Access and Strategic Initiatives

As the flagship liberal arts university in the state of Mississippi, we have a deep responsibility to effectively educate and train problem-solving leaders and lifelong learners and welcome all to the power of higher education.

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Access and Strategic Initiatives

image of entrance arch to Walk of Champions in Grove of Ole Miss campus

Creating Access and Supporting Success

Come join us in the College of Liberal Arts -- a group of students, staff, faculty, and alumni who make a difference in the world! The powerful knowledge and skills from the sciences, social sciences, humanities, and fine and performing arts are yours for the taking. We are building dynamic, creative, collaborative, interdisciplinary and community-engaged approaches that will help you succeed no matter what path you choose.

There are many “ways in” to finding your passion and making change in the world. Let us help you find the one that inspires you. We are working on increasing access and supporting success to make the College the strongest, most welcoming place it can be. We invite you to bring your unique experience and talent to be a part of this work.

Kirsten Dellinger and Val Ross seated at a table talking together. There is a pile of magazines and books on the table in front of them. We are dedicated to making sure that we are improving access to education and a sense of belonging every day. Please contact us with any questions, ideas, or concerns you might have or just to reach out to say hello. We look forward to the opportunity to meet you and to have you meet us! We are glad you’re here.

Sincerely,

Kirsten Dellinger
Associate Dean for Access and Strategic Initiatives and Professor of Sociology

Valeria Beasley Ross
Program Manager for Access and Strategic Initiatives

CLA Faculty

We are dedicated to improving access to education and a sense of belonging for their students.

professor sitting around a table with students

faculty member and student looking at maps on a table

Faculty member pointing to a historic photo on a wall

ribbon cutting ceremony for LGBTQ lounge

faculty member standing with a group of students

image from a pride parade with someone holding flags

Cluster Hire Initiative

Chuck Ross at podium The College of Liberal Arts is in Year 4 of its multi-year faculty cluster hire initiative. This initiative is designed to expand our understanding of multicultural competence in a number of areas including:

Successful, effective, and ethical leadership;
Inclusive pedagogy in STEM; and
Black intellectual thought in the humanities, social sciences, and fine and performing arts.

The goal of this cluster hire initiative is to attract and support scholars who are doing cutting-edge research, scholarship, and creative achievement around one of these broad themes in their fields of specialization.

YEAR 4: Searches for 2024-25

Psychology and African American Studies
Theatre and Film and African American Studies (Coming soon!)

YEAR 3: Positions Filled

Chemistry and Biochemistry: Inclusive Excellence in STEM Pedagogy
History and African American Studies
Sociology and Southern Studies

YEAR 2: Positions Filled

Biology: Inclusive Excellence in STEM Pedagogy
English: McAlexander Chair in African American Literatures and Cultures
Political Science and African American Studies

YEAR 1: Positions Filled

Ethnomusicology and Gender Studies

Scholar Communities and Research Cohorts

This hiring initiative is designed to create community among scholars with similar research and professional interests and opportunities to meet and align with scholars already doing work in these and related areas on campus. As such, we value scholars who are committed to and integrated in the communities they study and can help build our capacity for inclusive research and education in the broadest sense. These scholars will receive appropriate startup packages for their research efforts and will be part of a research cohort supported by graduate student assistants and senior faculty members in the College.

Empower Now

Our most recent strategic plan at the University and College levels, Empower Now, is committed to institutional transformation in practices and policies that will support the work of all scholars. As the flagship public institution in the state of Mississippi, we are committed to increasing access to education for all Mississippians and supporting thriving scholarly communities in this state and beyond. We seek to increase capacity for robust inclusive teaching and mentoring practices that will create pathways of support and success for all students and desire candidates with demonstrated commitment and promise in these areas.

The CLA is conducting the following searches:
Assistant Professor of Psychology and African American Studies

Assistant Professor of Theatre and Film and African American Studies
Coming soon!

