Spring-Summer 2007 Millsaps Magazine by Millsaps College

SPRING–SUMMER 2007

From the President

One of the hallmarks of a Millsaps education is the emphasis that we place on service—to the College, to our neighbors, and to those everywhere in need of our assistance. It is through service that we really come to know who we are. Many of the students who enroll in college start their journeys with the thought of simply preparing for a career.While that is certainly important, it seems that at Millsaps something unexpected happens along the way. A fire is lit, a bell clangs, a door opens. Our students begin to see the world in a whole new way. In this issue of Millsaps Magazine, our alumni talk about the imperative to serve that influenced their experiences here and after. Shane Townsend, B.A. 2000, says that “at Millsaps, they really teach students to pay attention to the big questions and not to take things at face value. . . .They taught me to challenge everything.” Shane, whose life was altered forever by Hurricane Katrina, has created a career in emergency preparedness and disaster relief. Here on campus, the men of Lambda Chi Alpha stepped in to help Stewpot when it was burglarized in November.They provided food and money to an organization in dire straits.The efforts of these young men have increased every year—leading them to collect thousands of pounds of food for the homeless. There are as many ways to serve as there are people. George and Lynn Pickett have served Millsaps since their graduation, through their extensive volunteer efforts with the Annual Fund, advisory boards and committees, and their generous gift to the school of a substantial life insurance policy. You will also read about distinctive alumni service commended by Livesay Awards, Gerald Gafford’s gift of waterfront property in Oxford, Baker Harrell’s dedication to a nonprofit youth organization, and the life-altering inspiration provided by such stellar faculty members as Dr. George Bey and Dr. Darby Ray. It seems to me that at Millsaps, we live by the Methodist creed of “ open hearts, open doors, open minds.” I like to think that when students graduate from Millsaps, their hearts and minds are opened, and they are prepared to open doors for others for the rest of their lives. Warmly,

In This Issue f e a t u r e s

Binding a community, one string at a time Operation Shoestring’s relationship with Millsaps traces four decades.

The power of then Does a historical perspective clarify or cloud the perception of events?

MILLSAPS MAGAZINE spring-summer 2007 Executive Editor Patti Wade d i r e c t or o f c om m u n i c at i on s and marketing Design Kelley Matthews Contributing Editors John Webb Margaret Cahoon Scott Albert Johnson Lisa Purdie Becca Day Jason Bronson Kevin Maloney Major Notes Editor Tanya Newkirk a s s o c i at e d i r e c t or o f a l u m n i r e l at i on s

d e p a r t m e n t s On Campus 2 In the Spotlight 9 Fine Arts

Faculty & Staff 12 In the Spotlight 16 Campus Community

Administrative Officers Dr. Frances Lucas president Dr. Richard A. Smith s e n i or v i c e p r e s i d e n t a n d d e a n o f t h e c ol l e g e Louise Burney v i c e p r e s i d e n t f or f i n a n c e Dr. R. Brit Katz v i c e p r e s i d e n t f or s t u d e n t l i f e and dean of students Dr. Charles R. Lewis vice president f or i n s t i t u t i ona l a dva n c e m e n t Todd Rose v i c e p r e s i d e n t f or c a m p u s p ro g r a m s and alumni

Legacy 28 A Campaign Update Athletics 30 Majors on ESPN Radio Major Notes 35 In the Spotlight 41 Classnotes 46 In Memoriam Parting Word 49 For God and Home and Native Land

10 c ov e r p h ot o b y s h a n non f ag a n c ov e r m od e l s : h a rv e y h u n t, 2 0 0 8 , a n d m a ry i rv i n g

Editorial Assistants Sophia Halkias, 2009 Chris Spear, 2007

m i l l s a p s m ag a z i n e i s p u b l i s h e d b y m i l l s a p s c ol l e g e, 1 7 0 1 nort h s tat e s t r e e t, jac k s on, m s 3 9 2 1 0 - 0 0 0 1 , f or d i s t r i b u t i on t o a l u m n i , pa r e n t s o f s t u d e n t s, a n d f r i e n d s o f t h e c ol l e g e. p l e a s e s e n d a l u m n i u p d at e s a n d a d d r e s s c or r e c t i on s t o m i l l s a p s m ag a z i n e, c a r e o f t h e a b ov e a d d r e s s. you c a n r e ac h u s at 6 0 1 - 9 7 4 - 1 0 3 3 , b y f a x at 6 0 1 - 9 7 4 - 1 4 5 6 , or b y e m a i l at c om m u n i c at i on s @ m i l l s a p s. e d u. v i s i t w w w. m i l l s a p s. e d u f or t h e on l i n e m ag a z i n e.

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OnCampus

Members of Lambda Chi Alpha donated $4,118 and five cases of food to Stewpot Community Services after it was burglarized.

After Stewpot loss, a stirring gesture by LXA fraternity

After the Stewpot break-in, the men of LXA sprang to action and brought over all the food and money they had collected.

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In mid-November, the Gallatin Street warehouse for Stewpot Community Services was burglarized. The culprit escaped with around $4,000 worth of food, clothing, and other items. Word spread quickly around town and soon to Millsaps, and one group of generous men could not sit idly by. Members of the Theta-Eta chapter of the Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity at Millsaps have long considered Stewpot their primary philanthropy. In fact, the North American Food Drive, LXA’s national philanthropy, was started by the efforts of the LXA chapter at Millsaps. The breakin occurred just three nights into the food drive this year. The men sprang to action and immediately brought over all the money they had collected up to that point—$4,118—and five large cases of packaged food. From there, they continued with the food drive, and throughout the week they would deliver to Stewpot whatever funds were collected. They distributed bags with fliers that explained their mission and

attached envelopes addressed to Stewpot so that donors could mail in their checks directly. “We even had people from the immediate neighborhoods and a doctor from a local hospital come by our house to drop off donations,” said Luke Darby, the LXA vice president of external relations. Another break-in occurred later that week. There wasn’t much left for the thief to take, but some of the losses included a piece of furniture and some canned tomatoes. “We actually found out about the second break-in while we were doing another run” of food collection for the shelter, remembered Darby. “I was talking to a couple of women at one house; one of them mentioned it and even showed me an article on it in The Clarion-Ledger.” The loss wasn’t great, and the hard work of the men of LXA wasn’t affected. They continued to press on to help. The totals for the LXA food drive have gone up every year, and for each of the past three years the surrounding neighborhoods have helped collect more than 100,000 pounds of food for Stewpot.

—Becca Day

and management. They will also have the opportunity to take part in business communication and career development workshops. The faculty of the Else School of Management will teach these courses, and students will take part in simulated From the time children are very young business experiences with professionals— they are encouraged to follow their dreams. true experts in the field. Each week, a The mantra that “you can be anything you different business leader will serve as either want to be” echoes through homes across a guest lecturer or as a host at a company America. or business. But often when the child-turned“The Millsaps Business Advantage is an college-student does follow his or her intense program,” said Howard McMillan, passion and chooses to study philosophy or dean of the Else School. “This nongraded, Greek or the arts, parents will sometimes elective course minimizes culture shock demand, “But, while introducing darling, what can you students to the basic do with that?” concepts of business. The Millsaps Liberal arts majors Business Advantage who complete this Program can help program will be students and parents better equipped to find a balance. The relate the subject premise for this matter of their certificate program chosen disciplines is that, regardless of to the professional their undergraduate community and to IT COULD MEAN THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE GREAT GATSBY AND OLIVER TWIST. major, students will present themselves to probably end up potential employers working in some as well-rounded type of business candidates.” environment. This The Ramey training can help Agency, an advertising nonbusiness students firm that developed gain an edge over a the Else campaign competitor in the same field. “Business for people with no business in “Our basis for this program was business,” uses a lighthearted, humorous to help these students understand the approach to market the program. One ad fundamentals of how organizations work, features a young artist with a headline whether they are nonprofit or for-profit,” that reads, “It could mean the difference said Dr. Kim Burke, professor of accounting between a starving artist and a visionary.” and the chair of business administration. Another ad features a student dressed “Nonbusiness students can learn those in business attire while sporting an skills on the job, or they can take advantage idiosyncratic hairstyle. The headline of this program and enter an organization explains, “We are not asking you to sell already introduced to these concepts.” out, just diversify.” The program will take place during the Marketing efforts will target current regular summer session and last for four Millsaps students during this first year. weeks. Students will explore key topics in The goal is to expand the program to accounting, economics, finance, marketing, include students from other colleges and

Else School sharpens the business end of the liberal arts

Millsaps Business Advantage is an intensive summer program designed especially for non-business students. We’ll introduce you to the principles of economics, accounting, finance, marketing and management – so you can knock out a decent resumé in addition to that novel. 601-974-1250 millsaps.edu/esom/bap

BUSINESS ADVANTAGE

BUSINESS FOR PEOPLE WITH NO BUSINESS IN BUSINESS.

universities as the program progresses. Rising juniors and seniors, as well as recent graduates, are encouraged to participate. “The program is incredibly exciting because it capitalizes on the liberal and business education offered by the College,’’ Burke said. “Students at Millsaps are encouraged to follow their passions, and for nonbusiness students this program supplements what students learn in their various disciplines with the basics of what they will need to know—whether they work in a retail organization, a doctor’s clinic, or an artist’s studio.” This year’s program has been set for June 4–29. To register, or for more information, contact Martha Lee in the Else School of Management at 601-974-1250 or visit www.millsaps.edu/esom/bap/ index.shtml.

—Lisa Purdie

An introduction to Millsaps by way of Yucatán campus Millsaps College is preparing to open doors and minds in a whole new way to a whole new generation. Over winter break, Harvey Fiser, assistant professor of business law, and admissions staff members traveled to the College’s southern campus in Yucatán. They spent five nights at the Else School of Management’s new facility, the Center for Business and Culture in Yucatán. Located in Mérida, this house, with its open-air atrium, stucco walls, and terra-cotta tile floors, serves as the home base for many of the College’s international programs, as well as the International Business Advantage for High School Students. International Business Advantage is a two-week summer program designed to cultivate cultural awareness and an international understanding of business in a developing market. The program offers exemplary high school students the opportunity to understand the international

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Remembering King With a Day of Service Some 200 members of the Millsaps College and Tougaloo College communities convened on the Millsaps campus in January for a breakfast meeting of fellowship and commemoration in honor of the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. Speakers (above from left to right) included Dr. Beverly Hogan, president of Tougaloo College; the Reverend Ross Olivier of Galloway Memorial United Methodist Church; and Dr. Frances Lucas, president of Millsaps College. Following the breakfast, which included an Indian dance performance (top), the communities were invited to participate in a day of service in the Midtown area and a prayer vigil held at Tougaloo College. —Becca Day

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dimensions of business by allowing them to interact with business faculty and to immerse themselves in an emerging economy on a five-day trip to Yucatán. Students will spend the first week of the program on the Millsaps campus studying international business and culture. Then they will fly to Mérida, a city of nearly a million people and home to a wealth of educational resources. While in Mérida, students will have the opportunity to speak with government authorities about the challenges of international business, as well as Mexico’s goals for international investors. Side trips will include a night in the jungle at the Helen Moyers Biocultural Reserve, which incorporates an excellently preserved Maya city. At the reserve, the group will experience ecotourism as they sleep in hammocks and explore a working archaeological dig. Not for the faint of heart, the observation tower, located at one of the highest points on the property, provides a breathtaking view of the reserve and surrounding jungle. En route, students will travel through the village of Oxkutzcab and explore its local market, where vendors and families sell everything from live pigs to flowers to shoes. Here, students will experience the culture of rural Mexico in contrast to cosmopolitan Mérida. Students will also visit Chichen Itza, a magnificent display of enormous Maya ruins, including an ancient pyramid. A trip to the Port of Progresso, home to one of the world’s largest piers, will give students the chance to see the operation of a major international port. This program is designed for rising high school seniors with cumulative grade point averages of at least 3.4. These students should have an interest in business and be considering attending Millsaps. Those students who complete the program and are subsequently admitted to Millsaps will also receive a scholarship. By opening Millsaps to high school students, the International Business Advantage program shares the quality of education and extraordinary range of

experiences that the College has to offer. Meanwhile, the Else School is providing a mind-opening opportunity for high school students by immersing them in the economic, cultural, and legal aspects of international business.

—Heather Anderson

For the café set, a new atmosphere for work and play A buzz has been brewing on campus during the past several months over plans to transform the cottage next to John Stone Hall into a coffeehouse and restaurant. The Student Body Association has given its input on the café to the Division of Student Life, the project is nearing the construction phase, and the current schedule has the opening slated for fall 2007. “We have an ongoing desire to create spaces that have not traditionally been available for students to gather on campus,” said Todd Rose, vice president for campus programs and alumni. The coffeehouse is a significant step toward achieving that goal. “The majority of our residential students live on south campus,” Rose said, “so we looked for something that would provide a great opportunity for them to get together and a place that seems reasonably closer to them. We also wanted to provide alternatives for late at night, because the Kava House was not open and wasn’t seen as central to the students.” The cottage is the lone surviving structure in what was once a row of residences south of the Christian Center. Dave Woodward, the head chef at the

Caf’, grew up there when his father, Jack Woodward, B.A. 1951, was dean of students. When Dr. Rushton Johnson, current assistant dean of students and director of residence life, recently moved from the cottage to another residence on campus, it provided an opportunity to create an unusual space. “The cottage has two bedrooms,” Rose said. “The master bedroom is going to be a room that people can reserve for a meeting on campus; everything else in there is going to be open seating. It has wireless internet access like the rest of the campus, and we’re going to put in power outlets so that people can plug in their computers and save battery power. It’s going to end up being a kind of low-key, informal gathering spot.” Meetings with contractors and builders have already taken place, and plans for renovation are extensive. “We’re going to build a front porch,” Rose said, “so on the majority of days you could be outside, enjoying the outdoors and being part of the campus, but still feel like you’re somewhere that’s very different from anyplace else.” Part of the appeal of the project lies in the decision to sell a limited selection of beers to students, faculty, and staff who can drink legally. Rose characterized the decision as an “experiment” but expressed optimism about its implementation. “Beer will of course be served only to those 21 and older,” he said, “and it will be served in bottles or aluminum cans so we can see who is drinking what. The last thing we want to do is to set ourselves up for an unsuccessful stab at this. If the students obey the rules and we all play by the same rule book, then it will work out and will turn out to be a very minor part of the facility.” Rose said he thought there might be an “initial luster” to the availability of beer on campus, but that ultimately the coffeehouse would become what it had been designed to be. “I think as time goes on students will gather there, and one student will have a beer and another student may have a cup of

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coffee,” Rose said. “Or there may be just a bunch of individuals sitting around typing on their laptops and doing other things. “My hope is that you will see faculty members meeting with students there, or faculty committee meetings, or staff members meeting there for lunch. I hope it will be one of the best places for everybody to come together. I hope to see a coach with a recruit down there, I hope to see a faculty member with an advisee going over an honors paper, I expect to see the president down there having a cup of coffee with a trustee or showing a campus visitor around.” Rose summed up his vision, saying, “I

supportive of the idea,” he said. “They’re the ones that are saying, ‘We’ve been wanting something like this for a long time. … This is great!’ ” One of those suggestions involved making the sound system iPod-friendly. “Ashley had the idea,” Rose said, “so that a student can come in on a given night, plug in his iPod and play whatever playlist he wants to play and provide the music for the night. So it can be a much more personal and up-to-date environment.” McPhail and other students have also contributed concepts for the menu, which Rose promises will be unlike anything already available on campus. “Valley Foods

expect the coffeehouse to be pretty central to what happens informally on campus—a place where everybody can find something or someone interesting.” “I am really excited about the coffeehouse,” said Ashley McPhail, a senior who started working on the project as first vice president of the SBA in 2006, and who continues to work closely with the student government and Rose. “I feel that our campus needs some other social settings, and the coffeehouse will be able to provide that. There will be a room that different clubs and groups can rent out. It will also have room for acoustic groups to play out on the porch.” Rose praised McPhail and the SBA for their input on the project. “Students have been really good at giving creative ideas and suggestions, and they have been very

provides our food service on campus,” he said, “and we’ve asked them to come up with a menu that is very different. So Chef Dave has created a menu with things like sweet potato fries and other items that some people might call ‘bar food’—kind of nontraditional food that you would have the munchies for late at night. There will be some salads, there’ll be some unique sandwiches.” A few details remain to be worked out, but the project is moving ahead. “We’re going to work with student government on naming the cottage, which we are going to do this spring,” Rose said, adding with a laugh, “Once we start drilling holes and moving walls, I’ll be much happier. We’re just about to get to that point.” —Jason Bronson

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College recognized for Millsaps Magazine Millsaps College won an award for its magazine at the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE) District III Conference in Nashville in February. Millsaps Magazine, published by the Office of Communications, received a Special Merit Award in the category of alumni magazines among institutions with fewer than 5,000 in enrollment. Millsaps Magazine was among 1,100 entries submitted in 46 categories. CASE officials announced that 275 of the 1,100 entries received recognition in the awards ceremony. CASE District III is made up of educational institutions in Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia. The two most recent issues of Millsaps Magazine were submitted for judging. Millsaps Magazine also won the top PRism Award at the Public Relations Association of Mississippi’s 2006 conference in Oxford.

