What Are They Doing Now?

A Glimpse into the Lives of Southern Studies Graduates

A Southern Studies degree, according to the program's informational handout, can be part of "preprofessional training for such fields as law, medicine, architecture, or government . . . journalism, business, teaching, or city planning. Southern Studies provides a wide knowledge of the region in which many students will work. To those who leave the South, it improves perception in understanding other regions. The program's emphasis on independent study skills enables students to work efficiently in a variety of fields and to pursue careers as writers, teachers, historians, editors, archivists, curators, or preservationists. An increasing number of employers in business and industry are seeking executives with the kind of experience in research, analysis, writing, and oral communication that Southern Studies courses provide."

Any amount of research regarding the lives of former Southern Studies graduate students reveals that these words were not written merely to entice prospective students. They are most definitely true. Southern Studies graduate students have gone on to a variety of fields in which their wide knowledge of the South and their interdisciplinary experience have proved invaluable assets to their careers.

A few Southern Studies graduates are working in the public relations field. David Bittler, a 1994 graduate of the program, is a public relations administrator for the news division of CNN. (Yes, he has met Larry King!) He is one of only 22 CNN Public Relations personnel worldwide. As public relations administrator, Bittler generates all news anchor and executive quotes as well as arranging press interviews. In regard to the effect of his Southern Studies background upon his colleagues at CNN, Bittler notes: "Southern Studies is always an interesting topic of conversation. It shows people that you've made a decision to study what some might feel is an esoteric discipline, and that you have the ability to commit yourself to something off of the beaten track."

Barry Gildea is the communications manager for Mayor W. W. Herenton's office in Memphis. Gildea says that he is particularly proud to be working for the first African American mayor in Memphis city history. Since he began his job in June of 1996, Gildea's main communication tasks have been writing speeches, editing the mayor's newsletter, and establishing the Emergency Public Information Coordinating Team. In regard to the benefits of his Southern Studies degree, Gildea notes that it has given him the strong historical and cultural foundation necessary to understand the Southern political situations that the mayor faces daily. However, Gildea feels that the greatest benefit of his Southern Studies degree is that it put him in contact with Natalie Enzminger, his wife whom he met at the Center. (Natalie is currently working at an art museum in Memphis.)

Katherine Drayne Blount is the public relations representative for the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. Interestingly, the department employs three former Southern Studies students. As a public relations representative, Blount writes features and news releases pertaining to the department's museum exhibits and historic preservation work, as well as documenting manuscript donations and supervising department publications. Her Southern Studies colleagues Shelley Ritter and Michelle Weaver serve as the curator for historic preservation in Mississippi and the architectural historian of the Historic Preservation Division, respectively. Both Ritter and Weaver joined the Mississippi Department of Archives and History staff in early 1995.

Like Michelle Weaver and Shelley Ritter, Chris Fullerton chose a career in curation/preservation. Fullerton is currently serving as executive director of the Friends of Rickwood Field, a Birmingham, Alabama, organization dedicated to restoring America's oldest baseball park. His responsibilities as executive director include overseeing all aspects of a major restoration project for the field as well as managing all baseball activities, such as league play and the Rickwood Classic. Furthermore, he is implementing the Friends of Rickwood's long-range plan for the Museum of Southern Baseball History, a task that involves research and grant writing. The chairman of the Friends of Rickwood, Coke S. Matthews III, explained his decision to hire Chris Fullerton by saying, "Chris brings several essential disciplines to the project. . . . His educational background gives him a strong command of the historical role and place of Rickwood Field in Birmingham and national culture, his museum and archival experiences will facilitate the progress on our planned museum at Rickwood, and, of course, his passion for baseball is a prerequisite for anyone in the position." Fullerton's position as executive director of Rickwood Field is a natural progression from his studies at the Center--his thesis was titled "Striking Out Jim Crow: The Birmingham Black Barons."

