flagship liberal arts university in our country. It does present us an opportunity to look to our state for its needs and what we as the flagship liberal arts university can do for our state.”

The university drew a record enrollment of more than 18,000 students this year, Jones said, and the school received more monetary donations in 2009 than it did in 2008.

But Jones did not ignore the budget issues the university faces. Ole Miss had its state funding cut by 5 percent earlier this year, and Jones said it is preparing for as much as a 23 percent cut over the next three years.

The school’s faculty is evaluating every academic program and support program, and there will be some cuts. “But we are going to work hard to do that in a focused way to ensure that the value of the education our students are receiving is not diminished in any way,” Jones said.

He said the cuts can be further offset by the increases in enrollment and in giving, as well as by faculty agreeing to take heavier workloads until the economy improves.

He also said that a larger percentage of out-of-state students – 48 percent in this year’s freshman class – and the higher tuition they pay helps during tough budget times.

The 60-year-old Jones, a physician and native Mississippian, was vice chancellor for health affairs and dean of the university’s School of Medicine in Jackson before becoming chancellor.

Jones began his speech by commending Tupelo on its commitment to public education.

“This is a remarkable community for support of public education, and I’m very grateful for that,” Jones said after his speech.

Contact Chris Kieffer at (662) 678-1590 or at chris.kieffer@djournal.com.