Southern Studies, an undergraduate major inaugurated at Ole Miss since 1979, has evolved over time to include a master’s program course of studies as well. Nearly one hundred students have majored in Southern Studies over the past two decades, with approximately an additional one hundred graduate students completing the advanced degree program since the M.A. began to be offered in 1986.

   The majority of Southern Studies majors are working in such fields writing and publishing, nonprofit administration and/or program development, museums or public history venues, events and festival planning, state humanities and arts councils, and all levels of the teaching profession.

   Five Southern Studies students from Ole Miss have gone on to complete doctoral programs elsewhere, from Auburn University, the College of William and Mary, Southwestern Louisiana, the University of Texas/Austin, and the University of Munich.

   News of some our former M.A. graduates follows.

Barry Gildea (M.A., May 1995)

Thesis: “Estranged Fruit: Making and Unmaking in Mississippi’s Jails”

    Gildea served as researcher for the film The People vs. Larry Flynt and was communications manager for Mayor Willie Herenton of Memphis, Tennessee, before becoming director of research for the Memphis Shelby Crime Commission, a job that enables him to explore society’s ills and serve the public. In addition to compiling information and writing the commission’s Best Practice crime reports, Gildea is involved in advocacy and has assisted with projects like the first Memphis meeting of the National Campaign Against Youth Violence, a White House initiative to bring together citizens, businesses, and government in stronger and more effective partnerships.

   When he is not helping community leaders solve crime problems, Gildea does volunteer work with his church, Idlewild Presbyterian, where he is a deacon, and with the Evergreen Historic Association, where he is chairman of neighborhood strategic planning. Gildea’s wife, Natalie, whom he met in Southern Studies classes at the Center, is also involved with these activities and with helping keep up with their two-year-old son, Liam.  

Susan Glisson (M.A., May 1994)

Thesis: "Life and Scorn of the Consequences: Clarence Jordan and the Roots of Radicalism in the Southern Baptist Convention"

   Glisson is currently back on the Ole Miss campus, serving as the interim director for the Institute for Racial Reconciliation, a Center-supported project that seeks to promote racial harmony in local communities. “This work represents an exciting opportunity for the Center to expand and extend its public outreach. For example, we’re presently working in Rome, Mississippi, in Sunflower County in the Delta, providing community development assistance to local residents.  I believe that the health of Mississippi overall ultimately resides in the health of rural communities like Rome.” On campus, Glisson works with Southern Studies graduate students and also serves as faculty advisor to SEED, an activist student group dedicated to eradicating racism, sexism, and elitism, through a grassroots political justice agenda.

   Before returning to the University campus full time, Glisson left for a few years, long enough to pursue and complete her doctoral degree at the College of William and Mary in Virginia.  Her Ph.D. dissertation (August 2000), “Neither Bedecked nor Bebosomed: Lucy Randolph Mason, Ella Baker and Women’s Leadership and Organizing in the Struggle for Freedom,” is presently under contract, soon to be published by the University Press of Kentucky. She credits the Center for much of her success, and says that “if you have initiative and a vision for yourself and the work you wish to do as a scholar, the Center and its staff are there to support you and help you achieve your dreams.”

 

Scott McCraw (M.A., December 1995)

Non-Thesis Option

   McCraw is assistant director of the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities, a private, state-supported branch of the National Endowment for the Humanities. He is responsible for LEH’s General Grants and Media Grants programs and works on the magazine published by LEH, Louisiana Cultural Vistas. LEH grants nearly one million dollars yearly for cultural programming in Louisiana and is the state’s largest supporter of documentary films. 

 

Patrick McIntyre (M.A., August 1995)

Non-Thesis Option

   Patrick McIntyre is Endangered Properties Coordinator for the Alabama Historical Commission, the state historic preservation agency. “My job is to find strategies to save threatened historic resources throughout the state by working closely with local individuals and

organizations,” McIntyre says, adding “It is very challenging and sometimes frustrating, but the knowledge that I have an active role in helping keep these distinctive and irreplaceable buildings and sites from being lost forever gives me a real sense of accomplishment.” McIntyre also serves as a vice president of the Alabama Preservation Alliance, the statewide nonprofit preservation advocacy group, and is a member of the Secretary of the Interior’s Advisory Council for the Selma-Montgomery March National Historic Trail. 

