Undergraduate program opens doors to new creative scholarship

Sydni Davis, a sophomore African American studies student, presented her oral history project, ‘Soul Food and Soul Searching,’ during a poster presentation for the UM Summer Undergraduate Research Group Grant program. Submitted photo

September 15, 2021 By Shea Stewart

Sydni Davis found herself in rewarding new territory this summer.

The University of Mississippi sophomore from Tupelo spent the summer conducting interviews with Black women, gaining valuable experience in ethnographic methods as part of a summer research project.

“I am proud of myself for collecting my data and conducting interviews,” said Davis, an African American studies major. “This experience has given me the confidence to pursue more research. Diving into this headfirst, I was not sure how I would fare, but I proved to myself how capable I am.”

Davis was among 15 UM undergraduate students who investigated new research areas or creative scholarship, or furthered their existing knowledge, as part of the university’s Summer Undergraduate Research Group Grant program, which is funded by the Office of the Provost and administered by the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs.

The 8-10-week fellowship program allows students to conduct individual research and creative scholarship projects through the summer with a faculty member as a mentor.

The program also prepares faculty collaborators to submit competitive external funding proposals for undergraduate research activities by designing and conducting a pilot summer program in a thematic area of interest to the faculty team.

Jared Barnes, a senior biology major from Grenada, was a member of the Ole Miss Nanoengineering Summer REU Program, which is designed for undergraduates to enhance their research activity within the School of Engineering and assist collaborations between early career and established faculty. Hosted by the Department of Biomedical Engineering, students were able to choose from research projects in one of three emphases: nanobiotechnology, computational nanoengineering and sustainable nanoengineering.

Barnes’ research topic was investigating a biodegradable drug delivery system for the sequential release of psychoactive drugs.

“I wanted to pursue this topic because I have always had a strong interest in the psychology field,” he said. “On top of that, I have the intention of becoming a physician one day and want to help tackle many of the health disparities present today.

“This topic deals with that issue by providing a cheaper, more convenient option for patients who require the repeated drug administration treatment.”

His project involved working with different drug delivery films, including applying parafilm and wax coating to polymeric films, to further examine durable film coatings and how they can be managed to better release drug doses.

“This was my first research experience of actually taking data on my own and feeling as if I played a vital role within the research throughout the entire summer,” said Barnes, who plans to attend the UM Medical Center after earning his bachelor’s degree. “With that being said, I have truly grown a passion and love for research with now an open mind to the possibility of doing more in the future.”

Jared Barnes (right), a senior biology major from Grenada, talks about his biodegradable drug delivery system research during a poster presentation for the UM Summer Undergraduate Research Group Grant program. Photo by Shea Stewart/UM Office of Research and Sponsored Programs

Davis’ oral history project was conducted under the guidance of researchers in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology and the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

She was one of three students involved in the summer research experience that used interdisciplinary approaches to the study of race, power and place-identity.

The program benefited students by honing their methodological skills and better preparing them for writing and presenting their findings.

The students, who also were exposed to the differences, debates and key overlaps in methodologies, were encouraged to and received instruction on how to prepare reports for submission to the peer-reviewed journal Study the South or Mississippi Stories.

Davis’s summer research project resulted in “Soul Food and Soul Searching,” an exploration of how the relationship between food in Black culture and racialized beauty standards can lead to disordered eating symptoms in Black women.

“I chose this project because I have seen the effects of eating disorder symptoms and Eurocentric beauty standards in my own body and life,” she said. “Black women are often the ‘other,’ meaning that we are easily ostracized especially in the arenas of beauty and health.

“I have felt the effects of beauty standards I will never quite live up to because they were not meant for me in the first place. My hope for this project is to give Black women a voice, so we can speak for ourselves.”

Davis plans to pursue master’s and doctoral degrees in museum studies in hopes of becoming a museum director and inspiring young Black women and bringing more inclusivity to the museum world.

For Santana Amaker’s summer research project, the senior computer science and international studies major from Biloxi studied denial-of-service attacks using a device capable of transmitting or receiving radio signals that is designed to test and develop modern and next-generation radio technologies.

She was one of five students collaborating with mentors in the Department of Computer and Information Science on projects involving cybersecurity research methods that exposed the students to various security risks and mitigation strategies.