IDEAS Forum

Welcome to the College of Liberal Arts IDEAS Forum

In this series, we will strive to highlight the innovative scholarship that is happening all around us—in the Humanities, in the Fine and Performing Arts, in Mathematics and the Sciences, and in the Social Sciences, and at the intersections of all of these disciplines. Our strength is in the breadth of our scholarship and our capacity to be on the cutting-edge of research and creative achievement that “makes a difference.” We benefit from multiple perspectives and tools for understanding and changing our world. We come together in a forum to make all of this work more visible and so that we might connect the dots between approaches that are not always apparent to us when we work in isolation from one another. We hope you will join us!

2023-24

Keeping Our Eyes on the Prize: What If We Filmed A Landmark Civil Rights Documentary in 2024?

Dr. Kirk Johnson, Professor of Sociology and African American Studies
Tuesday, February 27, 2024

In 1989, PBS aired “Eyes on the Prize: America’s Civil Rights Years, 1954-1985” a 14-part documentary that blended long-forgotten archival footage with contemporary interviews of eyewitnesses to history. The series was hugely popular, winning nearly a dozen major film prizes, including six Emmy Awards. But Eyes stopped in 1985. What if it were filmed today? Prof. Kirk Johnson, who worked on the Eyes production team, nominated the most important civil rights events in recent history for inclusion in an updated series, and gave a sociologist’s perspective on how to think about them.

Doing Community Engagement: Frameworks, Challenges, Support
Monday, November 13, 2023
Dr. Anne Cafer, CLA Associate Dean for Research, Scholarship and Graduate Education and Associate Professor of Sociology

Dr. Laura Martin, Associate Director of the Grisham-McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement
Dr. Castel Sweet, Director for the Center for Community Engagement and Assistant Professor of Practice in Community Engagement

The forum was a panel discussion with three experts in community engagement to learn more about various approaches, common challenges, and resources on campus that are available to support this work.

The Power of Creativity, Collaboration & Community in Higher Education

Tuesday, October 10, 2023

Nancy Maria Balach, Chair and Professor of Music, Director of the UM Institute for the Arts, and CEO and Artistic Director of the Living Music Resource
Thesesa Starkey, Associate Director and Instructional Associate Professor of Gender Studies

Theresa Starkey and Nancy Maria Balach discussed the Sarahfest Artist-in-Residency Program for students as a case study of the value of the humanities and its transformative impact.

2022-23

History, Heritage, and the Politics of Memory Work in Mississippi
Wednesday, April 5, 2023

Dr. Jodi Skipper, Associate Professor of Anthropology and Southern Studies
Patrick Weems, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center

In this conversation Behind the Big House author, Jodi Skipper, and Executive Director of the Emmett Till Interpretive Center, Patrick Weems, share their experiences interpreting Black pasts in Mississippi’s present. They discussed the following: Who determines which pasts are remembered, What does it mean to publicly commemorate racially charged experiences and events, How a fractured collective memory impacts who does this work, What skill set it takes, and why this work continues to matter?

Shattered Kingdoms: Finding solace when life is burning down your American Dreams bring your bars.. your lines.. your caesuras.. your virgules.. your skin.. your bones
Tuesday, November 1, 2022
DDerrick Harriell, Interim Director of African American Studies; Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor English and African American Studies

Acclaimed poet, Derrick Harriell, read selections from his new book Come Kingdom. A question and answer period and book signing followed the poetry reading session.

Meredith’s Audacity Then & Now: A College of Liberal Arts Conversation
Monday, September 12, 2022
Derrick Harriell, Interim Director of African American Studies; Ottilie Schillig Associate Professor English and African American Studies
Dr. Jeff Jackson, Professor of Sociology and Chair of Department of Sociology and Anthropology
Dr. Charles Ross, Acting Chair of History and Professor of African American Studies and History

This panel provided important context for understanding the significance of the bold and courageous work of James Meredith to integrate the University of Mississippi and help dismantle systems of white supremacy at our institution and beyond. Perspectives on Meredith and our understanding of how significant social change occurs (now and then) were provided through a conversation between the current Chairs/Directors of African American Studies, History, and Sociology/Anthropology.