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Spengler honored at Founders Day for his legacy to Millsaps In February, Millsaps College celebrated Founders Day, an annual commemoration of the founding of the College in 1890 by Reuben Webster Millsaps, Charles Betts Galloway, and William Belton Murrah. The celebration included a luncheon to honor Founders Society members and those who have established scholarships at the College. Scholarship donors and their recipients had the opportunity to become acquainted over lunch. The Millsaps Founders Society comprises people and organizations who have played a profound role in shaping the future of the College through lifetime gifts to Millsaps of $1 million or more. This year, Founders Day recognized the late Thomas Spengler, B.A. 1942, who left the majority of his estate, including his Belhaven home, to Millsaps. His gift established the Thomas L. Spengler Memorial Endowed Scholarship Fund to benefit students majoring in English or theatre. Dr. Frances Lucas, president of the College and host of the Founders Day festivities, invited Cari Taylor, a senior from Long Beach majoring in psychology, to address the crowd of nearly 170 guests. Taylor described how much her scholarship and her time at Millsaps meant to her. “Thank you for giving us a chance to change our lives—a chance to find the true purpose of our lives,” said Taylor, choking back tears. “Thank you for giving us a chance to succeed in this world. I don’t

know what my life would have been like without Millsaps College, but I know, and I’m sure that you all agree, that I will never want to find out what my life would be like without Millsaps College.” Following Taylor’s speech, Spengler was posthumously inducted into the Founders Society. Lucas spoke warmly of him, saying that he was “a dear friend to Millsaps College and a true original.” She described his impact on the city of Jackson, his lengthy career in advertising, his involvement in New Stage Theatre, and his love for Millsaps. Attending on behalf of Spengler were his friends Miriam Weems, Ann Brock, and Marjorie Underwood, the women he called “the three reasons why I never married.” The keynote speaker for the event was Dr. T. W. Lewis III, professor emeritus of religion at Millsaps. Lewis, a beloved member of the faculty, is known as an academic innovator for his work in developing the Heritage program (see related story, page 35). He has been a mentor to students, a moral and spiritual leader, and a devoted alumnus. “In a Founders Day celebration, it is appropriate to recall the founders’ challenge,” said Lewis, “as well as the way their work and gifts call and challenge us.” Lewis stated his belief that we should “be knowledgeable and deep enough in our own faith that we may be able to explore and understand the faith and cultures of all world citizens.” The luncheon was adjourned to the Millsaps bell tower for the unveiling of Spengler’s plaque. “Tom would have loved this,” Weems said, smiling, “all these friends gathered here on this beautiful day.” Dick Wilson, another of Spengler’s friends, wore a bowtie that had belonged to Spengler so that “a little bit of his history and character” would be tangibly present at the ceremony.

—B. D.

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Picketts’ life insurance to benefit Else School and the liberal arts George, B.A. 1966, and Lynne, B.A. 1965, Pickett have strong ties to Millsaps College. A number of their family members attended Millsaps, especially on George’s side of the family. In fact, his grandfather, Robert Ezelle, was chair of the Millsaps Board of Trustees in the 1950s. His mother’s two brothers, Robert Jr. and Fred, attended Millsaps. George’s father, George Sr., along with five of his six siblings, attended Millsaps and was honored as Alumnus of the Year in 1972. Five of the Picketts’ nieces and nephews are Millsaps graduates, and George met Lynne at Millsaps. This past year, Lynne and George Pickett made a gift to Millsaps in the form of a substantial life insurance policy. The premium payments are made by the College and funded by the Picketts’ yearly contributions. The gift will benefit both the Else School and the College’s liberal arts programs because “quality of life doesn’t start and end with the business school,” George said. Why a gift of life insurance? “Life insurance is synthetic capital,” George explained. “Some people can give current capital from their surplus, but for people who don’t have surplus capital, they can create capital by leveraging life insurance to give the kind of gift they’d really like to give.” The gift strengthens a long-standing relationship. “We’ve been closely involved with the College for a long time,” George said. Lynne agreed, describing her volunteer work with Millsaps after they graduated. Both George and Lynne were members of the Millsaps Singers and Troubadours during their college years, and Lynne directed the Troubadours in the mid1970s, even taking a group of students to Romania in 1974.

George Pickett, chair of the Else School Advisory Board, and his wife, Lynne, who has been a volunteer for the College.

George is a past chair of the Millsaps Annual Fund and currently serves as chair of the Else School Advisory Board. As a partner in the life insurance company of Pickett, Bradford & Associates, George is mindful of the role the economy plays in our society, and he is proud of the Else School’s combination of a liberal arts curriculum with a progressive business mission. “The key components of society are human, social, political, and certainly economic,” George said. “If you’re not intentional on that front, you’re missing the boat.” George, who earned his law degree from the University of Mississippi after graduating from Millsaps, believes that his liberal arts education was the springboard for his business career. “If all Millsaps alums went into ‘liberal arts’ careers, Millsaps would not be the institution it is today,’’ he said. “Millsaps began because of the vision of its founders and the capital of Major [Reuben] Millsaps.” The Picketts are pleased that their legacy will be one of helping Millsaps provide an excellent education for future generations. “Tuition doesn’t cover costs at any school,” George said. “We have an obligation to repay Millsaps for all we’ve gained and to ensure that it continues.” For more information on making

a gift to Millsaps, contact the Office of Development at 601-974-1023 or visit www.millsaps.edu.

—Nancy Seepe

On the waterfront: Gafford donates site in Oxford to Millsaps Gerald Alexander Gafford came to Millsaps in the 1940s by way of some challenging family circumstances. Gafford lost his mother when he was only 10 years old and his father when he was 14. Saddened but determined to succeed, he graduated as the valedictorian from his high school at the tender age of 16. “Some ladies in my church decided I needed to go to college, so they got me a scholarship at Wood Junior College,” remembered Gafford. “I milked 32 cows twice a day in return for my scholarship.” During Gafford’s first year at Wood, when World War II was in full swing, he met a Millsaps student who convinced him to join the Navy’s V-5 Program (which later became the V-12 Program) and transfer to Millsaps College. Gafford agreed, and by age 17 he had enlisted in the Navy and enrolled at Millsaps.

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engaged in a life of Christian faithfulness, and it will encourage them to share their faith with others,” said Calvin Wells, Mrs. Wittel’s attorney and friend. “Scholarship giving is a top priority for us,” said Dr. Frances Lucas, president of the College, “and we are truly grateful for Mrs. Wittel’s thoughtful gift. Her life will be honored through the generations of students who will benefit from her generosity.” The Wittel Scholarship Fund will award scholarships based on a student’s Christian faith rather than financial need. “The scholarship will assist Millsaps students who have demonstrated interest in Christian service through their home churches,” said Wells, “and I am pleased that Mrs. Wittel’s plans have been put into action.” President Frances Lucas and Gerald Gafford, who transferred to Millsaps in the 1940s under the Navy’s V-5 (later V-12) program.

Fast-forward to this past year, when Gafford gave Millsaps College a gift of property—a waterfront lot in an exclusive Oxford subdivision. The gift, made via a simple transfer of title, will benefit the Navy V-12 Memorial Scholarship, which is awarded annually to a student based on merit and leadership. “The V-12 Program was very important in my early life, and in the rest of my life,” Gafford said. “I wanted my gift to be a part of the V-12 Scholarship.” In his younger days, Gafford was totally unprepared for Millsaps. His small Union County high school had never introduced him to the necessary subjects of geometry or calculus—“I’d never even heard of them!” Still, with grit, determination, and the help of a friend who “pounded calculus into me,” Gafford thrived at Millsaps. He later transferred to the University of Oklahoma to join the Reserve Officer Training Corps program. Gafford spent 10 years as an aviator in active Navy service before retiring his commission to enter law school at the University of Mississippi. After earning a law degree, he worked in the legal department at Shell Oil Company, but

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—N. S.

an offer of a partnership in a law firm encouraged him to return to Oxford, where he still lives today. When asked why he decided to give so much to Millsaps, Gafford replied without hesitation, “Because Millsaps gave me a lot!” For more information on making a gift to Millsaps College, contact the Office of Development at 601-974-1023 or visit www.millsaps.edu.

—N. S.

From Wittel family, a scholarship based on Christian merit Millsaps College has received a gift from the estate of Sam and Burnice Wittel to establish the Sam and Burnice Wittel Endowed Scholarship Fund. The scholarship honors the life of Mrs. Wittel, B. S. 1935, a woman of devout faith. “Mrs. Wittel was interested in a scholarship at Millsaps, and this scholarship will benefit Christian students who are

Chili bean counters The men of the Millsaps chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon held the seventh annual Chili Bowl in March on a beautiful day in the Millsaps Plaza. The chili cook-off raised $11,000, the most in Chili Bowl history. Proceeds from the event go to the Lifeshare Foundation, a local organization that works on behalf of Mississippi’s most at-risk and underprivileged children. —B. D.

OnCampus Les lettres D’Amour: Playwright realizes her dramatic visions

Stanley “explores issues of obsession, loss, and desire, touching especially on the recent losses incurred by our hometown of New Orleans.”

Since graduating from Millsaps with a double major in theatre and English, Lisa D’Amour, B.A. 1991, now a three-year resident of Brooklyn, has spent significant time in Minneapolis, Houston, Santa Barbara, and her native New Orleans in conjunction with her writing career—sometimes to teach and sometimes to oversee productions of the plays she has written. “The nature of being an emerging playwright these days is to be very transient,” D’Amour says. After spending her junior year in an exchange program at Hunter College in New York City, D’Amour came back to Millsaps and directed the play Top Girls by Caryl Churchill as her senior thesis. “It was really fabulous to have the support of Lance Goss and Brent Lefavor as I was directing this ambitious work,” she recalls. After graduation, her internship with the National Playwrights Conference at the Eugene O’Neill Center in Connecticut inspired her to go home to New Orleans and start “writing and directing like mad,” as she puts it. She later attended an M.F.A. program at the University of Texas-Austin. In October and November 2006, D’Amour directed her brother Todd in the multimedia one-man show Stanley at HERE in New York City. “The piece is a riff on the character of Stanley Kowalski from A Streetcar Named Desire,” D’Amour says, “and explores issues of obsession, loss, and desire, touching especially on the recent losses incurred by our hometown of New Orleans.” D’Amour received a residency grant from the National Endowment for the Arts/Theatre Communications Group to

write Hide Town for Infernal Bridegroom Productions in Houston. “We visited Texas ghost towns and small towns, and I wrote a play inspired by our experiences,” D’Amour says of her inspiration for Hide Town. “Many of the towns felt like they were dying, or were already gone altogether.” The play, which debuted in 2006, is set in a Texas saloon during a future ice age. The bar’s patrons may well be the last people on earth. Another side of D’Amour’s vision of Texas ran at Minneapolis’s Children’s Theatre Company this year in the form of Tales of aWest Texas Marsupial Girl. The show is a children’s musical about a girl born in West Texas with a marsupial pouch. D’Amour is currently finishing a play that deals with issues of gentrification in New York City, and in May she will present Bird Eye Blue Print, a site-specific performance created for a vacant office in lower Manhattan.

—Margaret Cahoon

Native writer comes home “Oh my gosh!” Margaret McMullan exclaimed when she heard about the exam that Dr. Suzanne Marrs, professor of English, had recently given her students. “I’m on an exam with them?” She was referring to the celebrated Mississippi authors Richard Ford and Ellen Douglas. McMullan, an acclaimed author and Mississippi native herself, came to campus in late February to give a public reading and talk to Marrs’s Southern Literature and Culture class—the same class that had recently studied and been tested on McMullan’s book How I Found the Strong. During the class meeting, students asked McMullan about her character development, her creative process, how she got started as a writer, and balancing her work as a teacher with her work as a writer. McMullan is a professor of English at the University of Evansville in Evansville, Indiana, and received an M.F.A. in fiction from the University of ArkansasFayetteville. spring–summer 2007 —M. C.

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From left, Austin Tooley as Pseudolus, Cody Stockstill as Erronius, and J.R. Braun as Hysterium.

Players’ toga party In February, The Millsaps Players presented the musical A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum. The production was directed by Brent Lefavor, associate professor of theatre and technical director, with choreography by Linda Mann and music direction by Harlan Zackery. The show included performances by sophomore Austin Tooley, sophomore David Lind, junior Jacqueline Coale, and freshman Andrew Fredericks. This performance of A Funny Thing was dedicated to Dr. Catherine Freis, professor of classics, who is retiring from Millsaps this year. The Players’ 83rd season continued in April with Milan Stitt’s The Runner Stumbles, with guest director Anne Sullivan.

Roxie Randle as Vibrata, Austin Tooley as Pseudolus, and Miles Sugar as Marcus Lycus.

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FacultyChat The choice is ours . . . and yours The Chronicle of Higher Education has

Dr. Frances Lucas President of Millsaps College

Dr. Michael Galaty Associate Professor of Anthropology

published a series on the growing divide between wealthy and financially disadvantaged colleges and universities. Most privileged institutions do little to recruit students eligible for Pell Grants— those who lack the financial resources to pay for college. In fact, the vast majority of students enrolled at the wealthiest, most selective colleges and universities in America—those institutions most capable of paying for larger numbers of disadvantaged students—are from privileged households. In short, the rich colleges enroll predominately rich students. In contrast, those colleges and universities that do enroll large numbers of disadvantaged students typically have very small endowments and are driven by tuition. Therefore, they are least able to absorb the costs of enrolling them. Consequently, the overall percentage of disadvantaged college students is shrinking. Yet small liberal arts colleges like Millsaps that don’t have tremendously deep pockets do manage to enroll a large number of disadvantaged students. Millsaps has a history of enrolling disadvantaged students. In fact, for the last 10 years, an average of 25 percent of our students have been Pell Grant-eligible. We are one of the few nationally recognized liberal arts colleges to have such a high percentage. At Millsaps we have a historical mission of reaching out to the economically disadvantaged. During Reconstruction, when the College was founded, through the Great Depression, most of Mississippi was impoverished. We adhered to that mission during that time by default. But during the 1960s, when the Millsaps College Board of Trustees voted to integrate the campus at great cost and peril, opening up the school to more Mississippians, it was a choice—and it was the right one. In the 1980s and ’90s, Millsaps

prospered as Mississippi itself began, slowly, to show signs of prospering. Much of this new prosperity was shattered in August 2005 when Hurricane Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast. Thirty percent of the College’s traditional recruiting market became financially damaged overnight. Today, we stand at a crossroads. We have embarked on a major capital campaign, Legacy: A Campaign for Millsaps College, which we expect to increase our endowment. Our academic program grows stronger by the year. And yet we do not want academic and financial success to distract us from our historical mission. While it is unlikely that we will ever have billions to spend, we do now feel called to reaffirm our commitment to the disadvantaged of our state and country. The faculty, administration, and Board of Trustees have set the strategic goal to increase need-based scholarship money while aspiring to more national prowess. Accomplishing this objective at the same time will be exceedingly difficult; doing so while maintaining a 25 percent Pell Granteligible student body might be impossible.

But we are determined to try! Recruiting and retaining students who have severely limited resources requires real commitment—a commitment that transcends statistics, that is maintained in the face of change. Our commitment to social justice did not happen by accident. It was and is a choice. We hope that each of you will join us in committing to Millsaps College by contributing to the Legacy campaign and reaffirming the ideals upon which the College was founded.

– Dr. Frances Lucas and Dr. Michael Galaty Debra McIntosh, the College archivist, contributed to this piece.

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FacultyStaff & McGuire is named 2006 Professor of the Year for Mississippi In November, Dr. Sarah Lea McGuire, professor of biology, was named 2006 Professor of the Year for Mississippi by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE). McGuire was selected from faculty members nominated by colleges and universities throughout the country. “Dr. McGuire is a marvel,” wrote Dr. Richard A. Smith, senior vice president and dean of the College, in his letter nominating McGuire for the competitive teaching award. “She appears to be one of those rare individuals who can do it all. She is a superb teacher and a nationally recognized scholar.” McGuire’s scholarship focuses on identifying, cloning, and characterizing new fungal genes that are involved in controlling cell division, and her teaching covers courses from Introductory Cell Biology to Science and Society. She has been instrumental in developing courses for the Millsaps Core Curriculum that provide broad, challenging exposure to chemistry, biology, physics, and geology. “No one works alone in science,” McGuire said. “No one accomplishes anything without the support of others around them. I’ve been fortunate all of my life to have wonderful people surrounding

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me, supporting me, and encouraging me. From the day I arrived at Millsaps, I have been supported by the College, the science division, the biology department, and the students.” CASE established the Professor of the Year program in 1981, and the Carnegie Foundation became the co-sponsor a year later. TIAA-CREF, a leading financial service organization, became the primary sponsor for the awards ceremony in 2000. Higher education associations, including Phi Beta Kappa, offer additional support for the program. This year there were winners in 43 states, Guam, and the District of Columbia. CASE assembled two preliminary panels of judges to select the finalists, and the Carnegie Foundation then convened the third and final panel, which selected four national winners. CASE and Carnegie select the state winners from top entries resulting from the judging process. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching was founded in 1905 by Andrew Carnegie “to do all things necessary to encourage, uphold, and dignify the profession of teaching.” CASE is the largest international association of education institutions, serving more than 3,200 universities, colleges, schools, and related organizations in 54 countries.

—Margaret Cahoon

Sypniewski wins Outstanding Young Faculty Award Dr. Holly Sypniewski, assistant professor of classics, was named the recipient of this year’s Millsaps Outstanding Young Faculty

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Award. The award carries with it a cash prize of $1,000 and a one-semester release from teaching to support the winner’s scholarly activities. Sypniewski plans to spend her release time developing a college-level text and commentary on Horace’s Ars Poetica. Sypniewski graduated cum laude from the University of Cincinnati with a B.A. in classics. She then earned an M.A. and a Ph.D. in classics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She has taught at Millsaps since 2002 and strives, as she says, “to emphasize the skills of critical thinking and expression” in all her classes. She also “aims to educate students to analyze antiquity without modern cultural biases, while valuing important correlations between past and present.” As a scholar, Sypniewski works with both Greek and Latin texts. She is the author of two articles—one of which has been accepted for publication, with the other under review—a third article scheduled to be submitted for publication, seven conference papers, and six invited lectures. She was also selected to participate in a National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar in 2005. Sypniewski’s book about Ars Poetica is intended to make Horace’s influential poem about poetry accessible to undergraduate students or to readers in other academic areas who have an interest in literary theory. She will devote much of her time to writing and hopes to complete her book by December.