Through the summer research experience, Amaker created a program that allows for denial-of-service attacks.

Santana Amaker (left), a senior computer science and international studies major, discusses her summer research project about denial-of-service attacks during a poster presentation for the UM Summer Undergraduate Research Group Grant program. Photo by Shea Stewart/UM Office of Research and Sponsored Programs

“I believe that the experience helped me become a better researcher by allowing me to become more independent in my learning,” said Amaker, whose interests include studying vulnerabilities in wireless devices.

“With this program, there was a lot of responsibility placed on me to independently research and turn to my professor for help when I faced a difficult problem, rather than at every step. I think this is much closer to what I will experience working in the tech industry, which is why I see this program as an invaluable opportunity.”

Four students were involved in the Department of Chemical Engineering‘s “Snazzy Surfaces for Students” program, which offered talented undergraduate students an opportunity to join the multidisciplinary surfaces and interfaces team to learn key research skills.

The students learned about surfaces, interfaces and material development, and used the university’s Quartz Crystal Microbalance with Dissipation, a highly sensitive balance that can detect changes in mass at the molecular level using a quartz crystal, which registers minuscule deviations in frequencies and loss of energy.

The program taught students research know-how, creativity and innovative skills, which are fully transferable to future industry or research careers in STEM.

One of those students in the program was Jack Flanders, a junior psychology and biochemistry major from Munford, Tennessee, whose research topic explored protein adsorption on ionic liquid-capped nanoparticles.

“These nanoparticles have shown a wide variety of potential medical applications; however, in order to be effectively used, we need a better idea of exactly how the nanoparticles interact with proteins in the body,” said Flanders, who plans on attending medical school, specializing in psychiatry. “I was able to start my own research project, which will set the groundwork towards my thesis.

“This program taught me a lot about how rewarding research can be. Long hours and extra work are all worth it when you have good data to show for it.”

More than 50 undergraduate students have participated in the program, which began in 2018 and offers participants valuable knowledge and skills while expanding and enhancing the university’s undergraduate research and creative achievement efforts.

The students’ output results in or contributes to a finished product that is significant, such as a presentation of the creative work or a publishable paper.

Sullivan-González Passes Baton to Next Generation of Leaders

Ethel Scurlock is taking over as interim dean of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College at the University of Mississippi, where she also is director of African American studies and an associate professor of English. Photo by Logan Kirkland/ Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

July 20, 2021 By JB Clark

Douglass Sullivan-González is almost as excited to return to the classroom as he is to see the next generation of leaders at the University of Mississippi‘s Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College put their stamp on the prestigious program he’s spent two decades growing.

As he leaves his long-held position as dean of the Honors College to focus full time on teaching and research in the Arch Darlymple III Department of History, Ethel Scurlock will assume the role of interim dean.

Sullivan-González’s last day will be Aug. 17, but Scurlock said the leadership transition won’t be as abrupt as it could be because he has been empowering leaders in and around the Honors College for years. She will begin assuming many of the dean’s responsibilities this month.

“DSG has been a wonderful resource during our leadership transition,” Scurlock said. “We have met about established procedures, discussed a few areas that are ripe for change.

“We both want to empower the HOCO leadership team to continue serving our students with integrity, energy, and excellence. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to carry forward DSG’s excellent vision for the program.”

Returning to His Passion

After 18 years as dean of the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, Douglass Sullivan-González is stepping down to return to full-time teaching and research in the Arch Darlymple III Department of History. Photo by Thomas Graning/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

Sullivan-González continued teaching, researching and publishing as dean. But as the program continued to grow, the amount of time he had to spend on administrative responsibilities forced his course load to shrink.

He hopes to spend the next few years pursuing those passions with all his effort.

“I turned 65 this year and I’ve got at least two books, potentially three, in me that I want to get out,” Sullivan-González said. “When I started, we had 375 students, basically, so I could still teach and administer, but we’re at 1,700 now, and administration takes 100% of my time.

“Teaching both undergraduate and graduate students is what I enjoy, but I’ve been unable to advance my teaching and research because of the success of the honors college.”

In the 18 years Sullivan-González served as dean, he worked with four different chancellors to raise more than $30 million in private funding for the Honors College, completed a $6.6 million addition to its building and more than quadrupled the number of students in the program.