 

David Nelson (M.A., July 1990)

Thesis: “Trouble in Mind: Black and White Musical Exchange in the American South”

   Nelson lives in Snow Camp, North Carolina. In addition to freelance editing and writing, he’s been working temporarily as an editor at UNC‑Chapel Hill’s Southern Oral History Program. He still writes regularly for Living Blues, which he edited at the Center from 1992 to 1999.

  

Aimée Schmidt (M.A., May 1994)

Thesis: “Down around Biloxi: Culture and Identity in the Biloxi Seafood Industry”

   Schmidt has been working in the public sector in folklore since completing her graduate degree.  For three years she worked for the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture, a division of the Alabama State Council on the Arts, and then she did a brief stint at the Smithsonian for the Festival of American Folklife before settling in for two years with the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival. Since July 1999 she has been employed by the Georgia Council for the Arts as director of the Folklife Program. This position involves overseeing the Council’s Traditional Arts Apprenticeship Program and Folklife Project grants program; conducting fieldwork on various aspects of Georgia music, foodways, material crafts, religious traditions, and occupational traditions; and managing an archive of the materials gathered from fieldwork. Schmidt gives technical assistance to organizations and individuals interested in folklore.

 

Lynn Wilkins Adams (M.A., May 1996)

Thesis: “Fannye Mae’s Beauty Salon: The Old-Time Beauty Shop and a Community of Women in Jackson, Mississippi”

   Wilkins is community development specialist for the Mississippi Arts Commission, where she has worked since July of 1994. This past January, she moved back to Oxford with her husband, Will, and opened MAC’s first-ever branch office (located in Barnard Observatory itself!). From this field office, she manages several statewide initiatives that use the arts to address community needs such as juvenile justice and adult literacy. She also provides technical assistance to communities and organizations in north Mississippi. Lynn finished her graduate course work in 1991, taught at Hinds Community College, and worked in production at Mississippi ETV before joining MAC. 

 

Charles Yarborough (M.A., May 1995)

Thesis: “A Way Out of No Way: African American Culture and Empowerment of the Ichauway Plantation Baseball Diamond and Store.”

   Chuck Yarborough has taught at the Mississippi School for Math and Science in Columbus, Mississippi, since completing his graduate degree in Southern Studies. He teaches United States History, American Government, and an interdisciplinary course called Mississippi Crossroads to academically talented high school juniors and seniors from across the state. He is active in civil and cultural organizations, serving on the board of directors of Mississippi Humanities Council and the Mississippi Historical Society, on the teachers advisory committee for Rowan Oak, and on the steering committee for the Columbus Decorative Arts and Preservation Forum. Yarborough also stays busy helping his wife, Leigh, with their two daughters, India and Laurel,  and son, Sam.

Angel Ysaguirre (M.A., May 1996)

Thesis: “Movement toward Continuity: The Body’s Ordeal in the Novels of Harry Crews”

   Ysaguirre works for the Illinois Humanities Council in Chicago, Illinois, as the director of Community Programs. He manages the grants program and develops programs for people who are typically underserved in the humanities: public aid recipients, inner city youth, and people in their 20s and 30s of any socioeconomic bracket. One of his projects is the college-level Clemente Course, for which he hires professors to teach the University of Chicago’s Introduction to Humanities course to women on welfare. For this project he also works with social service agencies that provide screening, childcare, transportation, and counseling for students enrolled in the course. Another of Ysaguirre’s projects is a dinner series for young professionals. For each of these programs IHC hosts a dinner and discussion led by a humanities scholar on films that use food as a metaphor. In addition to his IHC work, Ysaguirre teaches Love in Literature and other special classes at the Newberry Library.