2021-22

Recruitment, Retention, & Success: The Importance of Equity-Minded Initiatives
Monday, February 28, 2022
Dr. Donald Cole, Emeritus Faculty & Administrator, University of Mississippi
Dr. Carla Cotwright-Williams, Technical Director for the Department of Defense
Dr. Richard Doss, Licensed Clinical Psychologist for the Department of Veterans Affairs

Dr. Donald Cole, an emeritus upper administrator and faculty member in Mathematics charged the campus, at the ceremony dedicating the renaming of the Martindale-Cole building, to follow what he called the “Cole-Martindale Principle” which “embraces inclusion, values diversity and demands equity”.

In pursuit of further discussing this principle, special guests Dr. Donald Cole, Dr. Carla Cotwright-Williams, and Dr. Richard Doss provided a window into the history of some of the most impactful equity-focused initiatives for African American students in STEM and beyond at the University of Mississippi. The goal of this conversation was to support increased understanding and awareness of the importance of McNair, IMAGE, AGEM, and similar initiatives, to inspire equity-minded change by members of our College of Liberal Arts community and all and to better support student success inside and outside the classroom keeping in mind the importance of building a sense of mattering and inclusion for students of color at the University of Mississippi.

Nice White Ladies and the Truth about White Supremacy

Wednesday, November 3, 2021

Dr. Barbara Combs, Associate Professor, Department of Sociology and Criminal Justice at Clark Atlanta University

Dr. Jessie Daniels, Professor of Sociology and Director, Master’s Program in Applied Digital Sociology at Hunter College; Professor of Sociology, Critical Psychology & Africana Studies at The Graduate Center, CUNY

White women’s protection is central to American culture, and it is killing all of us. Whether driving their children to their deaths in minivans or summoning the police to visit “death by cop” on Black people or simply passing on the myth of whiteness and the reality of white wealth to their children, nice white ladies are actively participating in a system designed for their comfort and the destruction of others. So writes sociologist Jessie Daniels in her new book NICE WHITE LADIES: The Truth about White Supremacy, Our Role in It, and How We Can Help Dismantle It (Seal Press, 2021). Join us in what is sure to be an engaging conversation with Dr. Barbara Combs, the author of From Selma to Montgomery: The Long March to Freedom, a book about the Selma campaign for voting rights and the forthcoming book, Bodies Out of Place: Theorizing Anti Blackness in US Society.

LGBTQ Histories Brought to Life
Monday, October 11, 2021
Dr. Amy McDowell, Associate Professor of Sociology
Dr. Peter Wood, Instructional Assistant Professor of Theatre Arts

This forum will be an informal conversation about the Queer Mississippi oral history project and how theatre can be used to creatively present research to broader audiences. Amy McDowell and Peter Wood will discuss their collaboration to meld theatre, sociology, and LGBTQ history in a classroom setting and talk about how students in one graduate seminar are using the Queer Mississippi archive to author an original script for theatrical performances. Graduate students from the class may also be joining.

Bamboo and Cotton: The Mississippi Chinese
Wednesday, September 15, 2021

Lynn Woo, Senior Research Associate, Center for Population Studies and the State Data Center of Mississippi Coordinator, Society and Health Minor

A common perception of Mississippi, especially the Mississippi Delta, is of a place lacking in racial and ethnic diversity and culture. However, when one looks more deeply, there are populations of diverse people who have carved out spaces for themselves within this southern landscape. This talk will focus on the Mississippi Delta Chinese and how their story is woven into the fabric of Mississippi.

The IDEAS Forum features work that highlights how inclusion, diversity, and equity are advancing through scholarship in the College. We dedicate the opening talk of the 2021–22 series to the efforts, begun last Spring in the wake of the tragic shootings of members of the AAPI community in Atlanta, to increase knowledge about the vast diversity of experiences within the Asian, Asian American, and Pacific Islander community with the express purpose of combating hate and inequity.