Answer: None of the above. But ask Dr. Timothy Ward, professor of chemistry and associate dean of sciences at Millsaps, about chirality, and you can come to understand it. In a nutshell, chirality comes from the Greek word “chiral,” meaning handedness. On one hand, there’s the left; on the other, there’s the right. And while our hands are mirror images of each other, they are not

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be awarded this distinction. “My award as chair of the meeting is a direct reflection on the significance of research at Millsaps,” Ward said. “We are heavily involved in addressing several basic research questions about the antibiotic vancomycin, which is used in the prevention and treatment of infections caused by gram-positive bacteria. Previous research has shown that vancomycin is a

—M. C. Dr. Timothy Ward uses a model of a molecule to explain chirality to freshman Erin Redman and sophomore Matthew Oglesbee.

Ward ushers in the Age of Chirality as symposium chair Toss out the word “chirality” at your next dinner party, and you’ll quickly realize it’s not a household word. Is it a new Pilates move? Maybe a chiropractic technique? A personality trait? Some kind of charity?

superimposable; for example, you can’t fit a left-handed glove in one made for a right hand, and vice-versa. Thanks to his authoritative grasp of the subject matter, Ward will be among those world-renowned scientists at the 19th International Symposium on Chirality this July in San Diego (www.chirality2007. org). Ward has been chosen to serve as chair; he is the first and only professor from an undergraduate institution ever to

good chiral selector, so we are studying the mechanism of separation.” Dr. Richard A. Smith, senior vice president and dean of the College, praised Ward for this outstanding accomplishment and its impact on the College. “Serving as chair of the symposium is a huge honor for Ward and Millsaps College. It speaks to his standing in the field of chirality, his credentials as one of the best teacherscholars at Millsaps, and, most importantly,

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to the quality of the learning experiences of the many undergraduates who work with him on his research. We are indeed fortunate to have Dr. Ward at Millsaps College.” Ward explained that most biological molecules have chirality, and while there is no course in the Millsaps curriculum exclusive to chirality, it is covered in a variety of ways. “Chirality is first introduced in general chemistry as inherent in the properties of light based on its electric and magnetic field vectors,” Ward said. “In organic chemistry, chirality is essential in the properties of molecules and how they are arranged around the central atom. And biochemistry looks at proteins, lipids, DNA, carbohydrates, and nucleic acids and their biological properties, which in part are based on their chirality. The general phenomenon of chirality impacts many aspects of everyday life.” According to Ward, approximately 40 percent of the drugs in use are known to be chiral, and only about 25 percent are administered as pure enantiomers, meaning they have “right” and “left” hand molecules. Because of the chirality of many drugs, the pharmaceutical industry is heavily affected by the research concerning chiral separations. The phenomenon of chirality can be demonstrated by comparing medications used to treat depression. Antidepressants like Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Luvox— referred to as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors—have been studied to determine the differences in their pharmacological actions. If the “right hand” and “left hand” molecules (enantiomers) have meaningful differences in their therapeutic ratios, one can cause adverse consequences to the overall benefits for a patient. “Biological sciences are impacted with regards to each enantiomer’s physiological effect within the body,” Ward said. “The administration of ‘pure’ enantiomers is of great importance.” Ward used his expertise in this field last year, when he was called to be an

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expert witness in a federal trial involving a patent infringement case against Ivax Pharmaceuticals. The plaintiffs, Forest Laboratories and H. Lundbeck, current patent holders of the antidepressant Lexapro, sued Ivax for its attempt to patent a generic copy of the drug. Ward, who testified for Ivax, was asked if “one skilled in the art” could make this drug and indeed perform a separation. While Ward testified that this separation could be done, the court ruled in favor of the current patent holders. The case is now under appeal.

—Lisa Purdie

Fleming family leaves professor’s memoir to the Wilson library Dr. Neal Bond Fleming was a Millsaps professor from 1945 to 1962, and the ties that were created during his years here have influenced the Millsaps campus, Fleming’s family, and a group of his former students who are connected through ministry and friendship. The most recent connection is Fleming’s daughter’s gift to the MillsapsWilson Library of a copy of his book, Of Me and My Family, which includes descriptions of his experiences as a professor at Millsaps and at other colleges in Louisiana and Georgia. In the book, Fleming describes his thoughts on teaching, social change, and raising his family here. While at Millsaps, Fleming, his wife, Mary Louise, and their children lived on faculty row. He remembers days enjoying the beauty of the campus—of his children playing on the lawn, a fig tree in the yard,

and a student who gave them beautiful plants. Fleming was a professor and the chair of the religion and philosophy department and then of the philosophy department when the two separated. “We enjoyed living there, and we love the place,” Fleming remarked in a telephone interview from his home in Atlanta. “People there were so friendly. … That’s what I like most.” That affection for Millsaps was shared by other members of his family, including his eldest child, who completed a degree here. “I remember my days growing up on the Millsaps campus and as a student there with pleasure, especially the intelligent and caring teachers,” wrote his daughter Mary Dell Fleming Palazzolo, B.A. 1964, who sent the copy of Fleming’s memoirs to the library. Dr. and Mrs. Fleming set up a book fund in 1995 in honor of their eldest daughter and send an annual gift to the College in memory of their time at Millsaps. Fleming recalls his years at Millsaps as a time of development for himself and the students he taught. He describes his time spent here as “the opportunity for my growth intellectually, academically, and spiritually, and dealing with students and seeing them grow. I think I meant something to students.” “It would be almost impossible to say just which courses I enjoyed most,” Fleming wrote in his memoirs. “I liked them all. The best were when the students seemed to respond and to get the idea! It was exciting and challenging to see students meet new ideas. I enjoyed recognizing that students had studied, that they had open and eager minds, and seeing or feeling them grow.” Fleming’s influence on students is evident from the bonds he formed. In 2006, a group of Millsaps alumni from the early 1950s met in Tupelo for lunch and began to reminisce. Their time together led to a renewal of friendship with “one of their favorite professors” and to the establishment of a one-time sponsored scholarship in his honor.

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Dr. Roy Ryan, class of 1952, said those who contributed to the initial fund were alumni of both Millsaps College and Emory University, which was also Fleming’s alma mater. These contributors included Ryan; Dr. William Appleby, B.A. 1950; Bishop Clay Lee Jr., B.A. 1951; the Reverend Duncan Clark, class of 1952; the Reverend Edwin Curtis, B.A. 1952; the Reverend H. Lavelle Woodrick, B.A. 1952; the Reverend Glyn Wiygul, class of 1952; the Reverend Roy Eaton, class of 1952; the Reverend Donald Anderson, B.A. 1952; and Dr. Bryan Scarbrough, class of 1959. Others who would like to make a contribution in Fleming’s honor may contact the development office at 601-974-1023. Fleming, who turns 97 this year, lives with his wife in a United Methodist retirement home close to the Emory campus. They have been married for 67 years and have eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. All live in the Atlanta area except for those who live at Jekyll Island, Georgia. Besides the living testimony of admiring students, a written legacy of Fleming’s influence is summed up in the 1956 Bobashela, which was dedicated to him: “Millsaps College will continue to grow and prosper, and we are confident that many of her students will grow in mind, body, and spirit in the footsteps of one who will always be remembered and loved by those who have had the privilege of knowing him and his life.”

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A travel experience like no other! The Yucatàn Experience: 3000 Years of Maya Archaeology, Culture, and Cuisine January 7–14, 2008 Travel with Dr. George Bey, professor of anthropology and associate dean of international education at Millsaps, and Jay Schimmel, chef and owner of Schimmel’s, one of Jackson’s premier dining establishments.

Limited space is available. For more information visit: www.millsaps.edu/alumni_friends/yucatan Sponsored by the Office of Alumni Relations

—Patti Wade

Ring Cycle Leaders of the Senior Year Experience Committee have designed a new official Millsaps College ring featuring the Millsaps crest, motto, and bell tower, and the “M” logo. A ccording to the ring committee, their objectives were to “sculpt a ring that is not only tasteful, powerful, even elegant, but one that also bonds together current and past students as citizens of the Millsaps community.” All students who have successfully completed a minimum of 60 semester hours (junior class status), or who have completed one of the College’s graduate degree programs, are eligible to purchase a ring. The ring is available in women’s and men’s sizes in silvertone celestrium ($289.95) and 10-karat yellow gold ($379.95 for women, $449.95 for men), with the graduation year and degree etched on the side. For more information and an order form, call Balfour at 601-362-6990.

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FacultyStaff & Arts and Letters James Bowley (religious studies) published

Introduction to Hebrew Bible: A Guided Tour of Israel’s Sacred Library (Prentice Hall), a college textbook and study guide for the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament). In July, Bowley will be a visiting professor

Symphony Orchestra, coordinated the concert. Ramón Figueroa (modern languages)

had his book Los Equilibristas published earlier this year by Letra Gráfica. The book is a study of the short stories of Emilio S. Belaval (Puerto Rico), Juan Bosch (Dominican Republic), and Lino Novás

(English) edited Yone Noguchi’s novel The American Diary of a Japanese Girl (1902) for a new annotated edition published by Temple University Press in January. Franey contributed a new introduction and collaborated with Marx on other editorial tasks. Kathi Griffin (writing center) and peer writing tutors Emma Doineau, Jon-Mark Olivier, and John Yargo presented, as a panel, “[mis]Understanding Silence: No noise is not good noise,” at the 2007 Southeastern Writing Centers Association (SWCA) conference in Nashville. Griffin was also recently elected to the SWCA board as the 2007–08 at-large representative. Lynn Raley (performing arts) appeared as pianist with Marta Szlubowska-Kirk, violinist, and Alexander Russakovsky, cellist, in the debut of Trio Appassionato at Millsaps in January. The trio then toured for performances at the University of Southern Mississippi and at California State University-Fresno, where they opened the newly inaugurated San Joaquin Music Society chamber music series. Elise Smith (art) has had two articles accepted for publication: “‘The aged pollard’s shade’: Gainsborough’s Landscape

with Woodcutter and Milkmaid” (Eighteenth Century Studies) and “‘Whom the gods

love die young’: Evelyn De Morgan and the Legend of the Wandering Jew” (British Art Journal). in Prague for the Lessing Institute at the Anglo-americká vysoká škola (New AngloAmerican College) and will teach classes on biblical literature in Jewish, Christian, and Muslim cultures. Cheryl Coker (performing arts), soprano,

performed in Dublin in January with Lester Senter, mezzo-soprano, and Coleman Pearce, piano. The concert was performed in the Hugh Lane Gallery as part of a series. Pearce, former conductor of the Mississippi

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(Cuba) and their balancing of political and aesthetic concerns in their literary works. Amy Wiese Forbes (history) had an

article, “The Lithographic Conspiracy: How Satire Framed Liberal Political Debate in Nineteenth-Century France,” accepted for publication in the journal French Politics, Culture and Society. In collaboration with Edward Marx of Ehime University in Japan, Laura Franey

Marlys Vaughn (education) and a research

student, Ashley Runnels, presented a paper at the national Association of American College Teacher Educators (AACTE) conference in New York in February 2007. Sarah Wamester (modern languages) joined the department in September in a dual position as assistant professor of Spanish and director of the language laboratory. She is overseeing the installation of a fully digital language laboratory/smart

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classroom in Murrah Hall. In a joint venture with Julian Murchison (sociology-anthropology), Wamester has also begun a computer-assisted Directed Independent Language Study program at the College for Swahili language learners. Lola Williamson (religious studies) and Devparna Roy (sociology) presented their

research on Hinduism in Jackson at the Southeastern Commission for the Study of Religion Conference in Nashville in March. Williamson has also had a paper accepted for the American Academy of Religion Conference in San Diego in November 2007 and a paper for publication in Svadharma: Harvard’s Hinduism Journal. Both are on topics of American Hinduism. She has also organized and is chair of a new section for the American Academy of Religion called North American Hinduism.

Galaty delivered the paper “Projekti Lugina e Shales” (The Shala Valley Project) at the annual meeting of the Albanian Institute of Archaeology in Tirana, Albania, in December. An invitation to a foreign archaeologist to address the Institute at its annual meeting is considered a rare honor. Galaty, James Bowley, and Harvey Fiser (business law) have received a grant from

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November. The presentation centers on the inclusion of ethics, based upon the ACS Chemist Code of Conduct, as a topic in the senior chemistry seminar.

Staff Don Fortenberry (student life), serving as

Else School Ajay Aggarwal (management) has been

appointed to the review board of Journal of Business Disciplines. He and Ray Phelps (marketing) co-authored a paper entitled “MBA Students’ Wants and Needs: A Kano Approach.” The paper has been accepted for presentation at the 37th annual meeting of the Southeast Decision Sciences Institute in Savannah, Ga. Bill Brister and Walter Neely (both finance) presented a paper entitled “Endowment Asset Allocation and Rebalancing: The Effects of Lower Expected Risk Premiums” at the annual meeting of the Southern Finance Association in November.

Science George Bey and Michael Galaty (both

sociology-anthropology) organized a workshop on Mycenaean and Maya states for the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America in San Diego in January.

the Associated Colleges of the South to spend one week in Albania this June to develop an interdisciplinary study-abroad program for Millsaps students. Jimmie Purser (chemistry) had a presentation accepted for the national meeting of the American Chemical Society (ACS) in Chicago in March. The presentation is a follow-up to one he made at the combined Southeast/Southwest Regional ACS Meeting in Memphis last

minister for student missions, is coordinating student teams through the McNair Fund for Christian Missions to spend a month each this summer in India, Malawi, Romania, South Africa, and Zimbabwe. Nola Gibson (continuing education) was a

consultant to Davidson College in January as they planned their first Advanced Placement Institute.

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Nancy Gilbert, Shoestring’s original executive director, fields a call.

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In this 1969 photo, a young patient winces as a Hinds County nurse prepares to administer a shot at the Operation Shoestring medical clinic.

ife is not a solo performance. It requires cooperation and, sometimes, a helping hand. Millsaps College prides itself on its emphasis on service to others, as manifested in the Faith & Work Initiative and the new 1 Campus, 1 Community program. Millsaps strives to establish healthy and mutually beneficial relationships with partners throughout the Jackson metropolitan community to give real-life meaning to the philosophical and moral lessons taught here. One such partner is Operation Shoestring. Located on Bailey Avenue less than a mile from Millsaps, Shoestring (as it is affectionately called) serves the low-income community that surrounds it with after-school education and care, parenting and family literacy sessions, a food pantry, and more. The organization’s stated mission is “investing in the hearts and minds of our community,” while “serv[ing] as a ministry of empowerment and a rallying point for reconciliation in the larger community.” Founded in 1968 in the basement of Wells United Methodist Church on Bailey Avenue, Shoestring was intended to be a response to the struggles of the 1960s and the ugly intolerance that the turmoil of the civil rights movement revealed. The stereotype many still imagine when they think of the South—that of the hateful, vicious racist—was in fact confounded by the decent impulses of many Jackson residents of all races. Indeed, it was these impulses that led to the founding of Operation Shoestring, and the connection between Millsaps and Shoestring goes back to those dark days. In the summer of 1966, James Meredith—the first African American to attend the University of Mississippi—led a “March Against Fear” to call attention to civil rights abuses and racism. Shortly after beginning the 220-mile march from Memphis to Jackson, Meredith was wounded by a sniper. Dr. T. W. Lewis III, B.A. 1953 (see related story, page 35), an emeritus professor of religion and one of the College’s most beloved faculty members, was among those courageous local citizens who urged a sane and humane response to the Meredith shooting. “There were some community people who had been working in the area,” Lewis recalls. He said former Millsaps student Bob Kochtitsky, Tougaloo professor John Garner and his wife, “my Millsaps colleague Lee Reiff and his wife and I went to the NAACP to see what we could do to help. They said to help with voter recruiting.

“Millsaps shares some commitments with Operation Shoestring, and there’s so much that we can learn from them. We’re trying to accomplish some of the same communitybuilding things in our own Midtown neighborhood, which

“But the people and Edward McLauwho actually lived in borders the neighborhood served by Shoestring. They are an rin, B.A. 2005, have the neighborhood said all served as art inthat what they really agency that goes about their mission extremely well, and they structors. Even the orneeded was a place for ganization’s executive their children to play. director, Robert Langhave done it for a long time.” Mayor [Allen] Thompford, has a Millsaps son had closed the city connection: His wife, playground, Jaycee Park, to prevent its integration. So we secured the Betsy Bradley, B.A. 1984, recently won a Livesay Award and serves as use of some vacant lots and built swing sets and seesaws.” director of the Mississippi Museum of Art. What began as a small, though important, gesture of good will “The respective missions of Millsaps and Operation Shoestring evolved into a more sustained effort. are similar,” says Langford. “Our work is about empowering the “The minister at Wells, Russell Gilbert, asked us if we would community and bringing folks together to create greater wholeness come there and help with some of the deeper issues that they were in our larger community. Millsaps, it seems to me, is a place where dealing with in the community,” says Lewis. “They wanted to create the focus is not only on academic excellence; they also teach servant a mission to the neighborhood. So we went up there and started leadership and civic responsibility. giving tutorials to children from Galloway Elementary School, us“Millsaps understands this work very well, and they aren’t just ing Millsaps students as the tutors. That was the beginning of what talking about it; they’re doing it, and they have been doing it for became Operation Shoestring.” many decades. It’s a perfect fit, and we’re thrilled to be working with them, as we have been for nearly 40 years.” Bartlett says her Millsaps education gave her a lens through which to see the real, sometimes harsh world more clearly and compassionately. “Millsaps definitely made me appreciate my childhood, and so does Shoestring,” Bartlett says. “I grew up in a privileged environment compared to the kids who come here, and my Millsaps experience was instrumental in developing my awareness of that fact. I majored in political science, and I had professors like Dr. [Iren] Omo-Bare who helped me see the inequities in the ‘playing field’ and the importance of trying to address those inequities in society.”

illsaps s t u d e n t s also give their time to Shoestring on a regular basis, both through tutor ing at Shoestring’s Project KIDS afterSophomores Katie Collins and Emily Stewart with Shoestring kids Kadaria Thompson and Courtney Woods at the Delta Delta Delta school and summer programs and house in December of 2005. through the “Bunny Shoestring” and “Santa Shoestring” events that are Today, the Millsaps legacy at Operation Shoestring shows up sponsored by the Campus Ministry Team and hosted by campus among its staff, its board, and its volunteers. No fewer than four sororities. Shoestring students come to visit campus during the current board members are Millsaps graduates; Sarah Bartlett, B.A. Easter and Christmas seasons and rotate through the various 2003, Shoestring’s development coordinator, Lea Barton, B.L.S. houses, participating in arts-and-crafts activities hosted by the older 1996, an artist profiled in the fall 2006 issue of Millsaps Magazine, students.