Sullivan-González came to Ole Miss as an assistant professor in 1993 and was named the College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Teacher of the Year in 2001. He is the author of two books on the intersection of religion, politics and identity in Guatemala: “The Black Christ of Esquipulas: Religion and Identity in Guatemala” (2016) and “Piety, Power, and Politics: Religion and Nation Formation in Guatemala, 1821-1871” (1998).

“DSG has done so much to strengthen and advance our Honors College during in his time as dean,” said Lee Cohen, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. “I am certain that he will bring that energy and passion to his teaching and scholarship, which will inspire and motivate our students.

“I also know he is working on a project about Central America and has plans to use that research to publish his third book. As an academic administrator, it is difficult to find the time to focus on your own scholarly interests, and I am delighted that DSG will now have the opportunity to pursue his interests as a scholar after serving our university as dean for nearly two decades.”

Focusing on Access

Scurlock wants to continue Sullivan-González’s legacy by making an Honors College education accessible to every student in the state. She is passionate about giving every Mississippian the information and resources they need to reach their highest and potential, and her work on the Honors College admission committee is proof of that passion.

“I’m not approaching this as a job to fill his shoes,” Scurlock said. “I’m thinking of ways we can we keep that legacy alive and make honors education at UM more accessible and engaging for our 21st century students. We are happy that we attract a national student body, but want to make sure that all our Mississippi students better understand how they benefit from studying with us.

“I believe this focus will help us honor the gifts of the Barksdale family and their deep passion for all Mississippians. We will continue to bring high-performing students from all over the world, but we want to pay special attention to how the environment offered at the Honors College can help move Mississippians forward academically, socially and professionally. ”

As a member of the Honors College admissions committee since 2015, Scurlock has helped to ease the college’s application process while shaping the vetting process to ensure the greatest number of students have an opportunity to be considered for a position in the prestigious program.

“I want to make sure every single student has a fair chance,” Scurlock said. “I’m interested in finding the high-performing students who are committed to the public good, and who use intellectual knowledge to make things better in their communities.”

Scurlock joined the UM faculty in 1996 and has served as director of African American studies, a senior fellow for Luckyday Residential College and associate professor of English while serving on a number of committees across campus. She was named the College of Liberal Arts Outstanding Teacher of the Year and UM Humanities Teacher of the Year in 2003 and the Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award in 2011.

“I have had the very good fortune of working with Dr. Scurlock,” Cohen said. “She is such a dynamic educator who cares deeply about access to higher education and the success of all our students.

“She has done an absolutely incredible job as director of our African American studies program, nearly doubling the number of majors. She also brings an executive presence where she commands a room and people stop and listen when she speaks.”

Scurlock has taught and served in the Honors College for 16 years. Sullivan-González said her impact on the program has been, and will continue to be, notable.

“Dr. Scurlock’s vision, energy and joy will make an immediate mark on the Honors College family,” he said. “She is the right person at the right moment.”

Passing Through a Porous Border

Derrick Harriell

FEBRUARY 14, 2020

Prose and poetry are forged from the same raw material: words. But crossing from one genre into another can be precarious.

“The biggest obstacle for me in writing fiction was that I was used to being ambiguous and leaving things mysterious,” said Derrick Harriell, a highly-regarded poet and associate professor of English and African American studies.

“You can’t do that in short stories or novels. You have to keep a narrative moving—and not necessarily in poetic language.”

Harriell made his fictional debut last year with the short story, “There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” in Milwaukee Noir, an anthology in an award-winning series of noir writing, which casts a dark and existential light on human experience.

It was an auspicious beginning. The story was chosen for an Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America, the nation’s premiere organization for mystery and crime writers.

Named in honor of Edgar Allen Poe, literary icon and master of the macabre, the Edgars are regarded as of the most prestigious prizes in American fiction. Harriell is being honored with a special Edgar, the Robert L. Fish Memorial Award, given to first-time writers.

“There’s a Riot Goin’ On,” is set in Milwaukee, Harriell’s hometown, during the summer of (2016), when riots broke out after the acquittal of a police officer who had killed a 23-year-old black man after a traffic stop.

The story’s main character, Terrell, is a college student who had been out protesting on the eve of the narrative. A “shy person” in high school, Terrell is imbued with confidence after a night in the melee.

