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UM Graduate Earns Gates Scholarship to Cambridge

Posted on: May 23rd, 2019 by erabadie

Josh Law heads to the United Kingdom to pursue a master’s degree

MAY 23, 2019 BY MICHAEL NEWSOM

Josh Law

A recent University of Mississippi graduate has received a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation scholarship to the University of Cambridge, where he will pursue a master’s degree in health, medicine and society.

Josh Law, a native of Birmingham, Alabama, earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy and religion from UM in 2017, and was accepted to Cambridge in December. Two months later, he learned he was receiving the Gates Scholarship, which pays for tuition, room and board, airfare and other expenses.

Law, who teaches middle school science in Commerce City, Colorado, said he’s excited to start his studies, which will run from Oct. 1, 2019 until June 2020.

“The program I am entering is one I have been interested in for a long time,” Law said. “It’s essentially Cambridge’s interdisciplinary public health degree. I am so excited. I’m looking forward to getting to know all of the other scholars. They are a really bright group.

“I’m looking forward to learning beside people across the planet, which is going to be a really cool experience.”

He will join about 100 Gates Scholars from around the world who are working on master’s degrees and doctorates at the prestigious university in the United Kingdom.

Microsoft founder Bill Gates and wife Melinda’s foundation funded the Gates Scholarship with a $210 million donation, which is used annually to send outstanding students from around the world to study at Cambridge.

The university boasts that its health, medicine and society degree is actually the most interdisciplinary health-related degree in the world. Law said he is interested in exploring this claim.

“Health is such an interdisciplinary experience,” Law said. “There is so much impacting an individual person and what it means for them to be healthy.

“Looking at that through as many academic lenses as possible through history and philosophy, but also through the social sciences, is going to provide the best opportunity for me to have a well-rounded view of health in the 21st century.”

Law hopes to enter medical school after he completes his studies at Cambridge and enter the field of psychiatry, he said. For now, he is enjoying teaching science to middle schoolers in the Denver suburbs, he said.

Law, who was a student in the UM Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, made an impression on Honors College Dean Douglass Sullivan-González while he was at Ole Miss. Law’s latest career news doesn’t surprise his former dean.

“We are thrilled with Josh’s success and enjoy the arc of his commitment to public health and education,” Sullivan-González said. “He has consistently applied himself at our university and in the public square, seeking the depth and breadth in life’s experiences to make this moment possible.

“Josh is the consummate citizen and scholar, and the world has taken notice.”

Forum to Examine Religious Freedom Laws in State

Posted on: April 12th, 2019 by erabadie

Policy Talks event draws on expertise of faculty, alumni from Department of Philosophy and Religion

APRIL 12, 2019 BY EDWIN B. SMITH

The inaugural Policy Talks is set for 5:30 p.m. April 25 in Bryant Hall, Room 209. Three UM faculty members and three select alumni will discuss religious freedom laws. A reception will follow the free event in the Bryant Hall Gallery. Photo by Robert Jordan/Ole Miss Digital Imaging Services

A panel discussion examining religious freedom laws is scheduled for April 25 at the University of Mississippi.

The inaugural “Policy Talks” begins at 5:30 p.m. in Bryant Hall, Room 209. Three UM faculty members and three select alumni will discuss religious freedom laws. A reception will follow the free event in the Bryant Hall Gallery.

“This is part of the Dialogue Initiative, which is designed to address highly contentious issues within our society and to integrate students, faculty, alumni and the campus community,” said event organizer Deborah Mower, associate professor of philosophy and Bryant Chair of Ethics.

“Invited panelists discuss what they think the best approach or resolution would be to address the issue given their expertise. After the panelists each give their presentations, a second panel of UM faculty pose questions to the initial panelists and a brief conversation amongst all the panelists will ensue.”

Audience members may submit questions, screened by a moderator, to any of the panelists. Following the speakers, a question-and-answer session will continue the conversation with the panelists informally.

The genesis of the event began last year during a discussion between Neil Manson, UM professor of philosophy, and a friend who is also an Ole Miss alumnus.

“He stopped by my office to talk about what he could do to promote civil discourse on campus,” Manson said. “We brainstormed several possibilities, but we kept returning to ideas that somehow involved our alumni.

