to tackle workforce development challenges

North Mississippi VISTA Project: Fighting poverty through education

The North Mississippi VISTA (Volunteers In Service To America) Project sponsors 20 organizations and has the capacity to recruit 25 full-year VISTA members to serve throughout north Mississippi and the Delta.

The McLean Institute is proud to have an eightyear relationship with the Corporation for National and Community Service and to lead the next chapter of the North Mississippi VISTA Project. “The McLean Institute’s mission of advancing transformative service and fighting poverty through education in Mississippi is bold,” said director Albert Nylander. “This initiative will continue establishing and fostering mutually beneficial partnerships and programs that advance education in underserved communities across the state.”

The mission of the North Mississippi VISTA Project is to build sustainable systems that connect the University of Mississippi and its resources to low-income communities throughout a 23-county area. Whenever possible, NMVP de velops projects in communities with underperforming schools and/or schools eligible for Title I School Improvement Grants. VISTA members build capacity by developing new, meaningful and sustainable connections between the university, with its abundant resources, and the schools, education agencies and community organizations already working to move the people of the north Mississippi region toward academic success and higher education.

In the next year and beyond, NMVP will continue to develop host sites around north Mississippi, cultivate projects and place VISTAs with community partners that fight poverty through education. In the 2018-19 program year, the VISTA project contributed more than $680,000 to the region. NMVP service members are serving with several organizations based on campus and in Oxford. This includes the UM School of Education, M Partner, Doors of Hope Transition Ministries, Luckyday Academic Success Program, the Center for Mathematics and Science Education, Lafayette County Literacy Council and Yoknapatawpha Arts Council. Partners outside Lafayette County include the Sunflower County Freedom Project in Sunflower, DeSoto County Youth Court in Hernando, Quitman County School District in Marks, Rosedale Freedom Project in Rosedale, the Union County Heritage Museum in New Albany and the Rust College Community Development Corp. in Holly Springs. Many VISTAs have been recent graduates of UM programs such as the Croft Institute for International Studies and Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College. Bryce Warden, who graduated from UM in 2016 and served as a VISTA with the UM School of Education, is now studying higher education policy at the Peabody College at Vanderbilt University.

“The VISTA experience offered extensive opportunities in designing and implementing community action service programs for college access in low-income communities,” Warden said.

Warden created a partnership with the Quitman County Middle School to bring over 50 students to the University of Mississippi on Saturdays throughout the spring semester for tutoring and enrichment activities.

“I saw the benefit of those interactions, where students – many of them potential first-generation – could find out what college life was really like, and I was eager to create such an environment for the kids from Marks,” Warden said. “Now, these middle school students get to receive tutoring on a college campus, which they may have never seen.”

Many other VISTAs have followed a similar path, going into graduate programs at Brandeis, Harvard, New York, Princeton and Stanford universities.

“Community partnerships inspire the work of the McLean Institute,” said Laura Martin, associate director. “We are thrilled to support VISTA members as they build capacity among our campus and community partners to impact quality of life in Mississippi.”

Nylander, too, said he was inspired by the success of the UM VISTA Project.

“We look forward to NMVP’s future growth and continued success.” n Albert Nylander (left) and members of the North Mississippi VISTA Project at the Fannie Lou Hamer statue in Ruleville.