Angel Ysaguirre, a Southern Studies graduate originally from Belize, makes grants as a program officer for the McCormick Tribune Foundation in Chicago. Among the Foundation's four grant-making areas--early education, journalism, citizenship, and communities--Ysaguirre works for the communities program. Basically, he reviews grant applications sent to the Tribune Foundation from agencies in Chicago concerned with homelessness, hunger, developmental disabilities, children/ youth, or literacy. Agencies based in other cities apply to a local Foundation committee that is supervised by Ysaguirre. Each year the Foundation bestows $20 million in grants through its communities program. Ysaguirre feels that the interdisciplinary skills he received through the Southern Studies curriculum help him in his job as program officer: "When I look at a problem like homelessness I'm already trained to look at it from different angles. Interdisciplinary study fosters that kind of thought. My analytical skills are much sharper after finishing the Southern Studies program. When I review an application I need to scrutinize the program and the staff and ask questions that will help me determine the effectiveness of the program. Sometimes, the tools I used to study Southern culture apply to the job. After reading Promise of the New South I'm reminded that white neglect of black culture does not mean that there was not a rich black culture. When the West Texas Girl Scouts tell me that the Latinos in their region don't experience culture in their homes and have to get it through the Girl Scouts, I know better."

Aimee Schmidt is the folklife specialist for the Alabama Center for Traditional Culture in Montgomery. One of her most recent projects was to curate an exhibit entitled Alabama Culture and Community. The exhibit, funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, presents an overview of folklife in Alabama through text, photos, art, and artifacts. The exhibit is thematically structured around work, home, and ritual in Alabama's various cultural regions. Schmidt is enthusiastic that the exhibit is on display in the Old Supreme Court Library at the State Capitol Building--a venue that is visited by hundreds of tourists daily.

Five former Southern Studies graduate students are working on the University of Mississippi campus. Karen Glynn is currently working for the Center as assistant director of the Southern Media Archive. One of her numerous projects for the archive involves documentation of Farm Security Administration photographs. Susan Lee is the art director for the Center's publications, including Crossroads, Living Blues, and the Southern Register. David Nelson is also working for the Center, serving as the editor of Living Blues and as the host of the Highway 61 blues program on Public Radio in Mississippi. Southern Studies alumna Lynn McKnight worked as editor of Reckon magazine until a few months ago when she took a position as instructor in the University's journalism department. Former Southern Studies graduate student Patrick Brown is also working on campus as the associate director of the Office of Research.

Two Southern Studies graduate alumni are still spending their days at the Center. After two years at the College of William and Mary working on a Ph.D. in American Studies, Susan Glisson returned to the Center to work as an assistant for Charles Reagan Wilson while she completes her doctoral dissertation. Although she has many official duties, one of Susan's unofficial tasks is welcoming all new Southern Studies graduate students--a job she performs well. Scott McCraw, a 1995 graduate of the program, has returned to the Center to serve as Bill Ferris's assistant. In addition to managing interoffice communication and scheduling appointments for Ferris, McCraw hosts a weekly campus radio blues program, The Killing Floor. Considering their wisdom and experience as former Southern Studies graduate students, Glisson's and McCraw's presence at the Center is invaluable to current Southern Studies graduate students.

David Weatherford and James Barger are both former graduate students who are pursuing careers as writers. Weatherford is living in his hometown of Valparaiso, Florida, while he composes Southern fiction. His latest book is set in Mississippi in 1923. Weatherford is also compiling "Postcards from a Dixie Christmas," a photo-illustrated cookbook of his grandmother's recipes. Barger is working as a hunting guide on a South Carolina plantation while he gathers experiences for his writing.

Some former graduate students procured teaching positions after receiving their master's degrees. Chuck Yarborough, a 1995 graduate of the program, is a social studies teacher at the Mississippi School for Mathematics and Science in Columbus. He marvels at the academic ability of his students at MSMS, exclaiming "It's a great place to teach!" The courses Yarborough teaches include "U.S. History: 1877 to Present," "Economics," "Missisippi Crossroads," and "American Government." Yarborough designed "Mississippi Crossroads" as an interdisciplinary course focusing on cultural and historical themes in Mississippi writing. He and his students use the Center-sponsored volumes "Mississippi Writers: Reflections of Childhood and Youth" as the course's core textbook. In regard to the effect of the Southern Studies Program on him, Yarborough comments: "The program exposed me to an expanded number of perceptions of the South while concurrently offering the intellectual and critical insights which allowed me to formulate my own particular, studied vision of the distinctive region I have always called 'home.' I apply knowledge gathered from my course work and thesis as well as teaching techniques and strategies picked up from graduate courses on a daily basis as I prepare for my classes." Like Barry Gildea, Yarborough found an additional benefit in matriculating through the Southern Studies Program--he met his wife, Leigh, while studying at the Center.