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“The respective missions of Millsaps and Operation Shoestring are similar. Our work is about empowering the community and bringing folks together to create greater wholeness in our larger community. Millsaps, it seems to me,

Through these ac“There’s a great tivities and the on-site is a place where the focus is not only on academic excellence; m a r r i ag e b e t we e n tutoring, a bond develwhat we are doing in ops between the chilthe Bailey Avenue area they also teach servant leadership and civic responsibility.” dren and the young and what Millsaps is adults that mirrors the trying to accomplish connection between the two organizations. in Midtown,” agrees Langford. “It just makes sense.” “Millsaps shares some commitments with Operation ShoeWhile the College’s relationship with Operation Shoestring string, and there’s so much that we can learn from them,” says the clearly serves the greater good on a macro level, sometimes it’s Reverend Lisa Garvin, the Millsaps chaplain. “We’re trying to ac- easier to see the partnership’s benefits from a more intimate point complish some of the same community-building things in our own of view. Midtown neighborhood, which borders the neighborhood served “There is one kid who stands out to me,” says McLaurin, who by Shoestring. They are an agency that goes about their mission ex- started at Shoestring his freshman year as a work-study aide to artist tremely well, and they have done it for a long time. Barton, a fellow graduate and mentor, and now teaches art classes “I appreciate Robert Langford immensely as a friend and part- there. “He reminded me of myself when I first arrived at Millsaps. ner to our efforts. He’s a great sounding board for us as we continue His name was Deonte, and I remembered him from working there to try to expand and improve the College’s relationship with the when I was still in school. He was a good kid, but he got distracted larger community.” easily, and his behavior suffered for it. “He joined my class and started taking a real interest in art. He r . D arby R ay , associate professor of religious studies and the director of the College’s Faith & Work Initiative, describes how these efforts have begun to take shape in a more organized way. “We are committed to supporting the development of global citizens who care about the common good and are active and engaged in the community,” says Ray. “Through Faith & Work, we help students connect to lots of different service opportunities and internships. We touch a lot of different students, and different parts of the community that way.” The College recently expanded its Faith & Work Initiative through a new program called 1 Campus, 1 Community, which is supported in part by a $575,000 grant from the Hardin Foundation. This effort will deepen and broaden the College’s work with two sets of partners: the north Mid- Shoestring student Jacquesha Caffee and junior Tiffany Grimes at the Delta Delta Delta house. town neighborhood and the K-12 education community, which Ray calls neighbors in proximity and would even do artwork at home in his spare time, then bring it and neighbors in mission (respectively). She cites Operation Shoestring show it to me. He ended up becoming the star student in our class, as “a player in both worlds.” once he settled down and realized that he liked it and could do it. “They have experience and wisdom in addressing the chal“He gained some self-confidence and some self-discipline. For lenges that we face,” says Ray. “I see Operation Shoestring as a sort a lot of kids these days, that’s all it takes.” of brain trust from which the College can learn.”

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millsaps magazine

The Power of

Then

Does a historical perspective clarify or cloud the perception of events?

Margaret Cahoon

s a Millsaps student ’s education never ends, neither does the College’s energy and drive to make that education ever better, ever more rounded, and ever stronger. When the Millsaps College faculty instated the Core Curriculum in the early 1990s, the goal was for students to graduate with seven distinctive Liberal Arts Abilities. In the 2005–06 school year, the Liberal Arts Abilities were reconsidered and reborn. This thinking and rethinking is symptomatic of the larger and ongoing process of developing and maintaining an appropriate and ideal liberal arts curriculum for the College. Originally, the Liberal Arts Abilities numbered seven: Reasoning, Communication, Quantitative Thinking, Aesthetic Judgment, Global & Multicultural Awareness, Valuing & Decision-Making, and Historical Consciousness. So named, the Abilities were an effort to delineate what it was, exactly, that Millsaps intended to teach its students. In the 2005–06 school year, Dr. Michael Gleason and the Core Council’s primary agenda was to reevaluate that big question: What do we want our students to learn? “We open up students’ minds to the possibility of looking at and thinking about materials in new ways,” says Gleason, director of the Core Curriculum. “What they do with those materials—that’s

their call, that’s their choice. Which they accept or reject as worthwhile to pursue or valid, that’s entirely up to their skills of reasoning and communication. Accept or reject—I don’t care, but above all, develop a coherent ability to analyze and formulate persuasive arguments.” The Liberal Arts Abilities that were already in place “turned out to be, in fact, what we wanted our students to be learning,” says Gleason. Having decided that the Liberal Arts Abilities formed the foundation of a Millsaps education, Gleason says, the Core Council “looked at each one of those Abilities, defined them, and examined their implications. We considered adding, we considered subtracting, and what we actually did was reorganize and redefine the main abilities.” The redefinition was largely the result of faculty input. Over eight or nine months, faculty members were asked in a series of surveys to analyze and comment on the standing Liberal Arts Abilities. As a result, the Liberal Arts Abilities have been reorganized and restructured and now number four: Reasoning, Communication, Historical Consciousness, and Social & Cultural Awareness. “They’re all still the same—they’ve just been reorganized and, in my opinion, sharpened,” Gleason says. The question of Historical Consciousness and its definition was a particular point of contention, in part because of its original spring–summer 2007

definition as “the ability to understand the achievements, problems, and challenges of the present with perspectives gained from a study of the past.” “There were historians who became very upset that this socalled ability, Historical Consciousness, was based on an understanding of the present,” Gleason says. “The argument was made that Historical Consciousness should be linked first with an understanding of the past and use the past at least as a point of comparison.” Historical Consciousness, as opposed to its previous focus on the present, is now defined by the Core Council as “the ability to understand the achievements, problems, and perspectives of the past and to recognize their influence upon the course of events.”

he Liberal Arts Ability of Historical Consciousness is not an issue of memorization or even of a specific learning objective. “I don’t know that in teaching a history class I’ve ever said ‘Historical Consciousness,’ to be perfectly frank,” says Dr. Sanford Zale, associate professor of history. “I do think that it’s just what we do in history. I know the current definition—we try to understand the achievements

and problems of the past, and we try to see how they’ve influenced the course of events. Obviously, that is in fact what we are doing, among other things. It’s not the only thing we’re doing, but it is the most important thing that we’re actually doing, at least in my judgment, when we teach history.” The concepts of history and historicism are an intellectual issue for Dr. Steven Smith, professor of philosophy and religious studies and director of the Heritage program, whose academic interests include the philosophy of history. When he came to Millsaps in 1985, there were many things that he found encouraging about coming to the College and the state: “People at Millsaps had a sense of being a part of Mississippi history,” he says. With the College’s own trailblazing history in refusing to stand down on teaching evolution, in integrating and encouraging integration, in caring about the local public schools, there was a feeling, Smith says, of seeing Millsaps as the leader of progress. Millsaps is a product of its history, as students are a product of theirs. But there is a larger issue at stake here: Is history even real? Is there any single, objective perspective on the past that can be taught and learned? Is there one true story of civilization? “Where we

“We open up students’ minds to the possibility of looking at and thinking about materials in new ways. What they do with those materials—that’s their call. Accept or reject—I don’t care, but above all, develop a coherent ability to analyze and formulate persuasive arguments.” —Dr. Michael Gleason, Director Core Curriculum

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do have debates among Millsaps “Part of the fun of Heritage, faculty,” Smith says, “is whether certainly, is the interdisciplinary there’s anything stretching over nature of it,” says Gleason, who time and across cultures that’s cotaught in the Heritage program for herent and powerful enough that six years and served as its direcwe could all agree that it’s a realtor for three. “The historian, the ity and that our various courses religious studies professor, the lit should somehow serve as studies critic, and the philosopher every of history in this sense.” single day ask one another to look This debate is not limited to at this material with new eyes or faculty, either. “Right now my from a different angle or from Millsaps education is forcing me some perspective outside of their to question the very essence of area of expertise. It really is a fun, history,” says Meagan Malone, a fertile area of thought.” sophomore majoring in French On the other hand, Smith says and philosophy, with a concentrathat some students may choose tion in piano. “What we know as to take Topics courses specifically historical content or fact is necesto avoid the tidy historical consarily constructed after the event. tinuity that Heritage may seem To make history even more subto offer. These students would jective, it is necessarily construct- Dr. Steven Smith, whose academic interests include the philosophy of history, is professor prefer to study specific subjects in ed by someone who is inherently of philosophy and religion and director of Heritage. their own contexts, as opposed to linked with a variety of values, ideas, and goals.” within a larger continuum and chronology. That said, students have not, as yet, risen up against professors ndeed, the Historical Consciousness Ability has proved who expect them to have an awareness of the past; Heritage remains contentious in both its old and new forms precisely because a popular and distinctive program on campus; and the history deit is not merely a matter of content knowledge or historical partment is still thriving. literacy. “It’s not a completely innocent thing that just any “Everything I do is meant to foster Historical Consciousness,” right-minded person would be in favor of,” Smith says. “It says Dr. Amy Forbes, assistant professor of history. “I think the curcan be understood to involve seeing yourself and your society rent definition of Historical Consciousness captures very well what immersed in this larger historical flow, with a larger logic to it that we, as historians, try to achieve with our students. Part of underwould actually constrain people and limit their horizons.” Smith standing the past is recognizing that history is dynamic—it is not posits that if students see history as a predetermined set of baggage facts to be memorized, but arguments to be evaluated.” they are destined to carry with them, they may not be able to lift Though it may be at the forefront of debate in some circles, themselves above that to “see in a more truly universal, more fair there are certainly students who do not even contemplate the Liberway what’s going on around them.” al Arts Abilities as part of their studies. Thomas Jackson, a senior, says Historical Consciousness is expected to be best developed by he believes the Abilities “make for a really well-rounded education.” the courses taken to fulfill Core Requirements 2-5, in which fac- But because he is so wrapped up in the performing arts department ulty from the Division of Arts and Letters teach multidisciplinary as a music major, Jackson says he doesn’t deliberately consider them courses that combine history, philosophy, literature, religion, and in relation to his academic work. fine arts. “It’s part of the design of our Core Curriculum that, in all Even so—even when students do not consciously align certain the Core classes, these Liberal Arts Abilities are addressed—not every courses with certain Abilities—the concepts find their way into stusingle one in every class, but most of them in any given class,” says dents’ minds and studies. As part of his major, Jackson has studied a Smith. lot of music history. “Once you understand the context of the pieces Students may choose between two methods of fulfilling these and the circumstances surrounding the composition,” he says, “you four course requirements—they may take four separate Topics put it into your practice, and it becomes part of your performance. courses (one each semester beginning in the fall of the freshman You don’t have to think about it while you’re performing.” A sense year and continuing through the spring of sophomore year), or of a role or a place in the artistic continuum can, indeed, be seen as they may enroll in the Heritage program, which fulfills the require- Historical Consciousness. ments in a single year. The intensive Heritage program is equivalent Zale sees Historical Consciousness develop in his Heritage stuto two courses each semester with a tag team of faculty teaching dents when they are asked to identify and explain the significance across disciplines, and may be taken only by first-year students. of various works of art. “What many people have difficulty doing

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when they first come in as freshmen is giving some sort of historical account of the work of art and architecture, beyond that it was made and where it was made, etc.,” says Zale. “What we try to get them to do in Heritage is to see how this work of art or architecture reflects broader trends, broader things going on at the time, political developments of the time, general intellectual developments of the time, religious beliefs of the time, and, in some cases, economic developments of the time. How can we relate this particular art object or architecture object to what was happening in that time and place? How are the principal ideas and realities of that particular time and place somehow or other reflected in, or manifested in, the artwork? Many students do develop the ability to do that over time, and that, to me, indicates that their Historical Consciousness is on the rise.” “For me, it’s important to recognize the typical features of past contexts,” says Smith. “But the main thing is to see how they’re relevant to us now, how they form some sort of legacy. When we’re colleagues in Heritage, Zale and I debate these priorities all the time.”

Those who do not fully comprehend the meaning of a liberal arts education may well wonder why all this matters. Of course, there is the intellectual contemplation of one’s own role in the course of events and society’s effects on the past and the present. There is also the pedagogical issue of whether everything in human and world history is connected—and if so, how—and also whether that continuity can be taught. But why formalize through dictated Liberal Arts Abilities what is inherently an unending debate?

n part, the reason is that students are not the only ones with core requirements: As Millsaps students must meet the College’s requirements, so must Millsaps itself meet the requirements of the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools, and present to that accrediting body the College’s own expectations of its students and how they are being fulfilled. The association calls its core requirements “basic qualifications that an institution must meet to be accredited with the Commission on

“At the far end, when a student graduates, how would we know whether the student actually demonstrates deeper Historical Consciousness than four years earlier?”

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Colleges.” Millsaps was initially accredited by SACS in 1912, and most recently in 2002. Among these accreditation requirements are stipulations about program content, the mission of the institution, degree-granting authority, faculty, campus resources, financial resources, and student support services. But the most pertinent requirement of the Liberal Arts Abilities discussion is the General Education mandate, which is as follows: “[The institution] requires in each undergraduate degree program the successful completion of a general education component at the collegiate level that (1) is a substantial component of each undergraduate degree, (2) ensures breadth of knowledge, and (3) is based on a coherent rationale. For degree completion in associate programs, the component constitutes a minimum of 15 semester hours or the equivalent; for baccalaureate programs, a minimum of 30 semester hours or the equivalent. These credit hours are to be drawn from and include at least one course from each of the following areas: humanities/fine arts; social/behavioral sciences; and natural science/mathematics. The courses do not narrowly focus on those skills, techniques, and procedures specific to a particular occupation or profession. The institution provides a written justification and rationale for course equivalency” (Principles of Accreditation: Foundations for Quality Enhancement, 2.7.3). In short, each accredited institution must require of its students a certain number of credit hours in general education requirements, and those requirements must reflect the purpose of the institution. The association “puts all members on the spot to back up what they claim,” Gleason says. “We at this college had to look at our list of learning outcomes to see which of them actually were verifiable. … At the far end, when a student graduates, how would we know whether the student actually demonstrates deeper Historical Consciousness than four years earlier? That’s on this year’s Core Council agenda: How would we know?” An eventual goal of last year’s reform and redefinition of the Core Curriculum is “not just gathering data but doing something constructive with it to effect curricular reform,” Gleason says. “It’s all very well if we learn that students master Reasoning in their laboratories and their biology senior comps and so forth. It’s all very well to point out that Communication is weak here and strong there in history or in classics. But now that we know that, what are we doing right, and what are we doing wrong that we want to modify?” Now that the College has redefined and reorganized its Liberal Arts Abilities, the discussion over curricular development continues. “Last year was the what, this year is the how, and next year we’ll be getting on with it,” says Gleason. “It’s time to show SACS that, yes, we know what we’re doing, yes, we know how we’re doing it, and, yes, we’re using that data to sharpen our process even further.”

The Liberal Arts Abilities (1991) Reasoning—the ability to think logically and reflectively, to analyze critically and constructively Communication—the ability to express one’s thoughts and feelings coherently and persuasively through written and oral communication and to work effectively in collaboration with others Quantitative Thinking—the ability to understand, interpret, and use numerical and scientific data and the technology of the modern world Historical Consciousness—the ability to understand the achievements, problems, and challenges of the present with perspectives gained from a study of the past Aesthetic Judgment—the ability to understand and appreciate creative responses to the world, and to develop one’s own modes of creative expression Global and Multicultural Awareness—the ability to understand and appreciate a variety of social and cultural perspectives Valuing and Decision-Making—the ability to understand and appreciate differing moral viewpoints; to make carefully considered, well-reasoned decisions; and to make a mature assessment of one’s own abilities, beliefs, and values

The Liberal Arts Abilities (2006) Reasoning—the ability to analyze and synthesize arguments, to question assumptions, to evaluate evidence, to argue positions, to draw conclusions, and to raise new questions; varieties of reasoning include quantitative, scientific, ethical, and aesthetic: Quantitative—the ability to use mathematical reasoning as a tool of analysis and as a means of conveying information Scientific—the ability to understand and to use the scientific method Ethical—the ability to analyze the principles and assumptions of moral claims and to make informed and reasoned moral arguments Aesthetic—the ability to analyze visual, performing, or literary art Communication—the ability to express ideas, arguments, and information coherently and persuasively orally and in writing Historical Consciousness—the ability to understand the achievements, problems, and perspectives of the past and to recognize their influence upon the course of events Social & Cultural Awareness—the ability to engage perspectives other than one’s own

Requirements of the Core Curriculum Core 1: Introduction to Liberal Studies Core 2: Topics in the Ancient World Core 3: Topics in the Pre-Modern World Core 4: Topics in the Modern World Core 5: Topics in the Contemporary World Core 6: Topics in Social and Behavioral Sciences Core 7: Topics in Natural Science with Laboratory Core 8: Topics in Mathematics Core 9: Topics in Mathematics, Natural Science, or Computer Science Core 10: Reflections on Liberal Studies

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Legacy: A Campaign for Millsaps College $160 Million Focus on Student Excellence Millsaps College is considered one of the best educational values in the nation, but many prospective students find the cost beyond their reach. More than 90 percent of our students receive some amount of financial aid, and approximately 25 percent of our students are eligible for Pell Grants, which can mean they come from households with a family income of $25,000 or less. We are deeply committed to ensuring that a studentâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ability to succeed, not the ability to pay, determines whether he or she attends Millsaps. With this in mind, increasing our scholarship resources has been identified as the top priority for Legacy: A Campaign for Millsaps College.

