601-513-1833
Greg Jones, Chair of Communications and Creative Arts and Associate Professor of Digital Communications, came late to education as a career, having spent over half of his adult life as an entrepreneur.
He began his professional career as a director of circulation and marketing for four newspaper group publishers in the Southeast.
Since then, he owned a full-service advertising agency for two decades, served as webmaster for dozens of companies, created and published Southern Flyer Magazine and Cross-Walk newspaper, and owned a host of brick-and-mortar and online companies, offering everything from customized children's books and toys to custom-imprinted specialty items.
He currently owns Flying Pig Brand, LLC, a full-service advertising agency specializing in print, radio, television, billboards, and social media, occasionally doing business as Whoopass Branding.
He delights in bringing his real-world business acumen and experience to his students, who find his mistakes both hilarious and instructive.
He joined the faculty in 2006, and two decades later, he still hasn't figured out how to grade essays without a red pen and 12 strong cups of coffee. He served as Faculty Senate President for two years and later received the university's Nellie Rose McCrory service award, proof that even entrepreneurs can behave when properly incentivized.
He helped create and launch both the undergraduate and graduate IMC majors, on campus and online, across four tracks: Traditional, Graphic Design, Sports Communications, and Interior Design, surviving more committee meetings than any one person should endure. He recently created the Creative Arts Enterprise major as well, also offered on campus and online, presumably because he enjoys paperwork.
Early in his teaching career, he recognized the value of workforce education, pushing students toward internships and requiring both print and web portfolios long before most programs bothered, a habit that made him unpopular with students and popular with employers in roughly equal measure.
He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in English from the University of West Alabama, a Master of Arts in Teaching from Mississippi State University, and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Full Sail University in media design.
Every summer, he still teaches Freshman Composition and American Literature I and II, so he can expose others to the joy of the written word, while he tries to recruit students to the IMC and CAE programs. His real goal, we suspect, involves discovering and training the world's next greatest copywriter.
Once, according to legend, Greg moved above the Mason-Dixon Line, but he returned home for the barbecue. Greg and his wife Jennifer, a talented business owner in her own right, live in Meridian, Mississippi, and have four children and one grandchild who just started high school.
They hope to have more grandchildren soon. Well, most days, anyway.