Symposium Highlights Delta Research and Service Projects

Photo By Kevin Bain/University Communications

From University Communications

Inaugural symposium set for Thursday at Ole Miss

By   MISTY COWHERD

The inaugural University of Mississippi Delta Symposium, set for Thursday (Jan. 31), will bring together UM faculty and staff involved in projects of interest to the Delta region and feature a series of 60-second lectures on efforts to improve education, health care and other aspects of life.

The symposium, sponsored by the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, is set for 1:30-4 p.m. in the Overby Center Auditorium. A reception follows in the Overby Conference Center.

Open to the public, the symposium highlights the university’s research, scholarship, education and service projects in the Delta. Wide-ranging topics include a blues archiving project, the Ice House Entrepreneurship Program in the Mississippi State Penitentiary and improving geo-literacy and geographic education.

Christopher Masingill, federal co-chairman of the Delta Regional Authority, will give the keynote address.

Following the symposium reception, the university is sponsoring a Delta-themed Thacker Mountain Radio Show at Paris-Yates Chapel. In addition to the show’s host and house band, the show will feature guest authors and Ole Miss faculty members Tom Franklin and Beth Ann Fennelly, who have co-authored “The Braided River,” to be released in October, which takes place during the 1927 Mississippi flood; guest musicians The Delta Blues Museum Band; and five selected 60-second lectures from the symposium.

The radio show is typically recorded live Thursday evenings at Off Square Books and is rebroadcast at 7 p.m. Saturdays on Mississippi Public Broadcasting.