“Was there a way to get them in conversation with one another about a hot-button issue, so that an audience could see how people of very differing opinions could have a genuine dialogue rather than just a shouting match?”

They ran their ideas by Mower, who liked the concept and agreed to take over organizing the event, placing it under the umbrella of the Dialogue Initiative, a series started by the Department of Philosophy and Religion.

“We decided that, for the initial Policy Talks, we would seek alumni who majored in philosophy,” Manson said. “They could showcase the relevance to civil discourse of the skills they learned as students here: the use of critical thinking and logic, the sensitivity to definitions and the need for charitable interpretation of one’s opponents.”

Steven Skultety, chair of the department, enthusiastically backed the idea.

“We think of our alumni as an incredible intellectual resource for furthering the mission of the university,” Skultety said. “We also believe that they can serve as role models for how smart and reflective citizens discuss difficult topics.”

Working with a faculty committee to select topics, Mower suggested examining religious freedom laws.

“We had several very strong contenders as topics for our first event, but no topic was a clear frontrunner,” she said. One weekend, Mower came across a newspaper article about a dispute in Georgia stemming from the state’s statutes.

“The second I read the article, I knew this was the perfect inaugural topic for us because it brings together the fields of philosophy and religion in our joint department,” Mower said.

Sarah Moses, associate professor of religion

With the topic in place, organizers began to select panelists with the appropriate expertise to address the issue. Faculty panelists are Matthew Hall, associate professor of law; Sarah Moses, associate professor of religion; and Amy McDowell, assistant professor of sociology. Guest panelists are UM philosophy alumni C.J. Rhodes (2004), Eleanor Ruffner (2001) and former Oxford Mayor Richard Howorth.

An Oxford native, Ruffner is an attorney and partner in Ruffner Schoenbaum PLLC, specializing in commercial litigation in Texas. She also teaches as an adjunct professor at the University of Texas School of Law. Daughter of Ron Vernon, UM professor emeritus of music and a former associate dean of the College of Liberal Arts, Ruffner has been named the 2018 Texas Super Lawyer and a 2018 Texas Rising Star.

A Hazelhurst native, Rhodes is pastor at the Mount Helm Baptist Church in Jackson. Son of renowned civil rights attorney Carroll Rhodes Sr., he has published columns in the Jackson Free Press and the Mississippi Link, and he hosts “The CJ Rhodes Show” on WRBJ 97.7-FM.

Amy McDowell, assistant professor of sociology

Howorth is founder and owner of Square Books in Oxford, one of the country’s largest independent bookstores. Former chairman of the American Booksellers Association, he chairs the board of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

Because religious freedom laws vary so much by state, Mower hopes to keep the conversation focused.

“Given the complexity of these issues and the law, as well as the fact that we only have a short time during this event, we want both our panelists and attendees to focus on religious freedom laws in Mississippi,” she said. “Because our society is so polarized, we rarely talk about complex moral and political issues, which merely breeds a greater lack of understanding and increases polarization.”

Religion major and Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors Collegesenior Samuel Brassell, of Olive Branch, wrote his honors thesis on the influence of Southern Baptists on a religious freedom bill that recently passed in Mississippi. Mower asked him for permission to use his thesis as a resource for Policy Talks. Brassell consented, and his thesis is posted online as a background reading resource to prepare panelists and attendees.

“We want to showcase current students and alumni and to integrate both the work of our current students do and the expertise of our alumni,” Mower said. “Our goal for Policy Talks is civil conversations with experts to examine policies that affect our lives. What could be more interesting than that?”

The event is sponsored by the Department of Philosophy and Religion, University Lecture Series, the Self Family Foundation, the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement and the Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Hume Bryant Chair of Ethics.

For more information, visit https://philosophy.olemiss.edu/dialogue-initiative-policy-talks/.

UM Students, Staff, Alumni Join Community for MLK Day of Service Activities

Posted on: January 10th, 2018 by erabadie

Volunteers gathering to honor King’s legacy through community engagement

JANUARY 8, 2018 BY EDWIN B. SMITH

Brian Foster, UM assistant professor of sociology and Southern studies, speaks during the opening ceremony of the 2017 MLK Day of Service. Photo by Robert Jordan/Ole Miss Communications

University of Mississippi students, staff and community partners are spearheading efforts to promote community engagement and encourage a spirit of service in Lafayette County and Oxford during 2018 Martin Luther King Jr. Day observances.