“. . . he felt liberated. . . as if he’d begun to discover some hidden continent within. An unexplored world that could only be found through the violence that occurs when a riot reaches the point of no return.”

But liberation comes at a cost. Terrell must choose between the thrill of the streets and the safety of domesticity, an evening at home, cooking with his mother and sometime girlfriend.

“I’d really been wanting to try my hand at a short story,” Harriell said. “Writing it took me three months, with a solid month of working with my editor. In my initial draft, Terrell had no name. I wanted him to be every young Milwaukee black man.”

Harriell is the author, too, of three poetry collections: Cotton (2010), Stripper in Wonderland, (2017) and Ropes (2013), winner of the Mississippi Institute of Arts and Letters Poetry Award in 2014.

In Ropes, the personas of black boxing legends Jack Johnson, Joe Louis, Joe Frazier and Mike Tyson speak to each other across generations. The volume is a tour of history through the eyes of these icons.

Creating a collection is its own art form, Harriell explains, dissimilar to writing singular pieces.

“It’s the difference between writing a song and creating an album. The poems have to be in conversation with each other.”

His poetry has twice been nominated for the Pushcart Award, an American literary prize that honors the best poetry, short fiction, and essays published in the small presses over the previous year.

“Dr. Harriell has become an indispensable pillar of the English department and the creative writing program,” said Ivo Kamps, chair and professor of English. “He’s an effective and popular teacher of creative writing classes and literature courses. We’ll all grateful for his presence and his immense contributions to the department.”

Among those contributions is amplifying male voices that often go unheard.

“My work is about black men and the communities and cultures surrounding them,” he said.

Fellowship emphasizes interdepartmental collaboration in gender and sexuality research

May 6, 2021 by JB Clark

The Sarah Isom Center for Women and Gender Studies has awarded grants to six University of Mississippi faculty members for their ongoing research and academic efforts in the areas of gender and sexuality.The recipients – Yvette Butler, Jaye Davidson, Tyler Gillespie, Owen Hyman, Diane Marting and Joseph Wellman – are the newest cohort of the center’s Isom Fellows program, which encourages interdisciplinary research and collaboration between researchers across schools on campus.

“We love being able to support the important research, but it also gives us the opportunity to meet those folks and build networks between them,” said Jaime Harker, the center’s director. “The fellowship serves as a way to look across the entire university and see connections, and it’s a great opportunity for me and everyone else to reach out and see the bigger picture.”

The fellowship is a two-year program in which fellows get $4,500 a year for two years in support of the research project they submitted in their fellowship application. They also have opportunities to coordinate with the center to plan lectures, events and even cross-listed courses.

Yvette Butler

Yvette Butler, assistant professor of law, is interested in the legal impact that terms such as “modern day slavery” have on the way victims of sex and labor trafficking are treated, as well as how the crimes of their traffickers are prosecuted.

Butler said she hopes to shed light on the question of whether the terminology is problematic because it minimizes the unique experience of chattel slavery and the sexual exploitation of black women therein or if it’s honest because certain types of human trafficking mirror chattel slavery.

“Regardless of the answer, I think the exploration is necessary, given the increased public attention and legislative action on anti-trafficking policy,” she said. “There are countless invaluable lessons to be learned from those who have often been pushed to the margins by society.”

Jaye Sarah Davidson

Jaye Sarah Davidson

Jaye Sarah Davidson, assistant professor of film production, wrote, directed and produced the short film “Lady Edison,” about inventor Margaret Knight and the 1868 intellectual property battle over her invention of a machine that makes flat-bottomed paper bags. Davidson is using her fellowship to write a feature-length screenplay about Knight’s life.

This particular story is interesting because it is a foundational intellectual property case, but it also deals with gender and class in the workplace – all centered around the invention of something as ubiquitous as the paper bag, Davidson said.

“It’s important to talk about women inventors because I don’t think people appreciate inventors in general,” she said. “My hope is to give a female genius of history her own legacy.”

Tyler Gillespie

Tyler Gillespie. Photo by Thomas Graning/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

Tyler Gillespie, instructor of writing and rhetoric, is exploring how communities form an identity around unpublished communal writing such as journals, letters and notes.