160 mil lion

A sponsored scholarship is awarded in full in the fiscal year after the gift is made, and the donorâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s yearly contribution keeps the scholarship funded. A minimum commitment of at least five years is desired. An endowed scholarship gift is invested along with other endowed funds, and approximately five percent of the principal is awarded each year to deserving students.

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l a n ce taG n ce als a o ce l l e G n t Ex e aign d p u t m S Ca n ce n t to ce l l e itme t y Ex l u c a Co m m l e n ce t to F E x ce l tmen i m a m r g y Co m P ro l Stud n t to tiona itme a m n r m e Co Int n t to l e n ce itme E x ce l m y t i m l i o C ac t to F itmen nd m m o a l Fu C cies Annu s p ectan a p s x l l E i t d Gif The M anne nd Pl a e t Esta l l Goa Tota

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$ 35 million 10 million 17 million 8 million 18 million 12 million 60 million $ 160 million

Commitment to Student Excellence Endowed Scholarships Endowed Full Endowed Tuition Endowed Named

$600,000 $400,000 $25,000

Annual Scholarships Named Presidential Sponsored Named Merit Sponsored Named Leadership Sponsored Named Sponsored

$15,000 $10,000 $5,000 $2,500

l e g a c y. m i l l s a p s. e d u

Selby and Richard McRae have established the Selby and Richard McRae Scholars Program at Millsaps, which provides significant funds for students who might not otherwise be able to attend the College. Amy Marcellus, a freshman from Ridgeland, is the first McRae Scholar.

A gift of a scholarship is a gift that makes a difference, for it shapes today’s students into the leaders of tomorrow. Your gift will give you the personal satisfaction of knowing you are not only helping students who can benefit from a Millsaps education, but you are establishing your own legacy for generations to come.

Regional Campaign Event in Tupelo After the official public launch of its campaign, Millsaps kicked off the regional campaign in Tupelo at the Tupelo Country Club. The gathering was attended by alumni, parents, and friends of the College from the Tupelo area. In her address, President Frances Lucas said, “We are educating the next generation of leaders, and we are grateful for the support of alumni and friends like you.” Serving as hosts for the event were Joe and Polly Bailey, B. F. and Ruth Lee, Melanie Hunsberger, Doug and Grace Clark, Beverly Clement, Harry and Christine Rayburn, Jeff and Ellen Short, Sue Tate, and James and Frances Williams.

Dr. Bill McQuinn attended the kickoff gala for Legacy: A Campaign for Millsaps College, and the next morning he contacted the campaign chairman, J. Murray Underwood, and made a donation. “I wanted to be the first to make a pledge,” he said. Thank you, Dr. McQuinn!

Be on the lookout for a 2007 regional campaign event in a city near you!

The Millsaps Annual Fund is

May 22

Birmingham

offering a challenge! Thanks

September 13

Hattiesburg

to matching funds made

October 9

Dallas

available by members of the

November 8

Nashville

Millsaps Board of Trustees, any new or increased gift made to the Annual Fund before June

For more information on the Legacy campaign, visit legacy.millsaps.edu.

30 will be matched dollar for dollar. Gift credit for double your actual gift? You bet! Call and make your Annual Fund gift today! 601-974-1036.

Beverly Clement, B.A. 1978, and Joe Bailey, class of 1969, and his wife, Polly, B.A. 1968, enjoy the first regional campaign event in Tupelo.

Joey Langston, B.A. 1979, Murray Underwood, B.A. 1963, campaign chairman, and Tracie Langston at the regional campaign event in Tupelo.

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Athletics

Derrel Palmer, an ESPN Radio director, said the voice.

“This gives us a local college voice in the market and gives Millsaps College the publicity that any athletic program desires.”

millsaps magazine

Broadcast agreement makes ESPN Radio ‘Voice of the Majors’

questions in person. Questions can also be sent via email to millsaps@espnradio1240. com. “I believe the staff at George Street will be a great host to ESPN Radio 1240 and to our guests each week,” Palmer said. —Kevin Maloney

At the start of the 2006–07 football season, ESPN Radio 1240 AM announced that an agreement had been signed between Millsaps College and ESPN Radio to make ESPN the “Voice of the Majors.” The contract would extend from the beginning of the College’s football season through the men’s and women’s basketball season and into the baseball season. “We’re very excited about this agreement,” said Derrel Palmer, ESPN’s director of radio operations. “This gives us a local college voice in the market and gives Millsaps College the publicity that any athletic program desires.” Tim Wise, athletics director, and Jim Page, M-Club director and head baseball coach, are credited with assembling the deal, which includes broadcasting over the Internet at www.espnradio1240.com on a weekly basis. The package also includes an 8 to 9 p.m. show with the Majors’ head coach, Mike DuBose, on Thursday evenings, a basketball coaches’ show with Wise on Wednesday evenings, and a baseball show with Page on Monday nights. Midway through the basketball season, ESPN Radio announced that an agreement had been signed with George Street Grocery, making the restaurant the gathering point for the basketball and baseball coaches’ show for the 2007 campaign. Students, alumni, and fans are encouraged to visit the restaurant to ask

Warren trots globe in search of victory against fabled team Every good hero needs a suitable foil. Batman needed the Joker. What would the Road Runner have been without that darn coyote? And who would watch those highflying, crowd-pleasing ambassadors of good will, the Harlem Globetrotters, if they didn’t have a team to play against? That’s where the New York Nationals— and Tyler Warren—come in. Warren, B. A. 2006, a three-year starter for the Millsaps men’s basketball team, returned from his first professional basketball tour with the Nationals in December. The Nationals are the team that the Harlem Globetrotters always “play” and “defeat,” with an array of dazzling basketball stunts performed along the way. Warren, a native of San Antonio, Texas, ranks near the top in Millsaps men’s sports history, ranking second all-time in 3pointers made (140) and attempted (383) and fourth all-time in field goals attempted (1,087), free throws made (311), and assists (256). He also stands in fifth place all-time in free throws attempted (385). After graduating from Millsaps with a degree in business administration, Warren knew he wanted to continue playing

basketball at another level. “I got a couple of offers from some teams in Europe, but you have to be careful going out there,” Warren said. “Teams may fold, and you may not get paid. I was fortunate to get in touch with some guys from the Nationals while I was in Florida, and they offered me a contract.” The New York Nationals (formerly known as the Washington Generals) actually comprise two teams, typically consisting of eight players on a roster from the Division II and Division III levels, including one player-coach. They travel across the United States and abroad (mostly by bus) and play nearly every day, sometimes even playing a doubleheader. From November 24 until December 15, Warren and six other Nationals players spent time playing the Globetrotters in Kuwait, Iraq, Qatar, Bahrain, and Djibouti. The games primarily took place on military bases, but a few were played on an aircraft carrier in the Gulf. “It was real cool,” Warren said. “There were about 5,500 people on the carrier, and about 2,500 of them weren’t working and came out to watch the game.” Being so far from home makes it difficult to talk with friends and relatives, but Warren communicated with family via Internet cafés and was allowed 15 minutes a day to talk on the phone. Highly recruited as a wide receiver out of high school by a handful of Texas colleges like Texas Tech, Baylor, and Rice, Warren decided he wanted to experience a location outside of San Antonio. “People still ask my parents to this day where I ended up playing football,” Warren said. “After graduation, I really just wanted to play basketball.” While on the road, Warren plans to study for a commercial real estate license while continuing his dream of playing professional basketball. “I interned at a commercial real estate group before my senior year, and it’s definitely something that interests me.”

— K. M. and Scott Alber t Johnson

Centre College blocks Majors’ shot at NCAA basketball tournament The Majors’ hopes of reaching the NCAA Tournament were officially dashed in February in the semifinal round of the SCAC Tournament, as the team fell to the Centre College Colonels by a score of 7559. Millsaps, which had posted a 15-3 record since the Christmas break, knocked off Hendrix College 7764 in the opening round to reach the semifinals for the first time under Tim Wise, fourthyear head coach. The 16point loss against Centre was the third worst of the season for the Majors, and it snapped a five-game winning streak, as they fell to 0-3 in games when scoring 60 points or less. Edrick Montgomery, who finished the season with the league’s second most double-doubles (10), had nine rebounds to go along with his 14 points. It marked the eighth time of the season the junior fell a rebound shy of posting a double-double. The Millsaps season came to a close

with the Centre loss, a day after the College reached an 18-win plateau for only the seventh time in school history and the first since the 2001–02 season. The Majors also reached a milestone on the road in conference play this season, ending their campaign with a 6-1 record, only the fourth time since Millsaps joined the SCAC in 1991 that they have finished with a winning road record. With a team full of underclassmen and five juniors in the starting lineup, the Majors should be in great shape next season to make a run at the NCAA Tournament. The distribution of the basketball and the balanced scoring was obvious this season, as four of the five starters averaged double figures. The Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference announced its 2006–07 AllConference Team at the conclusion of the conference tournament, with Montgomery earning All-SCAC First Team honors, sophomore Rodney Rogan earning Second Team honors, and sophomore Lorenzo Bailey and senior Allen Odum receiving Honorable Mention.

—K. M.

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In November, after the Majors’ magical run to the Division III Football Playoffs came to an end in Pittsburgh, the Southern Collegiate Athletic Conference announced

unrewarded as, in exclusive voting by the head coaches of the SCAC, sophomore Juan Joseph was selected the league’s Offensive Player of the Year, his teammate Chris Jackson was named the Special Teams Player of the Year, and Mike DuBose, first-year head coach, was voted the league’s Coach of the Year. Joseph, a 6-foot-2, 178-pound quarterback from Edgard, Louisiana, set single-season school records for passing

Jackson had two first-half punt returns for touchdowns (67 and 51 yards) in the win—becoming the second player in league history to take two punts to the end zone in a single game. But besides leading the league in kick returns (22.7 yards per return), Jackson also led all SCAC receivers with 59 receptions for 661 yards and nine TDs. He also led the league with 156.4 all-purpose yards per game (22nd in the nation). In his first season as the head coach at Millsaps, DuBose guided the Majors to a 74 overall mark, a perfect 6-0 league mark, and the 2006 SCAC football title. Since joining the league in 1989, Millsaps had never run the table unscathed in conference play and had won seven or more games just twice. After the Majors lost their first three games of the season, a conference championship seemed to be nothing but a pipe dream. But Millsaps rebounded behind a defense that, after allowing 42.7 points in the first three games, stiffened to allow just 10.8 points per game while surrendering no more than 18 points in any game over the course of the season-ending 7-0 run. —K. M.

that 14 Millsaps student-athletes had been named to the All-Conference First and Second teams, including two Player of the Year selections and Coach of the Year. The 15 selections (14 players) are the most Millsaps has recorded on an All-Conference team, including the 1996 season (13 selections) and before that, the 1992 season (11 selections). The 2006 SCAC football season will be remembered as the year that Millsaps College ended one of the more remarkable streaks in all of Division III. In a battle of undefeated conference teams, Millsaps defeated No. 14 Trinity University, 34-12, in the regular season finale for both teams to claim its first outright league title since 1991 and snap the Tigers’ 13-year string of SCAC football championships. That achievement did not go

yards (2,495), completions (224), attempts (374), and touchdown passes (21) in his first year as a starter. He led the SCAC in both passing yards (251.7 per game) and total offense (256.1 yards per game) and was third in the league in passefficiency rating (129.84). A three-time SCAC Offensive Player of the Week selection during the season, Joseph is the first Millsaps player to win the league’s Offensive Player of the Year award since Brad Madden was so honored in 1996. In his only year in a Millsaps uniform, Jackson, a 6-foot-2, 205-pound senior wide receiver and return specialist from Phenix City, Alabama, probably locked up the league’s Special Teams Player of the Year award for his performance in the SCACclinching victory over No. 14 Trinity in the season finale.

Scholar-athletes go from grounders to graduate schools

15 from Millsaps included on SCAC All-Conference Team

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For four senior Millsaps baseball players, walking across the stage at graduation this year is just the start of the next inning, not the end of the game. In fact, as early as last November, when they participated in a College photo shoot, John Pacillo, Luke Morrow, Jason Hadley, and Nick Crawford

had a game plan for their futures. Hadley and Crawford are making preparations to attend the Mississippi College School of Law in the fall. Pacillo and Morrow plan to pursue their M.B.A. degrees at the Millsaps College Else School of Management. Their alma mater will remain an important influence on these plans. “The professors and class interaction at Millsaps have prepared me to tackle the next step in my educational career,” said Hadley. “Baseball has taught me how to be disciplined and manage my time wisely. It has also taught me how to work and interact with others in order to achieve a common goal—winning. With this discipline and confidence, I know that no matter how tough the next step may be, I will be successful.” The confidence enhanced by their Millsaps experience leads many students to move ahead with little trepidation. “Millsaps has prepared me for this next step by enhancing my writing and communication skills,” said Pacillo. “Millsaps has also helped by teaching me to gather information I need and to make informed decisions on my own.” Head Coach Jim Page claims that postgraduation plans like those of these senior players are typical for many studentathletes at Millsaps. While maintaining a formidable presence on the field, they earn impressive grade point averages, along with the skills and knowledge that lead naturally into successful futures. Page holds academic and athletic development in equal esteem, explains Crawford: “He takes our success in the classroom just as seriously as he does our success on the field.”

—Patti Wade

The 113th Annual Commencement will take place on Saturday, May 12, 2007, at 9:30 a.m. in the Millsaps Bowl. The Reverend Ross Olivier will deliver the Commencement address this year.

Carr named president of intercollegiate athletics association Last fall, the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Council of Presidents named Jim Carr, B.B.A. 1988, the president and chief executive officer of the association. Carr became the seventh executive officer for the organization, which dates back to 1937, and served as interim president and CEO during an eightmonth search by the Council of Presidents under the direction of the chair, Dr. Loren Gresham. “His unanimous selection by the Council of Presidents is an indication of their confidence in his ability to lead the organization in the years immediately ahead,” Gresham said. “His ability to connect with college presidents, athletic administrators, and student-athletes makes him the ideal person to fill this key leadership role.” Carr will oversee all business operations of the association of colleges and universities across the United States and parts of Canada. Over the past several months, the association, under Carr’s direction, has taken an inside look at the state of the group and areas pertaining to the business model that will have a vast impact on its image, perception, and position regarding service to members and student-athletes. Carr said his time at Millsaps College helped build in him confidence and strength. “My experience at Millsaps was a terrific mix of academic rigor, caring professors, intercollegiate athletics, and terrific friendships,” he said. “In the end,

Area youth have a ball watching college sports Zahneria Austin, a local second-grader, was among area young people invited by the Millsaps College athletics department to come out and watch the Majors take on the Centre College Colonels in January. The event was part of the national Take a Kid to the Game initiative, created to encourage alumni and fans to take their kids to stadiums and courts across the country to let them experience intercollegiate athletics. The women’s basketball team fell to Centre in the last few seconds of their game, which ended 61-59, but the men’s team beat the Colonels 79-67. Austin and the other visiting youth got to chow down on popcorn and cotton candy, try their hand at shooting some hoops, and take home Millsaps T-shirts and goodie bags. —Margaret Cahoon

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I was a much stronger person who was confident that he could tackle whatever challenges were ahead.” Carr, who was a starter for the Millsaps Majors men’s basketball team for three years and holds the men’s single-season highs for 3-point field goals made, 3point field goal percentage, and 3-pointers attempted, went on to obtain an M.S. in sports management from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst in 1990 and a juris doctorate from Duke University in 1994. Carr also attributes his work ethic and loyalty to what he experienced in his years at Millsaps. His advice to current students “is to take advantage of everything Millsaps has to offer. Get involved in areas of the College that excite you and participate with passion. Work as hard as you can personally, but, more importantly, put the group/activity ahead of your personal gain. We all become better people when we have passion and we commit to something bigger than ourselves.” —Becca Day

Dinner for champions raises $100,000-plus for Millsaps athletics An idea conceived a year ago by Ron Jurney, the former Millsaps athletics director, has developed into an annual fund-raiser to help support College athletics. The first Dinner for Champions brought together Millsaps supporters in an event led by the chairman of the M-Club Council, Steve Hendrix, and Jim Page, the M-Club director and head baseball coach. The featured speaker, Pat Dye, a former Auburn University head football coach and Hall of Famer, discussed the importance of blending athletics and academics. Held in February at the Agriculture and Forestry Museum, the fund-raiser brought in more than 170 alumni and guests, with about 75 student-athletes and more than a dozen athletic staff members filling in as

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waiters, hosts, and parking attendants. And while athletics have always been a valuable part of the Millsaps experience, a surge in support for the program was demonstrated by the money raised—just over $100,000—and the turnout that night. “I was overwhelmed by the amount of support from the M-Club Council, coaches, student-athletes, and all of those who attended the dinner,” Page said. “It was an amazing evening, highlighted by a wonderful speaker, Pat Dye, who delivered such a great message about how athletics and academics can intertwine, a message directed not only to people who attended the dinner but to all of our studentathletes.” With the student-athletes’ heartfelt, autobiographical descriptions of their experiences, the atmosphere was one of the love of athletics and a sense of dedication. Guests, who enjoyed a dinner prepared by Jay Schimmel and his staff from Schimmel’s Restaurant, were out in full force focusing on one common goal—a way to give financial support to all 14 intercollegiate sports offered at Millsaps—in one fundraiser. “The amount of money raised will go a long way in promoting and reflecting

our athletes’ life experiences at Millsaps College,” Page said. “I can’t begin to thank all of our donors, alumni, friends, family, and staff members who went the extra mile to make this thing happen. I have always been proud to be a Major, but that one night was extra special. With the continued support of Millsaps athletics, the studentathletes of today and tomorrow will reap the benefits of this annual event.” All proceeds from the Dinner for Champions banquet go directly to Millsaps athletic programs to help ensure that athletics facilities and programs parallel the academic excellence that is a tradition at the College. For more information, or to give to the athletics program at Millsaps, please contact Page at 601-974-1196.

