Director's Column

This summer Robert Khayat was named our new chancellor. Khayat joined the law faculty in 1969 and in recent months has headed the University's Sesquicentennial Celebration. At a press conference announcing his appointment, Khayat declared that as chancellor he will make the University a home for all Mississippians and will encourage both diversity and academic excellence on our campus. We welcome his leadership and support his commitment to strengthen academic programs at the University.

This summer was unusually busy as we prepared for our annual conference on William Faulkner, which was followed by our first conference on Elvis Presley . These week-long programs explored the lives of two native sons and their legacies in the fields of literature and popular music. Just as our Encyclopedia of Southern Culture bridges folk, popular, and academic traditions, we are exploring similar connections through these conferences. Together, they will help us better understand the complex cultural fabric of our region. We are especially indebted to friends at Graceland, to supporters in Tupelo and Oxford, and to Vernon Chadwick for their tireless efforts to launch the Elvis Presley conference.

We also launched a series of teacher institutes designed to link our Center's work with that of primary and secondary schools. Through a partnership with the Maine Collaborative and the University of Southern Maine and with generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, 15 Mississippi teachers traveled to Portland, Maine, where they joined 15 Maine teachers for a three-week institute that compared and contrasted the cultures of New England and the American South. Next summer the same group of teachers will travel to Oxford for three weeks of study at our Center. The project grows out of a long partnership our Center has developed with the University of Southern Maine New England Studies Program and its director, Joe Conforti.

With generous support from the International House of Blues Foundation and the Kellogg Foundation we also offered a week-long teacher institute for public school teachers and House of Blues staff. Faculty led seminars on blues, folk art, race relations, and other topics in the field of Southern culture. Seminar participants traveled to Oxford from House of Blues locations in Cambridge, New Orleans, and Los Angeles, as well as from communities in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Tennessee.

We also conducted a three-day teacher seminar for 80 teachers from all parts of our state. The seminar, which included lectures on Mississippi history, Southern literature, folk art, and blues, was designed to assist ninth-grade social studies teachers who will offer a new course on Mississippi Studies this fall. We are grateful to the many individuals and institutions that supported the institute.

Through these institutes the Center will enrich the classroom experience of young people throughout the nation. We plan to expand these programs each year as a means of using our resources to strengthen teaching programs on the American South in our nation's primary and secondary schools.

Heartfelt congratulations go out to Judge Lucy Somerville Howorth who celebrated her 100th birthday this summer. Judge Lucy's distinguished career in law and politics is an inspiration to all of us. Her life reflects a leadership of which we as Mississippians, as Southerners, and as Americans can be justly proud.

William Ferris

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