The Lafayette-Oxford-University MLK Day of Service opening ceremony is set for 10:30 a.m. Jan. 15 at the Burns-Belfry Museum and Multicultural Center.

Program participants include Katrina Caldwell, UM vice chancellor for diversity and community engagement; Oxford Alderman Ulysses “Coach” Howell; Mike Roberts, of the Lafayette County Board of Supervisors; and Chancellor Jeffrey Vitter. The Rev. C. Edward “CJ” Rhodes II, pastor of Mt. Helm Baptist Church of Jackson, will deliver the keynote address.

The Rev. Carroll Edward Rhodes II, pastor of the Mt. Helms Baptist Church in Jackson and a UM alumnus, will deliver the keynote address during the community’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. Day observance. Submitted photo

“I am very humbled and honored to be asked to deliver the keynote for such a historic occasion,” said Rhodes, the 23rd and youngest pastor of Jackson’s oldest historically black church. “As we look back on the achievements and sacrifices of Dr. King and others, this generation is challenged to do great things not just for themselves, but for others and the world as well.”

The son of famed civil rights attorney Carroll Rhodes Sr., Rhodes earned his bachelor’s degree in philosophy from UM in 2004. He continued his education at Duke Divinity School, where he served as vice president of the Black Seminarians Union in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Rhodes serves on the board of the Urban League of Greater Jackson, the Center for Ministry and the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference, and is the former president of the Farish Street/Main Street Project. The recipient of numerous awards and recognitions, he also serves as host of “The CJ Rhodes Show” on WRBJ-97.7 FM and is author of “Thy Kingdom Come: Reflections on Pastoral and Prophetic Ministry.”

Following the keynote, awards will be presented to outstanding LOU volunteers in four categories: a community member and one student apiece from the Oxford School District, the Lafayette County School District and the university. All recipients are to be announced at the ceremony.

“The Office of Leadership and Advocacy is proud to work once again, side-by-side with so many excellent community partners,” said Hal Sullivan, coordinator of student affairs programs at UM. “Our goal, in the spirit of Dr. King, is to encourage reflection, action and redefine ‘service’ for this community.”

Other activities scheduled are:

Saturday (Jan. 13):

Second Annual Community Reading of “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” 5 p.m., Off-Square Books. Readers include members from the LOU community to acknowledge one of King’s most powerful works.

Monday (Jan. 15):

Community breakfast, 8:30 a.m., Second Baptist Church
Opening ceremony and keynote address, 10:30 a.m., Burns-Belfry Museum. Attendees also can participate in activities for children ages 3-10 and listen to recordings of oral histories that illustrate what life was like for north Mississippians during the civil rights era.
Community showing of “The Long Walk Home,” 1:30 p.m., Burns Belfry Museum. A community conversation about the film, hosted by the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, follows. Kiese Laymon, UM professor of English, will facilitate discussion about the movie.
Community give-back benefiting the Exchange Club Family Center, 4-9 p.m., Chili’s Bar & Grill.
Community food drive benefitting the Food Pantry, all day, Abundant Truth Salt and Light Ministry in Taylor. Donations can be brought to any of the day’s events.

Ole Miss staff involved in planning of MLK Day of Service events expressed enthusiasm about participating in such a worthy cause.

“We are inspired by the members of the North Mississippi VISTA Project, who are collaborating with the Oxford and Lafayette school districts to offer lessons and activities on the civil rights movement,” said Laura Martin, assistant director of the McLean Institute for Public Service and Community Engagement. “In the spirit of lifting up agents of change, we encourage people in the LOU community to nominate deserving individuals for the MLK Service Awards.”

For more information about MLK Day of Service events, contact ola@olemiss.edu.

The Department of Philosophy and Religion 2016 Newsletter

Posted on: December 13th, 2016 by erabadie

Click to read a note from Steven Skultety, chair and associate professor of philosophy and religion, introducing three new faculty members—Deborah Mower, associate professor of philosophy; Kristy Slominski, instructional assistant professor of religion; and Shem Miller, instructional assistant professor of religion—along with spotlights on students Madison Gable and Keri Crum; alumni Thomas Chandler and John Kimble; and faculty Donovan Wishon, assistant professor of philosophy, and Sarah Moses, assistant professor of religion.