—B. D. and K. M.

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MajorNotes T. W. Lewis III is named the 2007 Alumnus of the Year

“He marched with students in the cause for civil rights, counseled students and faculty at times of personal distress, and stood for honor and integrity in many situations of institutional crisis.”

Millsaps College has presented the 2007 Alumnus of the Year award to Dr. T .W . Lewis III, B.A. 1953, in recognition of his devotion and leadership as a professor and inspiration to generations of students, his moral and spiritual leadership, and his overall dedication to the betterment of the College. The Livesay Awards, which were also announced on campus on March 10 at the annual College Awards and Recognition Dinner, went to Demethous (Dee) Morris Chambliss, B.S. 1986; Steve and Melinda Hendrix, the parents of a Millsaps alumnus and a current student; and Dr. Virginia Anne (V. A.) Jones Whitley, B.A. 1968. The award honors the spirit of commitment in which Jim Livesay (1920-2001) served the College as an alumnus, a member of the administration, and a volunteer. Lewis accepted the call to leadership and service when he was a Millsaps student, and he continues to serve Millsaps as well as the United Methodist Church and the larger community of Jackson. Professor emeritus of religious studies and a longtime beloved faculty member, Lewis has been a powerful mentor to

generations of students and a devoted graduate of the College. Lewis taught steadily at Millsaps from 1964 until his retirement in 1996. Some of his most outstanding contributions as a professor were to curriculum innovation and renewal. In the mid-1960s, he was a member of the committee that proposed and designed the Heritage program. He was an advocate for retaining classical studies, a leading proponent of writing across the curriculum, and a pioneer in the development of an interdisciplinary Core Curriculum. In his acceptance speech, Lewis emphasized the lifelong friendships he has forged during his association with the College, and said he sensed among Millsaps professors “a legacy of the spirit that nourished and challenged students to do their very best. Friendships, professors—through these it was here that the life of the mind and the spirit was awakened, and it was here that I finally discovered my true vocation.” Lewis recalled the names of a few students from his first term on the Millsaps faculty in the fall of 1959, and he said they had helped bring about a “sea change” in his life. “I am among those blessed people who have loved their life’s work and would not exchange it for anything in the world,” he said. “T. W. both leads and supports and speaks for justice for all people, no matter the artificial boundaries that often split us up—like race and class and gender,” said Dr. Frances Lucas, president of the College. “He is considered a ‘gentle authority’ on theology, humanities, and social justice, and no account of his career would be complete without acknowledging his moral and spiritual leadership. He marched with students in the cause for civil rights, counseled students and faculty at times of personal distress, and stood for honor

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and integrity in many situations of institutional crisis.” Lucas said Brad Chism, B.A. 1982, who went on to become a Rhodes Scholar, had fond memories of Lewis. “‘T. W. Lewis taught me the course The Teachings of Jesus in 1981. I’ve watched him live the teachings of Jesus ever since—in his lifelong study on the meaning of God’s message to us

science departments to develop the Summer Research Institutes to give Mississippi teachers and students a taste of the Millsaps experience. More recently, she has served with the Millsaps Arts & Lecture Series as the vice president for membership and a team captain for programs. Chambliss is also a supporter of the Faith & Work Initiative, having served as both a Lilly

Melinda and Steve Hendrix, Dr. T. W. Lewis, President Frances Lucas, Dee Chambliss, and Dr.V.A. Whitley at the College Awards and Recognition Dinner in March.

all, in his soft-spoken wisdom on how to deal with life’s daily challenges, and in his commitment to reconciliation and in his belief in redemption for everyone,’ Brad said. ‘I want to be like T. W. Lewis when I grow up.’ “And T. W.,” Lucas said, “so do I.” Livesay Award recipient Dee Chambliss, B.S. 1986, is an example of the ideals of service that distinguish the College’s most outstanding alumni. Currently serving as assistant secretary of state for education and publications for the state of Mississippi, she is also completing a Ph.D. in education from Delta State University. She started her career teaching in the Jackson Public School System and at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Madison. In the summers of 1989–96, Chambliss worked with the Millsaps

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Mentor and the featured speaker on a “Professing the Professions” panel about careers in education. At the awards ceremony, Chambliss gratefully acknowledged her mentors in the biology department, Dr. Dick Highfill and Dr. Jim McKeown. She said Highfill had supported her decision to enter the field of education rather than medical school. “He made me feel so good about my decision to teach, which has always been in my heart,” Chambliss said. “He embraced that and encouraged me and gave me many opportunities to come back and do wonderful research.” The parents of Tal Hendrix, B.S. 2006, and sophomore Tait Hendrix, Steve and Melinda Hendrix are steadfast supporters of Millsaps College, their church, and the greater community.

They are currently serving their second term on the Parents Council and were recently named to the Council’s Executive Committee. For the past several years, they have given of their organizational skills to ensure that Move-In Day runs smoothly. The Hendrixes have also been especially supportive of athletics at Millsaps, annually serving dinner to the Millsaps baseball team during spring break. Steve, an attorney with Forman, Perry, Watkins, Krutz, & Tardy in Jackson, currently serves on the M-Club Council. The couple recently organized the first M-Club Dinner for Champions fundraiser, held in February 2007, raising more than $100,000 for Millsaps athletics ( see related story, page 34). “The academics here are something that you can’t get anywhere else,” Steve Hendrix said. “The relationships both of our boys have had with their professors—Tal’s gone through the biology department and is going to go to medical school, Tait’s in the business school—we’ve seen it from a couple of different angles, and we couldn’t have asked for any more. And, heck, they even got to play on the same baseball team for a year.” Virginia Anne (V. A.) Jones Whitley has demonstrated outstanding leadership of and support for Millsaps College. A French major, Whitley spent a summer doing coursework in Clermont-surSauldre, France, before graduating cum laude in 1968. She earned a master of library science degree from Emory University and had a career as a librarian and teacher before turning to medicine in the mid-1970s. She received her M.D. in l981 from the University of Tennessee’s College of Medicine, specializing in obstetrics and gynecology. She practices at The Woman’s Clinic in Jackson and is on staff at Mississippi Baptist Medical Center, where she has served as chief of gynecology and on the executive

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medical council. Whitley is also on staff at St. Dominic and River Oaks hospitals. In addition to her career and civic duties, she has given of her time and expertise to Millsaps College, its students and alumni, for almost 20 years. As part of the Millsaps Pre-Med Initiative, Whitley was instrumental in organizing the Medical Connections Weekend in 2001, which brought medical and dental alumni back to campus. She continues to be active in this initiative, inviting one Millsaps student each semester to shadow her at her medical practice. In her acceptance speech, Whitley emphasized professional mentoring. “Many alumni are giving their time and experiences to have the students shadow them in their respective professions,” she said. “It is one of the most rewarding activities you’ll ever do. The students you meet are so wonderful and appreciative of your time. Many of the mentoring ideas came from Dr. Raymond Martin, who gave over $1 million for the pre-med endowment and started the pre-health professions program at Millsaps, allowing Millsaps students great preparation. He and others who mentored students at UMC pushed me, without probably realizing it, toward helping the students. “That’s what’s so special about Millsaps. It’s that bond between classmates, alumni young and old, faculty, and administration. Jim Livesay would certainly agree that Millsaps is truly Mississippi’s first and only honors college.” To kick off the program, Colleen Fagan, assistant director of annual giving, presented the Class Participation Award for 2005–06 to the Class of 1958 for its 57 percent participation in the Millsaps Annual Fund. —B. D. and John Webb

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Baker Harrell founded Youth InterACTIVE, the only state-sponsored and fitness-based after-school program in Texas.

Harrell establishes initiative encouraging fitness among youth Like many who opt to dedicate their working lives to service, Baker Harrell, B.A. 1999, did not follow a preordained career path. Harrell enrolled at Millsaps College and spent three years as a biology major with the intention of entering medical school upon graduation. Then, during his junior year, he encountered what so many Millsaps students have experienced in the College’s classrooms: inspiration, unadulterated and unbridled. In 2004 Harrell founded Youth InterACTIVE (YI), an Austin, Texas-based nonprofit organization committed to promoting and instilling habits of health and fitness among young people. In less than three years, YI has become Texas’s leading nonprofit social marketing organization for youth, and is the only provider of state-sponsored, health- and fitness-based after-school programs in the

state. YI also provides young people with opportunities for hands-on experience using cutting-edge media technologies, such as web graphics and video production, the success of which has led YI to become the producer of the Texas High School Project’s Student Outreach Media Campaign. Harrell abandoned a career virtually guaranteed to be both profitable and glamorous to follow his passions into nonprofit community service. “I was dispassionate about medicine,” Harrell said, “but like so many of my peers I had fallen into the perception of college as a type of career-training mechanism rather than a means to developing skills and values that would allow me to uncover my true calling and be successful along that path.” So what was the impetus for Harrell’s change in attitude toward college? “Very simple: Dr. Darby Ray,” Harrell said. “I had taken a class with Dr. Ray while a junior, and the experience was really profound. The class with Dr. Ray was the first time while at Millsaps that I truly felt ‘at home.’ Prior to this class, I had many

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wonderful professors and experiences, but the class with Dr. Ray was extraordinary. As anyone who knows Dr. Ray will tell you, she is an incredible human being and teacher.” That class ultimately inspired Harrell to reconsider his hitherto assumed academic path. “I went to Dr. Ray,” he said, “and then to Dr. Steve Smith, the religious studies chair, at the beginning of my senior year. With only one religious studies course to speak of, I told them that although I might have to explain to a lot of people what I was ‘going to do’ with a religious studies degree, I knew without hesitation that I wanted to be a religious studies major. My experience with the amazing students and professors of the department is impossible to describe. I am a better, more capable human being because of what I learned with and from these people, and I am forever in their debt for it.” Harrell said earning a religious studies degree at Millsaps influenced and shaped his career. “I have always been fascinated by systems which can convince large groups of people to live and think a certain way, despite competing methods, and do so over an extensive period of time,” he said. “I approached religious studies as the best advertising and marketing—particularly social marketing—education that I could get at Millsaps. Though my work with Youth InterACTIVE is not motivated by any one religion, I am in the business of empowering people by positively changing the way they live and think according to a set value system. So, in that sense, I would say that my religious studies degree factors heavily into my day-to-day work with YI. More importantly, however, my experience as a religious studies student prepared me to forever strive to live a life of meaning and integrity.” After graduating from Millsaps, Harrell earned a master’s degree in children’s health from the University of Texas-Austin, where he is pursuing a Ph.D. in the fields of youth media, youth marketing, and youth culture. “As a student of youth marketing and social marketing,” Harrell

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explained, “I was aware of numerous examples of significant social change that occurred largely due to the efforts of young people. It is also far more cost-efficient and cost-effective to empower youth to adopt a certain lifestyle than it is to target adults. Adults who begin a regular exercise regimen and diet in order to lose weight have a less than 10 percent likelihood of continuing that regimen and maintaining that reduced weight.” Harrell explained that there are “three central initiatives of Youth InterACTIVE: health, education, and community.” These initiatives help to engender in young people what Harrell believes are the three “hallmarks of successful people,” where success is defined by a high quality of life, a sense of purpose, and a passion for living: “They are regularly active and health conscious; they are committed to lifelong learning and have an appreciation for creativity, exploration, and curiosity; and, finally, they are committed to giving back to and working with those around them and beyond. My heroes, both historical and those with and from whom I was fortunate to interact and learn, all embody these values.” — Jason Bronson

Townsend makes helping those in need his top priority Shane Townsend, B.A. 2000, has devoted

his professional life to helping those in crisis or need. Townsend has contributed to the improvement of the lives of people all over the world. He played a role in recovery efforts at the two biggest disasters in recent American history, the September 11 terrorist attacks and Hurricane Katrina. He’s also a Peace Corps veteran and a social justice entrepreneur. Townsend grew up in Pascagoula, where he was reared by his father and grandmother in the family boarding house.

He spent most of his time as a child doing things outdoors, from fly fishing and hunting to playing sports like golf, soccer, and football for Pascagoula High School. Townsend’s father also instilled in young Shane a love for nature, teaching him about animal rescue and rehabilitation. “We had snakes, bats, flying squirrels, alligators, and all kinds of animals,” recalls Townsend. Townsend’s father fell ill from cancer during Shane’s senior year of high school. Near the end, he was being treated at Baptist Hospital in Jackson, and Shane went for a run through the nearby Millsaps campus. “Being from a single-parent, working class family, I imagined that was the only way I would ever see Millsaps,” says Townsend. “I had quit university [at Mississippi State] for various reasons and had resigned myself to work at Ingalls Shipbuilding like so many of my friends and family in Pascagoula. I had never been challenged or inspired in college, so I saw no loss in giving it up.” While running through campus, Townsend stopped by the anthropology department to see what it looked like and met Dr. George Bey, professor of sociology and anthropology. “He invited me into his office, and he talked with me for more than an hour,” remembers Townsend. “We talked some about my father, about school and life in general. By the time I left, he’d convinced me to apply. He persuaded me that I could be successful there.” “Shane says he was just taking a run, but I think it was more than serendipity that brought him into our department,” Bey says now. “I think it was fate. I think Shane took that run looking for someone to talk to him about learning, and I just happened to be there.” Townsend’s father died the summer before Shane enrolled at Millsaps. Not surprisingly, he decided to study anthropology. “For the first time in my life, I was given complete access to the world of academia, and Professor Bey pushed me not

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only to embrace the opportunity, but to excel,” he says. “Shane went from 0–90 in six seconds as regards intellectual abilities,” says Bey. “His desire to study and think was enormous, and he really took to the style of learning we offer at the College. Unlike some students, he never took being at Millsaps for granted, and he took advantage of his opportunities.” “At Millsaps, they really teach students to pay Shane Townsend, B.A. 2000, has worked for the Peace Corps and helped manage Save the Children’s response to the hurricanes Katrina and Rita. attention to the big questions and not to take things at “Hurricane Frederick hit on my fourth was doing,” he recalls. “I kept saying, ‘They face value,” Townsend says. “They taught birthday. In Pascagoula, there has always are fine,’ and I would get these funny looks. me to challenge everything. Studying been a strong disaster lore. With a family Finally someone told me that a major anthropology gives an interesting boarding house always full of sailors, hurricane had struck the Gulf Coast of perspective on society. It’s a unique lens there was never a shortage of stories about Mississippi. I didn’t know anything about that allowed me to question the things that storms. I’ve been in awe of disasters since I it, so I rode horses and then a bus and I was seeing and whether things could be could walk.” finally got to a hotel room where [Mayor different.” Townsend worked for relief efforts after Ray] Nagin was screaming on CNN about After graduation, Townsend pursued several more disasters in rural Virginia, and the lack of emergency aid” in New Orleans. a master’s degree in urban and regional then he applied to work in the Peace Corps. Townsend left Bolivia and eventually planning at Virginia Commonwealth He went to New York for a postgraduate got a job with Save the Children, helping University. In his first semester, he degree in international humanitarian to manage the organization’s response to interviewed for a position with the Virginia assistance from Fordham University and hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “The human Department of Emergency Management. the University of Geneva. Shortly after side of disasters always affects me, but Soon afterward, a flood occurred in graduation, he was accepted into the Peace the sight of destruction on the Coast was southwest Virginia, and Townsend Corps and worked from 2003–05 on something new,” he says. “I had to deal volunteered to help. community-development planning in a with it as a person who was from there. I “They said all they needed was a small indigenous Chiquitano enclave of 40 don’t have the words to describe it. … It secretary, so I went and learned a great families in Bolivia’s Amazon River Basin. was like Hiroshima. After that, I really had deal,” he says. “The next disaster was Townsend also helped with emergency to try to separate myself emotionally so I the [September 11, 2001] attack on the management and strategic security could get the work done without being Pentagon, and they sent me to work with planning for the Peace Corps organization. overwhelmed.” FEMA. That solidified things for me, and I It was near the end of his time in Townsend left the Coast in May 2006, turned my academic focus to emergencyBolivia that a disaster had struck closer to but he continues to address disasterpreparedness planning.” Townsend’s heart than ever before. related needs of children through his work Townsend once again drew on his “There was a day when people kept with the White Ribbon Alliance for Safe childhood experience for his new career: asking me how my family in Mississippi Motherhood, which has developed soon-

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to-be-released guidelines for addressing the needs of women and infants in disasters. Townsend also works with Campaign Consultation, Inc., which focuses on the advancement of community-building and organizational development campaigns, with an emphasis on rural and Gulf communities. He also serves as a group facilitator for Si Puedo (a domestic-abuse intervention program for Latino males) and as a member of the board of directors for the Maryland Returned Peace Corps Volunteers. For Townsend, there’s a fundamental motivation that drives him, and it goes back to his upbringing on the Gulf Coast. “It’s empowering to discover that if you see something that is systemically not right, that you can help change it,” he says. “But no matter how many people you can awaken to that reality, there are some who will never be allowed a voice of their own. So our responsibility is to be their voices. “We owe more than we deserve. … I really believe that. And I feel really fortunate to be able to do something I love. Not everyone gets that opportunity.”

—Scott Alber t Johnson

McHorse honored for work at Volunteer Healthcare Clinic Of the many Millsaps alumni who personify the College’s ideal of service, Dr.Tom McHorse, B.S. 1963, has to be among the most involved. After the Jackson native’s time at Millsaps, he attended the Baylor College of Medicine and completed his residency at Vanderbilt University Hospital.