About 170 miles southwest of Yarborough, Chris Renberg is teaching English to students at Jackson Academy. Renberg praises the Southern Studies faculty for tolerating his "low-brow cultural interests." While in the program, Chris focused on followers of Elvis Presley as an evangelical group. (His chosen area of research explains why Renberg is jealous that Shelley Ritter tried on the King's gold lame jacket while working as an archivist at Graceland!) Renberg recently developed a new Southern Culture elective course at Jackson Academy and reports that his students are enjoying it.

Nearly halfway around the globe from Mississippi, Irmgard Schuy has returned to teaching English and art in Karlsruhe, Germany, her homeland. She had made many visits to Oxford before spending two years (1991-93) here earning an M.A. in Southern Studies.

Ron Nurnberg is not teaching; instead, he is supervising teachers. Nurnberg is the executive director for the Arkansas/Mississippi Delta Region of Teach For America, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ensuring that all children in America have the opportunity to attain an excellent education. He maintains an office in Oxford, but often travels around the region to assist corps members.

Other former Southern Studies students who are in the "working world" include Cynthia Gerlach, co-owner of the popular Bottletree Bakery in Oxford; John Spivey, president and CEO of Moonlight Media in Jackson, Mississippi; Walker Lassiter, director of marketing and promotions for Tipitina's Music Club in New Orleans; Bland Whitley, clerk at Square Books; Wesley Loy, features editor of the Knoxville News Sentinel; Kyle Bennett, Episcopal rector in Oxford; and Joe Hairston, a practicing lawyer in Austin, Texas.

A number of Southern Studies graduates are still in school. Genie Bryan is pursuing a doctorate in English at Southwestern Louisiana University in Lafayette. Joyce Miller is working on her Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Maryland, while Beth Boyd pursues her Ph.D. in American Studies at the University of Texas. Amanda Stamps, a 1995 graduate of the program, is in her first year of law school at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. Jay Langdale is living in Gainesville, Florida, with his new wife, Southern Studies graduate alumna Jennifer Bryant, while he pursues a doctorate in history.

Like Langdale, Tamara King decided to pursue a doctorate in history after receiving her Southern Studies master's degree. Tamara has finished all of her doctoral course work and has passed all of her exams at Auburn. She is currently finishing her dissertation about the Electric Home and Farm Authority, a New Deal program created for the purpose of selling inexpensive electrical appliances to rural people. In regard to the advantage of having a Southern Studies degree, King notes: "The Southern Studies Program gave me exposure to other disciplines than history, so I have the flexibility of looking at a historical problem from different perspectives. I also have an appreciation (that I would not have, as a Hoosier) of the stereotyped perceptions of Southerners."

Darren McDaniel also appreciates the critical skills he obtained from his Southern Studies work, and is currently using them in his pursuit of a Ph.D. in sociology. He notes that his Southern Studies degree was instrumental in creating his current situation at Vanderbilt because it allowed him the opportunity to explore many different perspectives and disciplines. Having chosen sociology as his discipline, McDaniel feels better equipped to look objectively at its strengths and weaknesses in relation to other disciplines because of his Southern Studies background. McDaniel particularly appreciates the friendliness of the Southern Studies faculty, noting : "The faculty and staff at the Center always helped meet my needs and offered individualized encouragement and support that was downright hospitable."

After an enjoyable stint as an archivist for the Virginia State Library and Archives, John Rees decided to pursue a Master's of Library and Information Science in order to further his professional career. For Rees, working as an archivist is "a great way to combine history, pop culture, museum stuff, and education." He hopes to get a job in a special collections library or archive when he recieves his degree from the University of Texas in May of this year.

Amy Wood felt really prepared going to Emory after her time in the Southern Studies Program. She says that working with Ted Ownby and Charles Wilson got her thinking about religion, violence, gender, and everyday or popular culture, and the questions she formulated in her work with them continue to be the questions she asks in her work at Emory. Her master's thesis focused on religious violence and the Klan in the 1920s; her doctoral dissertation will focus on how the perpetrators of mob violence in the South conceptualized and understood their violence in religious and moral terms. Wood will finish her coursework this spring and will then start work on her dissertation.

Through their challenging, interesting, and rewarding careers, our former graduates are proving how beneficial a Southern Studies master's degree can be. Their accomplishments speak well of the Center and are encouraging to both current and future students of the Southern Studies Graduate Program.

Allison Finch