“I found community through writing and I found myself through writing,” Gillespie said. “So I’m interested in how writing, and these kinds of texts, can help with self-identity and how people create community ideates.

“And I grew up as a gay person in Florida, so to me, this is a way to give back to my community – by capturing the stories and oral histories of these communities as folks grow older.”

Gillespie hopes to turn his research into a portion of the book he is writing, as well as to use the findings to develop a class on queer rhetoric and methodology.

Owen Hyman

Owen Hyman. Photo by Thomas Graning/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

Owen Hyman, instructional assistant professor of African American Studies, is researching land ownership by African American women in the period after Reconstruction.

“I am interested in landownership as a pathway to economic autonomy and political power – and as a form of resistance to gendered and racial violence,” Hyman said. “We need their insight today because economic inequality remains rooted in the discriminatory decisions we’ve made about land and land use since the Civil War.”

Hyman plans to use the research to complete his book, which argues that Gulf Coast lumber companies destroyed the forests that Black land owners relied on for their livelihood and well-being.

Diane Marting

Diane Marting. Photo by Robert Jordan/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

Diane Marting, associate professor of Spanish, plans to examine films about the children and babies who disappeared in the 1970s and ’80s in Argentina, and specifically the issues of justice and reproduction in those films.

“It is important to have a program like the Isom Fellowship program, not only to support intellectual and academic work that addresses interdisciplinary artistic expression, but also so that lack of justice portrayed in these films can be seen more clearly than before and perhaps redressed in some fashion in the now and the tomorrow,” Marting said.

Marting plans to produce an essay for the Handbook of Reproductive Justice and Literature on the topic, and plans to propose a 600-level course studying gender and literature in Spanish.

Joseph Wellman

Joseph Wellman

Joseph Wellman, assistant professor of social psychology, is studying how individuals respond to claims of sexism, particularly how intersecting identities and in-group-out-group dynamics affect those responses.

“These intersectional differences in how we perceive and respond to sexism claims based on race may lead to less-than-ideal outcomes for minority women,” Wellman said. “And there is a gap in the literature because often in experimentation, we try to isolate race from gender and thus we do not always examine the intersection.”

Wellman plans to present his research at the annual meeting for the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and submit it for journal publication.

Visit the Isom Center website for more information on the fellows program, past fellows and future application deadlines.

Patrick Alexander is university’s teacher of the year

Patrick Alexander, associate professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Mississippi, has been named the recipient of the 2021 Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award. Photo by Christian Johnson/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

April 9, 2021 by Abigail Meisel

Patrick Alexander, associate professor of English and African American Studies, is the recipient of the 2021 Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award at the University of Mississippi.

The honor – the highest bestowed on UM faculty who make a positive difference in the classroom – was announced Thursday evening (April 8) in The Pavilion at Ole Miss as part of the annual Honors Convocation.

“I was surprised and honored to receive this award,” said Alexander, who also was recipient of the 2020 Public Humanities Award for Educator from the Mississippi Humanities Council. “Teaching touches the mind and is transformative work. What students learn in the classroom will affect what they do with their lives.”

He is also co-founder and co-director of the Prison-to-College Pipeline Program, which brings college classes to incarcerated people.

The Elsie Hood selection committee comprises previous recipients, the university’s director of alumni affairs and a student representative. Chaired this year by John Young, associate professor of psychology and winner of the 2019 award, the committee solicited nominations from faculty, students and alumni.

The award was established in 1965, after the Faculty Senate proposed a program of recognition for superior teaching by assistant, associate and full professors. The winner receives a $5,000 prize along with an engraved plaque, and the honoree’s name is added to a permanent display of award winners in the J.D. Williams Library.

“Dr. Patrick Alexander is known as a devoted professor and an extraordinary champion for the value of higher education,” Chancellor Glenn Boyce said. “He has brought about meaningful change through his deep love of learning that he has shared with learning communities far and wide.

Students praise Patrick Alexander, associate professor of English and African American studies, for his dedication and inspiration in the classroom. Photo by Christian Johnson/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

“An established scholar, he engages his students in a manner that is inspiring and empowering. We’re so grateful for the transformative impact he has on the lives of his students.”