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In 1974, he moved with his wife, Kay, to Austin, Texas, where he not only has his own gastroenterology practice, but also regularly treats patients at Volunteer Healthcare Clinic. In his 30-plus years as a volunteer there, he has seen more than 4,000 patients, has spent more years of service there than any other physician, and has served as medical director since 1992. “I believe we have a responsibility to help those who are less fortunate,” McHorse has said. “Somewhere deep in my soul, I love to do those type [of] things. They give me the idea that I am doing some good.” In 2000, he was chosen for the Jordan Award, which honors a community volunteer who has made a significant impact on the quality of life in central Texas through one organization. McHorse’s nomination letter from Volunteer Healthcare Clinic said the clinic was thankful that he chose to give his “time, expertise, and especially his caring for those in need.” McHorse has also been named Physician of the Year by the Travis County Medical Society and been given the Sister Mary Rose McPhee Spirituality Award, the recipient of which is honored for demonstrating vision, hope, hospitality, dignity, wisdom, faith, and love. He has served on the boards of innumerable charitable organizations, including The United Way, Children and Family Services, and Project Access, an initiative for the medically indigent. Despite his awards and unending service, McHorse is frequently noted for his humble demeanor. He is an active member of Tarrytown United Methodist Church, and he and Kay have three sons—Edward, Paul, and Kevin. “I’m proud that everybody in our family has a social conscience,” McHorse said. “We are aware of the need to share with others.”

—Margaret Cahoon

Coker recognized for conservation efforts in Mexico Mich Coker, B.S.

1997, a Tucson, Arizona, attorney, has garnered accolades for his recent work “exploring the feasibility of conservation options in Mexico,” according to Valarie Potell of Inside Tucson Business magazine. Coker wrote a paper entitled “Saving the Sierra: Alternative Mechanisms for Conserving Northern Mexico’s Last Wild Places,” which was selected to be published by the Udall Center for Studies in Public Policy at the University of Arizona. He is now revising the essay to be published as a book. Efforts like “Saving the Sierra” have landed Coker billing as one of Inside Tucson Business’s nine “Up & Comers” for 2006, as well as one of Tucson Business Edge’s “40 Under 40” local businessmen. Coker traveled from Jackson to Tucson by way of additional studies in Brisbane, Australia, and Nairobi, Kenya, before pursuing his juris doctorate at the University of Arizona. He is involved in local organizations promoting the Spanish language and environmental concerns, including the Tucson Hispanic Chamber of Commerce and the Tucson Audubon Society. “Millsaps provided me with a foundation of excellent education and diverse experience that catalyzed my personal interests and professional success,” Coker said. “During my time at Millsaps, I traveled abroad for the first time, learned a second language, experienced the camaraderie of playing on two sports teams, and made friends and connections that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.”

—Chris Spear

MajorNotes Send it in: Millsaps Magazine would like you to know that its Major Notes policy has changed. The magazine is now printing only information sent in specifically for Major Notes. In the past, material was gleaned from newspaper clippings and other sources. The change was made to protect the privacy of alumni and to simplify the editing process. We would like to encourage all alumni to send in their news items, whether big or small, personal or professional, to Tanya Newkirk, Major Notes Editor, Office of Alumni Relations, Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210-0001. Fax : 601-974-1088. Phone: 601-974-1038 or 1-86-MILLSAPS (1-866 - 455-7277). Email: alumni @ millsaps.edu. Please include your name, address, phone numbers, email address, graduation year and degree, and any news you want to share. Appropriate items include births, weddings, advanced degrees, awards, job promotions, etc. Photographs are also welcome. If you are aware of alumni who are not receiving the magazine, please send us their names and addresses.

1959

Dr. Jesse (Joe) O. Snowden Jr., B.S. 1959,

of Kingston, Okla., was named interim president of Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant in January 2006. Prior to this, he served as vice president for academic affairs at the university, a position he has held since 1999. Snowden began his career in higher education in 1962 as a geology instructor at Millsaps. While at the University of New Orleans from 1969 to 1990, he served in a number of capacities, including professor of geology, director of graduate studies in the department of geology and geophysics, and chair of the department. He was the dean of the College of Science and Technology at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau from 1990 to 1996. From 1996 to 1999, he served as dean of the College of Science and Engineering Technology at the University of Arkansas-Little Rock.

1962

Dr. Willard (Billy) S. Moore, B.S.

1962, of Hopkins, S.C., was elected in winter 2006 as one of 45 fellows for the American Geophysical Union (AGU), an international organization of more than 40,000 earth, ocean, atmospheric, and planetary scientists. Moore was installed in May 2006 at the AGU General Assembly in Baltimore. He was selected for his innovative development and application of natural radionuclides as tracers of geochemical processes in the ocean and at the land-ocean boundary. In 1999, he received the B.H. Ketchum Award from the Woods Hole Oceanographic

Institution. He received the Education Foundation Research Award from the University of South Carolina in 1993. Moore is distinguished professor emeritus and research professor at the University of South Carolina-Columbia.

Law in Oxford. For more than a decade, he wrote a wine column that appeared in The Washington Post and in syndication with Gannett News Service. He has served as a judge at numerous international wine competitions for more than 20 years.

1964

Patsy R. Ricks, B.A. 1965, of Jackson is the

Dr. Stewart A.Ware, B.S. 1964, of

Williamsburg, Va., received the Thomas Jefferson Medal for Outstanding Contributions to Natural Science from the Virginia Museum of Natural History in May 2006. A plant ecologist and professor of biology at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Ware was cited for more than three decades of research and more than two dozen publications on the plant communities of Virginia and other portions of the mid-Atlantic region. He has also served as president of the Virginia Academy of Science and editor-in-chief of The Journal of Torrey Botanical Society, the oldest botanical journal in the Western Hemisphere.

1965

John R. Hailman, B.A. 1965, of Oxford is the author of Thomas Jefferson onWine, published by the University Press of Mississippi in November 2006. Using excerpts from the third president’s travel journals and letters to his friends and wine merchants, the book explores how Jefferson became the greatest wine expert of the early American republic. Hailman is a trial attorney and adjunct professor of law and literature at the University of Mississippi School of

co-author of Cicero: De Amicitia Selections, a Latin reader for Advanced Placement high school students as well as college students. Written with Dr. Sheila K. Dickinson, associate provost and director of the honors program at the University of Florida, the textbook was published by BolchazyCarducci Publishers in September 2006. Ricks teaches Latin courses, including AP Vergil and AP Latin Literature, at St. Andrew’s Episcopal School in Madison. She is also the owner of the online travel business Inside Italy Tours, through which she offers group and self-guided tours to destinations such as Venice and Sicily. Through the Millsaps Enrichment Series, she teaches classes on Italian travel, wine, food, culture, history, and art.

1966

Dr. Rodney J. Bartlett, B.S. 1966, of Gainesville, Fla., received the 2007 American Chemical Society Award in Theoretical Chemistry at a ceremony held during the organization’s 233rd national meeting in Chicago in March 2007. Sponsored by the IBM Corporation, the prestigious international award is presented to a scientist who has accomplished innovative research in theoretical chemistry that either advances theoretical methodologies or contributes to new discoveries about chemical systems. It is now widely agreed that the manybody methods for electron correlation that Bartlett has pioneered offer the most predictive and generally applicable

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approaches in the field. He is graduate research professor of chemistry and physics at the University of Florida.

1974

Dr. Elaine M. Coney, B.A. 1974, of Magnolia

To find alumni online, log on to MyMillsaps.com The Millsaps alumni online community makes it easy for alumni to stay in touch with classmates and their alma mater. Access to the online community is a password-protected benefit exclusively for Millsaps alumni. Registered users enjoy a number of services, including an online search for other alumni and permanent email forwarding, which allows alumni to receive email no matter how many times their addresses change. An online calendar alerts alumni to upcoming events on and off campus, enabling graduates to stay informed. Alumni can also report changes in their addresses and personal information. If you would like additional information or if you have questions or comments about the online community, please email us at alumni@millsaps.edu or call 1-86-MILLSAPS.

received the 2006–07 Humanities Teacher Award from the Mississippi Humanities Council in October. The award is given annually to one professor at each institution of higher learning in the state. Coney teaches English composition, firstand second-level Spanish, and emergency medical and conversational Spanish at Southwest Mississippi Community College (SMCC) in Summit. She is a member of the Modern Language Association, the National Council of Teachers of English, the American Association of Teachers of French, and the Association of Teachers of Technical Writing. Coney has received numerous awards for her achievements in higher education, including the SMCC Humanities Instructor of the Year Award in 1994–95 and the Mississippi Foreign Language Association’s Distinguished Service Award in 1998. She has frequently been listed in Who’sWho Among America’s Teachers, Who’sWho of AmericanWomen, and Who’sWho in American Education. In honor of her award, she presented a public lecture on Oct. 24 at SMCC entitled “A Need for Service Languages: Let’s Speak Spanish.” In her lecture, Coney asserted that more translators and interpreters are needed in the court system, hospitals, and clinics due to the high number of Hispanics living in Mississippi counties.

A Catholic organization that operates in four U.S. dioceses, EPS teaches adults the foundations of faith, provides practical ministry training, and fosters spiritual development. McCarty brings to the position a broad range of professional experience in church ministry, ministry training, and development. From 1996–2007, she served as director of development at the Good Shepherd Center, a residential treatment center in Baltimore for teenage girls with severe emotional and behavioral problems and learning disabilities. She has also served as program specialist with the U.S. Catholic Conference’s Department of Education, executive director of the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, and in a volunteer capacity on many churchrelated boards. In addition to lecturing and conducting workshops across the United States, McCarty has held adjunct and visiting faculty appointments at institutes such as Loyola University’s Institute for Ministry in New Orleans and Broken Bay Institute in New South Wales, Australia.

1977

1980

Dr. Margaret W. McCarty,

B.A. 1977, of Laurel, Md., was selected as the first lay president of the Education Parish Service by the EPS Board of Trustees in January 2006.

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Dr. Ann B. (Bishop) Burke, B.S. 1980, of

Silver Spring, Md., has been named the first medical director of obstetrics and gynecology at Holy Cross Hospital in Silver Spring.

1981

Chris S. Brunt, B.M. 1981, of Dallas

performed a recital at Perkins Chapel at Southern Methodist University in

September 2006. In May, he performed at The Episcopal Church of the Ascension in Dallas. He serves as music associateorganist at Highland Park United Methodist Church.

1983

Rhonda Elizabeth Jones, B.B.A. 1983, M.B.A. 1989, and Fredrick A. (Arthur) Acklie of Franklin, Tenn., were married on Oct. 21, 2006, in Chattanooga. Phyllis P. (Pfanschmidt) Gay, B.A. 1983, served as a bridesmaid, and Cordelia Douzenis Zinskie, B.A. 1983, was the soloist. Other Millsaps alumni in attendance were Marie N. (Nation) Becker, B.S. 1983, Dan Columbus, B.S. 1983, Margo T. (Templeton) Columbus, B.A. 1983, and Anita A. (Addington) Weber, B.A. 1983. Jones is an informatics analyst with MedSolutions in Franklin.

1984

Dr. Benjamin R.Wynne, B.B.A. 1984,

of Watkinsville, Ga., is the author of

Mississippi’s Civil War: A Narrative History, published by Mercer University Press in November 2006. Beginning with an overview of the socio-political climate of the state during the 1850s, the book covers the pivotal events, issues, and personalities of the period. Wynne signed copies of the book at Lemuria Books in Jackson on Nov. 25, 2006. He is an assistant professor of history at Gainesville State College in Georgia.

1985

Jo Watson Hackl, B.A. 1985, of Greenville,

S.C., was chosen in early 2007 as one of 20 Liberty Fellows. The Liberty Fellowship is a statewide initiative that seeks to promote outstanding leadership in South Carolina. The 2008 class was chosen from more than 100 nominees from the business, government, and nonprofit sectors. The fellows participate in a two-year program consisting of four advanced leadership seminars held at Wofford College in Spartanburg, S.C., and the Aspen Institute in Colorado. Each fellow also completes an individual community service project

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under the direction of experienced moderators and mentors. Hackl is an attorney with Wyche Burgess Freeman & Parham P.A. in Greenville. She has served as a board member of The Peace Center for the Performing Arts, The Community Foundation of Greenville, The Emrys Foundation, and the Legal Services Agency of Western Carolina. She is also a past president of the Greenville County Bar Association. Hackl received her J.D. from Yale Law School, where she was an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

1986

Dr. Jeffrey D. Crout, B.S. 1986, of Canton is a pediatrician and associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. Macky (Mitch) R. Mitchell Jr., B.E. 1986, of

Hazlehurst was named The Daily Leader’s 2006 Area Co-Coach of the Year for Lincoln, Lawrence, Copiah, and Franklin Counties for the second consecutive year. The athletics director and elementary school principal at Copiah Academy, Mitchell has served as head football coach of the Copiah Colonels for the past three years, during which time he has compiled a 299 record. In November, he coached the Colonels to win the Mississippi Private School Association Class AA State Football Championship. Mitchell also coaches the varsity girls and boys basketball teams at the school.

1989

W. C. (Chris) Crosby, B.B.A. 1989, and

Caroline Taylor Johnson of Memphis were

married Oct. 14, 2006, in Memphis. He is the vice president of private equity with Dobbs Management Services, LLC. She is the development and community relations associate at the Memphis Child Advocacy Center and is pursuing an M.S. in social work at the University of Tennessee.

1990

John F. Hawkins, B.A. 1990, of Jackson was

elected in June 2005 to serve as president of the Mississippi Trial Lawyers Association for 2006–07. He is an attorney with Baria, Hawkins & Stracener PLLC. He is also a guitarist and vocalist for Men of Leisure, a roots rock, soul, and funk band. To learn more about the band and listen to song clips, visit www.molmusic.com. Dr. Melissa C. Lang, 1990, and Harold E. Wilson of Marietta, Ga., are the parents of Campbell Lang, born July 25, 2006. He has two sisters, Christina and Candice. Melissa is a licensed child psychologist and cofounder of the Center for Psychological and Educational Assessment in Atlanta. Harold is the owner of Georgia Classic Restorations, which specializes in restoring pre-1970s Ford Mustangs and Thunderbirds. Dr. Sharon L. Stephenson,

B.S. 1990, of Gettysburg, Pa., was awarded a three-year grant from the National Science Foundation in October 2006.

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The funding will support her research in fundamental neutron physics at Gettysburg College and in Snezhinsk, Russia. She is an associate professor of physics at Gettysburg, where she received the Thompson Distinguished Teaching Award in 2004.

1991

Dr. A ndrew J.Velkey II, B.S. 1991, of Newport News, Va., was elected in December 2006 as an associate director of Sigma Xi, the international honor society of science and engineering. He will represent the society’s mid-Atlantic region, which includes Delaware, the District of Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and West Virginia. Velkey is an associate professor of psychology at Christopher Newport University in Newport News, where he teaches courses in statistics, psychological research methods, and animal learning. He is the primary facilitator for Café Scientifique, an informal gathering of scientists and the public in the Tidewater area to discuss developments in science and technology. He is a member of Project Kaleidoscope’s Faculty for the 21st Century, a diverse group of educators who lead a national alliance working to build a strong learning environment for undergraduate students. Velkey is the past president of the Tidewater chapter of Sigma Xi and currently serves as its membership chair. Sigma Xi, which has more than 65,000 members and more than 500 chapters in North America and abroad, publishes the award-winning American Scientist magazine, and sponsors a variety of programs that support science and engineering.

OUR GOAL IS NOT SIMPLY TO

HELP YOU EARN A BIGGER PAYCHECK. WE EXPECT YOU TO SIGN THE PAYCHECKS. In business, vision is more vital than memory. So we don’t just open books in our MBA classes. We open minds. spring–summer 2007

For more information, call 601-974-1253 or go to millsaps.edu.

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Kelly A. (Bricker) Webb, B.B.A. 1991,

of St. Petersburg, Fla., is the business development manager for WhiteHall Products, Inc., in Tampa. The company specializes in marketing, designing, and distributing plastic packaging products.

1992

Shawn L. (Shelton) Barrick, B.S.

1992, of Brandon competed in the Ice Skating Institute’s Adult Figure Skating Championships in September 2006. She received first place in the Freestyle 1 Solo Compulsories event, third place in the Figures 1 event, and fourth place in the Freestyle 1 event. She is a financial analyst for Verizon Business in Clinton.

The Rev. Steven (Rusty) Paul Keen, B.A. 1995, of Amory was hired as the program coordinator for the Gilmore Early Learning Initiative in January 2007. T he initiative seeks to improve the state of early childhood education in Monroe County. An ordained member of the United Methodist clergy, Keen was most recently appointed minister of discipleship at First United Methodist Church in Amory and program staff person to the Tupelo District of the Mississippi United Methodist Annual Conference.

1996

Carrie C. (Coker) Blount, B.A. 1996, and Dr.

Philip Blount of Ridgeland are the parents of Bailey Lamar, born Jan. 17, 2007. She has one sister, Kimberly. Carrie is a fulltime mother, and Philip is a physician with the University Rehabilitation Center at the University of Mississippi Medical Center in Jackson. Amy R. Harden, B.A. 1996, and Kyle I.

W. W . (Wilson) Day, B.B.A. 1992, of Jackson

is the retirement services director for the business insurance broker Fox Everett, Inc.

1994

David C. Armistead, B.S. 1994, and Laura R. Armistead of Birmingham are the parents of Whitman James, born Nov. 14, 2006. He has two brothers, Dean and Ethan. Laura Santoro Flynn, B.B.A. 1994, and

James K. (Kevin) Flynn of Birmingham are the parents of Sutton Anne, born May 13, 2006. She has one sister, Merritt.

1995

Russell (Russ) E. Hawkins Jr., B.B.A. 1995, and Michelle H. Hawkins of Jackson announce the birth of their daughter, Meredith Callaway, on Sept. 29, 2006. Russ is an owner of the contracting firm Valcorp LLC in Pearl, where he is a general contractor and construction manager. Michelle is the director of interior design for JBHM Architects in Jackson.

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Cannon of Memphis were married Oct. 28, 2006, in Nesbit. She is an attorney with Apperson, Crump & Maxwell PLC in Memphis. He is an attorney with Glassman, Edwards, Wade & Wyatt PC. Michael (Mike) D.Tagert, B.S. 1996, and Dr. Mary Love (Mortimer) Tagert, B.S.