2020-21

Equity-minded Change: The University of Mississippi Psychology Diversity Committee
Monday, November 2, 2020

Dr. Stephanie E. Miller Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of Experimental Training
Dr. Carrie V. Smith, Assistant Professor of Psychology
Dr. Rebekah Smith, Professor and Chair of Psychology
Dr. Todd Smitherman, Associate Professor of Psychology and Director of Clinical Training

Poetry at the Crossroads: How Poetry Provides a Space for Beauty, Complexity, and Transformation
Monday, October 5, 2020

Dr. January O’Neil, Associate Professor of English at Salem State University

2019-20

African American Studies in the Family: 50 Years of Activism from Ohio State University to the University of Mississippi (1969–2019)
Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Chuck Ross, Professor of History and African American Studies

College of Liberal Arts James Meredith Changemaker Award

Recognizes those who walk in the footsteps of the first African American student to enroll at UM, continuing the difficult and critical work of change and transformation that requires personal courage and resilience. It honors an extraordinary graduating undergraduate senior in the College of Liberal Arts who has made significant positive change in broadening access, participation, and opportunities in higher education for individuals from minoritized or underrepresented groups.

Changemaker award medal with image of James Meredith in cap and gown

2024 Recipient, Jonathan Dabel

Jonathan E. Dabel (BA economics and public policy leadership '24) focused on solving problems of housing and food insecurity both on and off campus. He worked with the university’s Housing department to strategize and develop solutions for students who need housing during times when the university is closed. He also served as a Student Success Coordinator for the First-Gen Network. His research on housing and food insecurity among students was presented both to university administrators and at a national conference.

2024 CLA James Meredith Changemaker Award Finalists

Jametrice Blanchard, a political science major from Clinton, led and fostered the growth of the Ole Miss Undergraduate Legal Society from four student ambassadors to 32. She provided knowledge about the field of law and opening access to higher education for all students, with a special focus on students of color.

Tina Truong, a biology major from Madison, worked for greater food security for students and volunteered for the Jackson Free Clinic. She helped the Grove Grocery university food pantry for three years and as director for two years broadening access to food and resources on campus.

image of Sara Welch

Sara Austin Welch, a public policy leadership major from McCarley, was Associated Student Body president. Focusing efforts on increasing accessibility on campus, she added a principal of accessibility to the president’s cabinet and encouraged better policy and good citizenship to assist students with visual, mobility, and learning challenges.

Samorria Williams, a political science major from Brandon, was vice president for both Blacks in Political Studies and for Champions of Hope, Inc., a nonprofit empowering, educating, and inspiring at-risk youth in Mississippi. In these roles and as a mentor to 13 first-year students, Williams provided resources and created spaces where underrepresented students felt supported and empowered to pursue their academic and professional goals.

Access Mission Statement

The College of Liberal Arts is committed to access and success in higher education. We seek to engage in research, teaching, and service that serves all people. We strive to create an environment of learning and discovery where students, faculty, and staff are supported and can expect respect and a sense of belonging as they pursue their best work. As the largest academic area at the University of Mississippi, in the flagship university in the state, we have a deep responsibility to reflect the public we serve in order to effectively educate and train problem-solving leaders and lifelong learners. To foster this work and build the strongest College possible, our goal is to collectively create policies and practices in the College that ensure that everyone has access to the resources and decision-making needed to be successful. We will strive to develop authentic relationships and partnerships in this ongoing academic and civic journey towards a better education for all, learning from both wins and losses, and celebrating progress along the way.

Commencement - MA Ceremony As such, we strive to:

Recruit students, faculty, and staff using evidence-based practices to create strong Departments, Programs, and a cutting-edge College and University.
Build environments where faculty, staff, and students feel inspired and supported in their work.
Foster dynamic and supportive learning environments where people enjoy sharing, discussing, debating, and building new knowledge.
Support research and creative work that will advance pathways to a better world on our campus and in our community, state, nation, and society.
Create professional development and leadership opportunities that help build effective, sustainable, and healthy leadership teams in the College.