Celebrated as an advocate for social justice nationwide, Alexander brings that perspective to the study of literature and is committed to teaching not only Ole Miss students but also imprisoned men at the Mississippi State Penitentiary. Also known as Parchman Farm because it was created on the model of a plantation, the prison opened in 1905 and was originally designated as one of two penitentiaries to incarcerate Black men in the state.

“I deeply enjoy teaching, and I appreciate the value of scholarly research,” said Alexander, who is the author of many articles in leading academic journals and the book “From Slave Ship to Supermax: Mass Incarceration, Prisoner Abuse, and the New Neo-Slave Novel” (Temple University Press, 2018).

His students praise his dedication to them.

“Dr. Alexander has tremendously impacted my life as a student,” wrote one student in a letter nominating Alexander for the award. “Thanks to his teaching and mentoring, I have learned the importance of empathy and caring in education, as well as how to challenge conventional wisdom.”

Another wrote, “He makes class and content both challenging and rewarding. As a student, I could tell he took special care to curate a purposeful and intentional experience for us.”

A native of Youngstown, Ohio, Alexander was raised by parents who prized learning.

“Growing up, my older brother and I had to do Black history reports and present them to the family one weekend day each month because Black history was all but absent from the classroom at my school, and I’d been upset about that. My mom, who’s a music teacher, told me, ‘Your learning doesn’t stop at the schoolhouse.’”

Alexander joined the UM faculty in 2012 directly after receiving his doctorate from Duke University, ranked among the top graduate programs for American literature in the country.

“Part of why I chose to be in this region is to be close to issues that matter most to me,” he said. “A lot of social justice work and social transformation work are possible here.”

Jonathan Dabel, Je’Von D. Franklin to work with initiative aimed at solving education challenges

Jonathan Dabel

Two University of Mississippi students have been chosen to participate in an inaugural national network program designed to use technology to innovate teaching and learning with the goal of improving outcomes for Black, Latino and indigenous students, poverty-affected students and first-generation students across the nation.

Jonathan Dabel, of Diamondhead, and Je’Von D. Franklin, of Brooksville, are among 16 undergraduate students selected nationwide to receive Every Learner Everywhere Network Fellowships. The program is a six-month, project-based fellowship that enables students selected to work on an interest- and skill-aligned project while developing meaningful professional relationships with a variety of 12 network partners.

The project areas include education technologies, curriculum and course design strategies and teaching practices, among other concentrations.

Dabel and Franklin each will receive a $3,000 stipend for the program, which began Feb 15 and runs through July 15.

“It is a great honor to have these UM students accepted in this inaugural program,” said Patricia O’Sullivan, program manager of externally funded academic innovation projects. “We are really proud to have Je’von and Jonathan representing the University of Mississippi.”

A freshman economics and mathematics major, Dabel is collaborating with the National Center for Research in Advanced Information and Digital Technologies, also known as Digital Promise. Equity in higher education is an issue he plans to continue to research in the future.

“The sole reason why I am majoring in economics is that I believe inequity and how well a student does in school have a strong relationship to their parents’ economic status, the neighborhood they live in and how well funded their school is,” said Dabel, who was born in Massachusetts but raised in Haiti.

“Digital Promise is focused on mostly how we can use technology to make higher education an equitable place for all. Most of the time, we read surveys, analyze data and, most importantly, we provide innovative ideas.”

Dabel said that by the end of the program, he hopes to better understand what conducting research on economic inequality and what working in a professional setting feels like.

“All inequity issues, especially among African American students, are related to their parent’s economic status and the environment they are growing up in,” he said. “It’s a cycle that repeats itself and a crisis that not many people seem to care about.”

Je’Von Franklin

Franklin, a senior African American Studies major, said being a fellow with the ELE network gives him an opportunity to work with Achieving the Dream.

“I will have the opportunity to provide student-centered input in the course design, how to facilitate professional group discussions, and learn foundational course design skill,” he said. “I will be learning and benefiting from studying theories and best practices alongside the Achieving the Dream team, who are some of the best in the field at applying equity-minded learning theories in higher education.”

Franklin said he wants to learn how to design student-centered courses.

“Online instruction is not engaging for all students,” he said. “Hopefully by the end of this fellowship, I will have experience in designing courses and will be able to assist professors worldwide with designing student-centered courses.”

Dabel and Franklin will serve as project managers or provide project support on one project during their time in the program.