1998, of Starkville announce the birth of their daughter, Ellen Frances, on Sept. 5, 2006. Mike is the director of the Bureau of Plant Industry, a regulatory and service division of the Mississippi Department of Agriculture and Commerce. Mary Love received a Ph.D. in agricultural and environmental science from Mississippi State University in May 2006. She is an assistant research professor with the Mississippi Water Resources Institute.

1997

Michael B. Hixson, B.A. 1997, of Stuttgart, Germany, joined the international products liability defense firm Lungershausen & Smith in Boeblingen as an associate in January 2007. He focuses on global

products liability defense for the automotive industry. He is a member of the New York State Bar Association and the Bar Association of Stuttgart. Dr. Dana L. Roe, B.S. 1997, of Flowood

completed a pediatric residency at Arkansas Children’s Hospital in Little Rock in June 2006. She is a pediatrician with Rankin Children’s Group in Brandon.

1998

Michael R. Highfill, B.S 1998, and Tina Lynn Highfill of Madison are the parents of Avery Brooke, born Dec. 29, 2006. She has twin sisters, Ashley and Lindsey, and one brother, Michael Jr.

1999

Elizabeth (Betsy) Vandiver Allison, B.A. 1999, and James B. (Bryan) Allison Jr. of Arlington, Tenn., announce the birth of their son, James Caldwell, on May 31, 2006. Betsy is a diabetes specialist with the Memphis branch of the pharmaceutical corporation Eli Lilly & Co. Bryan is a senior consultant with the international accounting firm Deloitte & Touche LLP, based at the Memphis branch. Misty A. Leon, B.A. 1999, of Austin, Texas, is an associate with the law firm Vinson & Elkins LLP. Catherine (Cassie) A. Sheldon, B.A. 1999,

of Atlanta received the Northwestern Mutual Best Master’s Thesis Award on Nov. 9, 2006, at the Institute for Public Relations’ Annual Distinguished Lecture & Awards Dinner in New York City. She earned her master’s degree from the University of Georgia’s Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications in May 2006. Her thesis, “Image Repair on the Political Front: An Experiment Testing Effects of Communication Strategy and Performance History in a Political Faux Pas,” suggests that a politician’s choice of communication strategy in a self-imposed crisis is more important to the public than his or her actual record on the issue.

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The best master’s thesis competition was judged by a panel of senior-level public relations practitioners and academics. The Institute for Public Relations is an independent nonprofit organization that exists to build and document the intellectual foundations of public relations and to make that knowledge available to practitioners, educators, researchers, and client organizations. Northwestern Mutual, longtime sponsor of the Best Master’s Thesis Award, is the nation’s largest direct provider of individual life insurance. Sheldon is a health communications specialist for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

2000

Sandi (Pullen) Beason, B.A. 2000, of Byram is the copy editor for nondaily publications of The Clarion-Ledger in Jackson. She edits five newspapers (The Madison County Herald, Rankin Ledger, The Clinton News, Northeast Ledger, and Hinds Ledger) and three magazines (Mississippi Kids, 50 Plus Lifestyles,and VIP) for grammar, style, content, and design. She is married to Mark Beason, the editor of Mississippi Outdoors magazine.

Kevin J. McMahon, B.A. 2000, of Hattiesburg and Jessica McMahon announce the birth of their son, Carter John-Patrick, on Aug. 30, 2006. Kevin is a cultural resources and survey specialist for Environmental Management Services, Inc., in Hattiesburg. Jessica is a full-time mother.

2003

Marcus D. Hill, M.B.A. 2003, of Canton placed first in a harness race at Cooper Downs in Terry on Sept. 30, 2006. He won with a five-year-old trotter that he bred named All B Good.

2005

Scott W. Colom, B.A. 2005, of Madison, Wis., is pursuing a law degree at the University of Wisconsin Law School in Madison. From August 2005 to May 2006, he was a volunteer teacher with WorldTeach, a nonprofit organization based at the Center for International Development at Harvard University. WorldTeach provides opportunities for individuals to contribute

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to international education by living and working in developing countries. While participating in the program, Colom taught English grammar, style, and creative writing to 12- to 18-year-olds in Guyana, South America. In July 2006, he served as an intern with the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda in Arusha, Tanzania.

2006

Theon L. Johnson III, B.S. 2006, of Washington, D.C., was elected co-chair of the United Methodist Board of Discipleship’s Division on Ministries with Young People in August 2006. Approved by the 2004 General Conference of the United Methodist Church, the division models a global community with 17 representatives from 11 countries other than the United States. Johnson is currently working with members and staff in structuring, planning, and implementing events. He is a firstyear master of divinity student at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington.

Millsaps Family Reunion Portrait Homecoming 2007

Does your family have three or more generations of Millsaps graduates? If so, please complete the form below, starting with your earliest family member who graduated from Millsaps (for example, Reuben Millsaps, 1890, founder). (We will take Millsaps family group portraits in the Bowl at Homecoming 2007.) 1. Name:

Graduation year:

Your relationship:

2. Name:

Graduation year:

Your relationship:

3. Name:

Graduation year:

Your relationship:

Your contact information: Name:

Address:

Phone:

Email:

Please return this form to: Vernon King, Millsaps College, 1701 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39210-0001 spring–summer 2007

MajorNotes W. E. Ayres, B.A. 1954, of Pine Bluff, Ark.,

Henry Wyatt Clowe, B.S. 1936, of Jackson

died Dec. 8, 2006. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Omicron Delta Kappa, The Millsaps Singers, and the band. He also served as president of the Student Body Association. He and his wife, Diane B. Ayres, B.A. 1953, a former Board of Trustees member, have been longtime financial supporters of the College. He served as chair of the Annual Fund Drive in the 1960s. In the 1990s, they gave to the New Century of Light campaign and to the Mr. and Mrs. W. T. Brown Jr. Memorial Scholarship Fund.

died Oct. 27, 2006. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity and the Ramblers Club. He served as president of the Science Club and was the circulation manager of the Bobashela. He was also a student assistant in the chemistry department. Alma Van Hook Cox, 1948, of Jackson

died Sept. 26, 2006. The daughter of a teacher and a coach, she grew up on the Millsaps campus. While at the College, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority, the Women’s Council, and The Millsaps Players.

Vernon Lee Burkhead, 1940, of Grenada

died Oct. 19, 2006. At Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Sigma fraternity.

While at Millsaps, she was a member of The Millsaps Singers, the Vikings, Wesley Fellowship, and the Women Christian Workers. She also served as a dormitory assistant. Kenneth M. Hathaway, B.A. 1969, of

Natchez died Oct. 4, 2006. At Millsaps, he served as secretary of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity and was a member of The Millsaps Singers. Doris Draper Huddleston, B.A. 1929, of

Lamont died Nov. 15, 2006. Joyce Patrick Langford, B.A. 1948, of

The Rev. Ellis Robert (Bob) Dickerson, B.A.

1950, of Cantonment, Fla., died Nov. 27, 2006.

Jackson died Nov. 28, 2006. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Phi Mu sorority.

Dec. 15, 2006.

Elizabeth (Betty) Longinotti Douglass,

Susan Collins Logan, B.A. 1970, of Brandon

Evelyn Newman Carroll, 1950, of Tupelo

B.A. 1948, of Terry died Jan. 10, 2007. At Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority and The Millsaps Singers.

died Jan. 4, 2007. At Millsaps, she was a member of Kappa Delta sorority.

Mildred G. Cagle, 1934, of Jackson died

died Nov. 21, 2006. At Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority. She and her husband, the Rev. Joseph William Carroll, B.A. 1950, supported the College through donations to the Paul Douglas and Mary Giles Hardin Scholarship Fund.

Syble Hinson Meadows, B.S. 1938, of Man D. Gardner Jr., 1952, of San Diego died

Dec. 3, 2006. Shirley Jean (McMullan) Hackman, B.A.

1959, of Madison died Feb. 2, 2007.

Irene Breland, 99, longtime English teacher Lillian Irene Breland, B.S. 1929, of Jackson died on October 31, 2006, at the age of 99. Breland transferred from Asbury College in Kentucky to Millsaps, where she majored in English and romance languages. She earned M.A. and M.Ed. degrees at Mississippi College and also did graduate work in English and counseling at the University of Virginia and Colorado College. She credited Millsaps with instilling in her the confidence to pursue teaching. Her career in teaching spanned 41 years in Mississippi high schools, including Runnelstown, Porterville, New Hebron, Glen Allan, Liberty Grove, and Central and Murrah high schools in Jackson. In 2004, Millsaps established the Irene Breland Award for Excellence in English and Literature, which is presented each year to an English major certified to teach English. As one of the College’s older alumni, Breland had remained active and independent until she was assaulted by a robber in the driveway of her Jackson home. She died a few months later as a result of injuries sustained in that robbery. Former students and Millsaps alumni in the Jackson area offered a reward for the capture of the perpetrator. Memorials for Breland will go toward the Irene Breland Award for English students and may be sent to the attention of the Office of Institutional Advancement. —Kay Barksdale

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McCarley died Jan. 1, 2007. At Millsaps, she was a member of Beta Sigma Omicron and The Millsaps Singers. She received the Clark Essay Medal from the English department her senior year.

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Walter B. McCreight Jr., 1950, of Madison

The Rev. Hubert G.Wallace, B.S. 1938, of

died Oct. 7, 2006. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Kappa Alpha fraternity.

Asheville, N.C., died Oct. 12, 2006. Clifton L .Webb, 1959, of Brandon died

Frances Elsie Rembert, 1941, of Jackson

died Sept. 30, 2006. At Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority.

March 23, 2006. He attended the College as part of the Navy V-12 officer training program.

Betty Langston Ridgway, 1953, of Pine

Thomas Marvin Williams Jr., B.S. 1938,

Bluff, Ark., died Dec. 20, 2006. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority.

of Meridian died Nov. 7, 2006. While at Millsaps, he was a history major and member of Pi Kappa Delta honorary.

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the Beethoven Club, and The Millsaps Singers. She was preceded in death by her husband, James W. (Pete) Wood, B.A. 1956, longtime business manager of the College. After his death, she helped establish a scholarship in his memory. The family has now renamed the scholarship in honor of both of them as the James W. “Pete” and Grace C. Wood Endowed Scholarship Fund.

Col. Paul Sheffield, B.S. 1939, of Memphis

died Sept. 26, 2006. At Millsaps, he was a member of Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity, Alpha Epsilon Delta, The Millsaps Players, the PreMed Club, the YMCA, the Science Club, the Nit Wits, the Millsaps Motorcycle Club, and the Collegians. He held the rank of corporal and sergeant in the band. He also served as master of ceremonies for the Faculty Frolics. Jennifer L. Sorrells, B.S. 2002, of Kenner,

La., died July 18, 2006. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority. The first student majoring in geology with a concentration in geophysics, she assisted with geophysical research that was presented at the 76th Annual Meeting of the Society of Exploration Geophysicists in New Orleans in October 2006. Her fiancé, Lance Stoner, B.S. 2002, has started the Jennifer Sorrells Foundation in her honor. Jane Hyde West Stewart, 1939, of

Ridgeland died Dec. 3, 2006. At Millsaps, she was a member of Kappa Delta sorority, Eta Sigma, The Millsaps Singers, The Millsaps Players, and the YWCA. William F. T ate, 1950, of Tupelo died Sept.

5, 2006. William Oscar (W. O.) Tynes Jr., B.S. 1941,

of Ridgeland died Oct. 30, 2006. While at Millsaps, he was a member of Sigma Rho Chi fraternity, the Science Club, the MClub, and the track, football, and basketball teams.

Dr. Noel C.Womack Jr., B.S. 1944, of

Jackson died Jan. 29, 2006. At Millsaps, he served as president of Kappa Sigma fraternity and his senior class. He was a member of Alpha Epsilon Delta, Omicron Delta Kappa, Beta Beta Beta, The Millsaps Singers, and The Millsaps Players. From 1959–1960, he served as president of the Millsaps College Alumni Association.

Friends Clara M. Stanford of Jackson died Aug. 29,

2006. She was on staff with the College in housekeeping from 1979–1989. Lewis W. West of Jackson died Jan. 10,

2006. He taught art and sculpting as an adjunct professor of art at Millsaps during the late 1980s.

Nina Grace (Gracie) Cunningham Wood,

B.A. 1939, of Ridgeland died Jan. 24, 2007. While at Millsaps, she was a member of Chi Omega sorority, Sigma Lambda, the YWCA,

spring–summer 2007

Robert H. Padgett Emeritus Professor of English

“I cannot think of a time when Bob Padgett did not support me and those he knew who valued education and the intellectual growth of our students.”

Robert H. Padgett, emeritus professor of English, died November 28, 2006, at the age of 77. He had retired from teaching in May 1992 after 32 years on the Millsaps faculty. The Millsaps community celebrated his life at a memorial service in Fitzhugh Chapel. While every professor leaves an imprint on the history of the College, it is Padgett who is credited with being the chief architect and first director of the Millsaps Heritage program, an interdisciplinary humanities program that integrates history, literature, religion, philosophy, and the fine arts into a single elective course of study. The program continues today and is one of the College’s academic marks of distinction. Dr. T. W. Lewis recalled that Padgett, a Fulbright Scholar, joined the faculty in 1960, having completed a Ph.D. residency at Vanderbilt with a dissertation waiting to be written. Padgett chose to put the dissertation on hold when the chair of the Millsaps English department suffered a heart attack and he was asked to take the role of temporary chair. Dr. Charles Sallis, emeritus professor of history, quotes Padgett as saying that it was probably during the third year that Heritage came of age: “It was during that year’s fall semester final exam that I entered AC 215 and descended . . . to find inscribed in Gothic script on the blackboard: ‘Abandon hope all ye who enter here.’ . . . I knew then that the Heritage program had arrived. We had passed through despair and self-pity to wit and irony.” Padgett’s interest in interdisciplinary study did not stop with the Heritage program. In 1982 he helped to design the Liberal Studies Seminar, the academic course required for students entering Millsaps through the adult degree program. He also introduced the concept of Writing Across the Curriculum, which ultimately led to the establishment of the Writing Program and the Writing Center at Millsaps. As the community remembers his many academic accomplishments, we are also reminded of the person of Bob Padgett: “I cannot think of a time when Bob Padgett did not support me and those he knew who valued education and the intellectual growth of our students,” said former English professor Dr. Rick Mallette, who directed the Heritage program for seven years. “As many of us who knew him can testify, he was a jolly fellow, a cultivated man, and a great asset to the College,” Mallette said. Former English professor Dr. Judith Page remembers him as “the person you could go to with the most minute academic question, and Bob would know the text or have thought about this issue.” Emeritus German professor John Guest said, “I thought he would go on forever,” and Dr. Catherine Freis remembered him as “truly a Renaissance man. I am most grateful for the scope of his humanity.” A remembrance of Padgett would not be complete without some mention of his office, which Dr. Page poignantly recalled: “I was always amazed, too, by his desk, which looked like a dustheap but was really a magically organized space with its own filing system. Bob had no trouble finding the paper he needed, always to our amazement.” In his closing remarks at the ceremony, Dr. Lewis said: “Many of us are aware that Bob’s gift to the College as the architect and nurturer of the Heritage program has become an endowment that pays rich dividends. So now let us praise and remember Bob Padgett along with all gifted women and men who have given of themselves to this academic community.”

—Kay Barksdale

millsaps magazine

For God and Home and Native Land Millsaps College is something of a paradox. I’ve now watched four Convocations come and go in the Academic Complex Recital Hall. Even as a veteran of the collegiate world, I still can’t figure out how, in a community smaller than most American Idol auditions, we come to know lifelong friends and mentors; how, in a state so often derided as an uncultured wasteland, we are tied to a college that has always ranked among the finest the nation could offer; how, in this sprawling big-city capital with such desperate civic needs, we take pleasure in our quietly green campus while building an incredible community service ethic. It’s a riddle, I tell you. Surely you have pondered the same puzzle, haven’t you? Perhaps it was on that day you stepped onto the campus for the first time in your life, sure of nothing but the quivering feeling in the pit of your stomach. But (ah, now you recall) even then there was a complexity to this school that you could only recognize, and barely grasp—a method to the collegiate madness that would eventually become as familiar and comfortable to you as your own skin. Millsaps was already changing you, leaving the distinctive ridges of its thumbprint on everything you did from that point forward, instilling in you the drive to serve. How much has each of us carried from this place since that moment? How much remains to be done? Millsaps may not be perfect, but it is a place where intelligent men and women work tirelessly together, where commitment is expected and counted on as a sturdy framework that keeps us believing that this school and its members will go on to improve themselves, each other, and their communities every single day. Without this belief—without the continued decisions of students, faculty, and staff alike to make this place surpassingly great—the College would wither up and blow away like so much dust. As he helped found Millsaps College, Bishop Charles Betts Galloway unrolled the character and future course of the school with a clear-eyed, hardheaded approach: “So our college, the inheritor of so much generous sympathy, . . . the fond desire of so many years, and the child of such radiant promise,” he said at the official dedication of the College, “must demonstrate its right to live and take its place in history by the character of the work it shall do and by the noble souls it shall train for ‘God and home and native land.’” May it ever be so for our Millsaps.

—Chris Spear Class of 2007

Non-Profit Organization U.S. Postage P A I D Jackson, MS Permit No. 164

OFFICE OF COMMUNICATIONS 1701 NORTH STATE STREET JACKSON • MS • 39210-0001

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Each year, the Millsaps Annual Fund provides financial resources that directly affect the quality of teaching and student life at Millsaps. Through scholarships, academic programs, and faculty or library support, your Annual Fund gift helps the College build on its foundation of excellence.

. . . . . $100

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As Millsaps shapes its learning environment, cultivates its students, and constructs new areas of study, your gift offers the support the College needs to remain one of the nation’s finest liberal arts colleges. Give to the Millsaps Annual Fund today to ensure our success for generations to come.

Millsaps Department of Annual Giving 1701 North State Street Jackson, MS 39210 -0001 601-974-1037 1-86-MILLSAPS (toll-free)