It is hard to believe that another year has passed so quickly. This is a good time to reflect on our accomplishments and what still needs to be done to make the Master of Science in Economic Development the leading program in the nation. It is the second year of our new curriculum taught in an executive format geared toward working practitioners and preparing students to be highly competent for employment in local/regional economic development. We emphasize how to respond to RFIs, and we require the students adopt an actual community that they continue to work with during the course program.  Another program outcome we emphasize is the importance of students becoming established in a professional ED network. So we bring in numerous guest speakers, encourage students to attend professional networking events, and partner academically-qualified instructors with seasoned economic development professionals (Reflective Practitioners). Our professionally-oriented adjunct instructors receive the highest student ratings and have been with us since the roll out of the new curriculum. Data analytics is a priority of the College of Business, so we partner with Economic Modeling Specialists Intl and Cloud Nine Solutions Microsoft Dynamics CRM to teach students to use data-driven economic development tools.  We are attracting a high caliber of student, but need to recruit more to meet the market demand for new professionally trained economic developers. The MSED program continues to make progress even in these times of shrinking higher education budgets, and a lot of this is due to the continuing support of the economic development community, alumni, and our advisory council. We have been successful in securing external funding to compensate for reductions in university assistantship funding, but we have additional need to find more innovative ways to fund graduate student apprenticeships. We are seeking more sponsored research projects and partnering with EDOs to have graduate assistants working for them while enrolled in the MSED program. If you know of someone who has finished their undergraduate studies and is looking for a more rewarding career tell them to contact either myself ([email protected] or 601-266-6666) OR ([email protected] or 601-266-4657).  We have excellent opportunities to fill throughout the U.S.  We are looking forward to a new cohort of future economic developers in August and welcome your input and insight.