Fellows work on projects with one of four ELE partner organizations: Achieving the Dream, Digital Promise, SXSU EDU or Intentional Futures. They also meet additional network members through informational interviews and student-led panels.

Each of the partner organizations have an expertise in evaluating, implementing, scaling and measuring the efficacy of education technologies, course design strategies, teaching practices and support services that personalize instruction for students in blended and online learning environments.

All 16 fellows will be in cohort groups of four to five and work directly with one of the network partners on a project that aligns to the fellow’s major or professional interest. Fellows will also serve as co-designers of the program to shape their experience and the experience for future fellows.

At the end of the program, the students will have an opportunity to present their learnings in a formal presentation to the network.

For more information about the Every Learner Everywhere Network, visit here.

African American Studies minor Isis Shannon, an English major, presented her paper “The Memory of Slavery in Three Generations of Black Women in Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God” at the Symposium for History Undergraduate Research Conference “Making Memory: Remembering and Commemorating the Past” on April 27 and 28 at Mississippi State University. Dr. Shennette Garrett-Scott, an assistant professor of history and African American Studies, offered students in her African American Survey since 1865 class the opportunity to write a separate research paper, and Isis volunteered. She wrote a paper applying the black feminist theory of multiple oppression to three characters in Hurston’s popular 1937 novel.

Keon Burns

May 8, 2018

African American Studies and accounting major Keon Burns has been accepted to the Richards Center Emerging Scholars Summer Mentoring Program at Penn State. He will spend a week there this summer participating in a simulated doctoral seminar and attending workshops on a variety of topics, including writing, digital research, and graduate student life. The program is sponsored by Penn State’s Richards Center, the Department of History, and the Department of African American Studies in a collaborative effort to attract and enroll students from underrepresented populations.

Mya King, Ezell Mays, Wysh Dantzler, and other students, faculty, and staff at the Slave Dwellings event.

May 8, 2018

History Professor Anne Twitty (left), Mya King, and Ezell Mays

Ezell Mays, an African American Studies and anthropology major, and African American Studies minors Wysh Dantzler, a psychology major, and Mya King, a political science major, slept overnight in the surviving slave dwelling at Rowan Oak on April 18 as part of the three-day event “Slave Dwellings:  Rediscovering the Enslaved in North Mississippi.”

The students had the unique opportunity to join Joseph McGill and the Slave Dwelling Project for the sleepover. The Slave Dwelling Project brings awareness about the need to preserve the dwellings where African American ancestors lived while enslaved by spending the night in these buildings. The UM Slavery Research Group (UMSRG) co-sponsored the event.

In a day of related events, the UMSRG featured the history of enslaved people in Lafayette County, at the University, and at Rowan Oak with guest talks and a campus tour. The sleepover complemented an archaeological dig at Rowan Oak two years ago, and the Holly Springs-Marshall County Behind the Big House Tour on April 20-22.

Legal studies department and Common Reading Experience host 250 students for program

NOVEMBER 16, 2017 BY SARAH SAPP

Roughly 250 students attended the ‘Just Mercy’ panel discussion hosted by the Department of Legal Studies and the UM Common Reading Experience. Photo by Marlee Crawford/UM Communications

“Is it the water that needs to be changed, or is it the fish? I think it is the water that needs to be changed,” said Joseph Holiday, an inmate at the Marshall County Correctional Center.

Holiday’s question regarding the high rate of recidivism in Mississippi’s prison system elicited applause from the 250 students attending the recent panel discussion hosted by the University of Mississippi Department of Legal Studiesand the Common Reading Experience about social issues and problems in the criminal justice system. The issue is the focus of “Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption,” this year’s universitywide common reading book.

Twelve inmates from the Marshall County Correctional Center joined the event via Skype to share their insights from the book, having completed a study of it through restorative justice classes with Linda Keena, event facilitator and interim legal studies department chair.

Panelists included Patrick Alexander, assistant professor of English and African American Studies and co-founder of the UM Prison-to-College Pipeline program; Randall Rhodes, chief juvenile officer for the 32nd Judicial Circuit of Missouri and adjunct legal studies instructor; and Patricia Doty, deputy warden of security operations at the Marshall County Correctional Center.

The final panelist was Terun Moore. Originally sentenced as a juvenile to life without parole, Moore was paroled in October after serving 19 years. He was able to appeal for parole thanks to “Just Mercy” author Bryan Stevenson’s winning argument to the Supreme Court in Miller v. Alabama that life sentences without parole are unconstitutional for juveniles.

“This has been a great motivation to each and every one of us,” Moore said. “We have learned through our restorative justice class that the things we did to our victims took away from them the power that they once had and instilled fear instead.

“We’ve learned to how to take responsibility for that. We want to thank Dr. Keena and Warden Doty, who have been very supportive of us. This class has been wonderful.”

Restorative justice is a sentencing philosophy wherein the focus isn’t on the perpetrator and how to punish him or her. The focus is on the victims and what would make them feel whole, Keena said.

“We work with the institutions to teach the offenders to recognize their responsibility, to quit blaming other people for their wrongdoings and then provide them opportunities to make amends for their harm to society,” she said.

Alexander described the UM Prison-to-College Pipeline classes he teaches at Parchman. The program, a university-community engagement initiative, promotes higher education in prison in response to rising rates of incarceration, high-cost punishment and recidivism in the state.

UM joins Mississippi College, Millsaps University and Jackson State University in providing classes, supplies, books and professors to teach incarcerated people.

“This is an investment in our shared citizenship,” said Alexander, citing the high rate of illiteracy among incarcerated people. “It saves taxpayer dollars. Education, particularly higher education, reduces recidivism.

“There is a much greater chance these people who have taken these restorative justices classes will do well when they are back out in society.”

Twelve inmates from the Marshall County Correctional Facility joined the event via Skype with host Melissa Dennis, of the UM Common Reading Experience (left); facilitator Linda Keena, legal studies department chair (second from left); and panelists Patrick Alexander, assistant professor of English and African American studies and co-founder of the UM Prison-to-College Pipeline Program; Randall Rhodes, chief juvenile officer for the 32nd Judicial Circuit of Missouri and adjunct legal studies instructor; Patricia Doty, deputy warden of security operations at the Marshall County Correctional Center; and Terun Moore, a recent parolee. Photo by Marlee Crawford/UM Communications

Rhodes talked about the school-to-prison pipeline he combats through grant-funded detention alternative programming that diverts juveniles into community engagement before they end up in prison as adults. He discussed the growing number of children in foster care due to parents’ drug abuse and skyrocketing elementary school suspension rates affecting a disproportionate number of children of color.

“I want to warn you that this bubble of foster care youth and this bubble of elementary suspension kids is a problem,” Rhodes said. “It is really something we have to watch. Stevenson’s idea of a constantly moving target where racial biases come in – now it has moved to this elementary suspension zone.”

Improving the way courts and society consider mitigating factors, such as previous abuse and mental health issues, became an important talking point for the panelists.

In Doty’s years in the criminal justice system, inmates have shared a common thread of substance abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse or mental health problems, she said. Society would rather not address these problems because people don’t understand them and are afraid, she said.

“Substance abuse contributes to a significant amount of crimes in the U.S., and a significant number of those folks are people of color,” Doty said. “White people have a more significant substance abuse problem, yet people of color are more often incarcerated.”

Rhodes encouraged students to volunteer time with vulnerable children to help keep them out of prison.

“With all my years in grant programs, I’ve always told my officers (that) it really doesn’t matter what you spend time doing with these children, but that you’re right there beside them spending time with them, showing enthusiasm for whatever you’re doing together,” he said. “Whatever you have to offer is important.

“The kids are going to get something out of it – an attachment with an adult who cares about them. So go for it. Go out there and do it.”

The evening ended with the men from the Marshall County Correctional Center thanking Ole Miss students, faculty and staff for the opportunity to connect.

“Let everyone know, the people there in the audience, you all are the future and cornerstone of changing the mindset of how incarcerated people are viewed in the United States,” said Joseph Holiday of New Orleans.

“The worst prison is what a lot of people are dealing with right now – the prison inside the mind. Many people are held captive to their old prejudices, biases and other things that aren’t conducive to our human development. We want to ask you all to lay down your past biases about those incarcerated and look at the soul and mindset of the individual that can be cultivated.”

For more information about the UM criminal justice program, email legalstu@olemiss.edu or visit https://legalstudies.olemiss.edu/.