Alumni Embark on 300-Mile Bike Ride for United Way

Posted on: November 22nd, 2016 by erabadie

Cyclists plan to travel from Ole Miss game with Vanderbilt to Egg Bowl in Oxford

NOVEMBER 18, 2016 BY CHRISTINA STEUBE

Charlie Wildman (left) and Adam Vinson plan to ride their bikes from Nashville, Tennessee, to Oxford over Thanksgiving week to raise money for United Way. Submitted photo

Two University of Mississippi alumni embark this weekend on a 300-mile bike ride in support of United Way of Oxford and Lafayette County.

After Saturday evening’s Ole Miss-Vanderbilt football game, Adam Vinson and Charlie Wildman plan to ride their bikes from Nashville, Tennessee, to Oxford, arriving in time for the annual Egg Bowl matchup with Mississippi State University on Nov. 26. The two are raising money to assist families in the Lafayette-Oxford-University community during the holidays.

They plan to ride down the Natchez Trace Parkway, which has always been a goal of theirs. Once they realized an opportunity to make this a charitable event while supporting the Rebels, they decided to make it a reality.

“I noticed there were two games separated by about 300 miles over Thanksgiving week,” Vinson said. “I asked Charlie if he was interested in cycling from one to the other, because he has done rides like this before, and he said he was absolutely down!”

The work began to make this a charitable adventure, and the friends decided that United Way of Oxford & Lafayette County would be the best beneficiary.

The donation breaks down to just 10 cents per mile, so Wildman and Vinson are encouraging the LOU community to contribute to the United Way via https://app.mobilecause.com/vf/RebelsRide or text RebelsRide to 71777. Donations will benefit families in the Oxford and Lafayette community.

“We’re really excited that they are Ole Miss alums and care about this area,” said Ben Strassman, an AmeriCorps VISTA working in the United Way chapter. “They spent their formative years in Oxford and want to make sure the money directly affects our county and our city to make it the best it can possibly be.”

Strassman added that 99 cents of every dollar donated will stay in the LOU community.

This will be Vinson’s first ride of this distance, but Wildman is a veteran of charitable journeys. He and a friend organized and completed a 25-day, 2,000-mile ride from Cumberland, Maryland, to Telluride, Colorado, during the summer of 2015 and raised $11,000 for a New Orleans-based disabilities charity.

Vinson and Wildman met in 2004 as members of the Delta Kappa Epsilon social fraternity at Ole Miss.

Vinson, an Oxford native, graduated from UM in 2008 with a bachelor’s degree in philosophy and psychology. Upon graduation, he served with Teach for America in the Mississippi Delta. He earned a master’s degree in education from the University of Pennsylvania in 2012 before moving with his wife, Katherine Bensel, to New Orleans, where he is pursuing a graduate degree in electrical engineering from the University of New Orleans.

Wildman graduated from UM in 2009 with a bachelor’s degree in geological engineering. He has worked at firms in Dallas and New York City, where he worked onsite during construction of the Second Avenue Subway and served as the president of the Ole Miss Club of New York. He lives in New Orleans and is working on a master’s degree in civil engineering at the University of New Orleans.

To contribute to Vinson and Wildman’s cause, visit https://app.mobilecause.com/vf/RebelsRide. To keep up with their journey, follow them on Facebook and Twitter through #RebelsRideUnited.

Fellowship Gives Students Taste of Doctors’ Real-World Ethical Dilemmas

Posted on: September 25th, 2014 by erabadie

Dr. Didlake

Emma Willoughby

Undergraduate humanities students make the rounds at the University of Mississippi Medical Center, observing patients and physicians while getting an up-close look at emerging ethical issues in modern medicine.

“The idea is to develop a population of humanities scholars who have a meaningful exposure to the modern biomedical enterprise and who will help us better understand health care in a broad sociocultural context,” said Dr. Ralph Didlake (BS zoology ’75), director of the UMMC Center for Bioethics and Medical Humanities, associate vice chancellor for academic affairs, and chief academic officer.

Launched in 2010, the five week Student Fellowship in Bioethics is a collaboration between UMMC and the UM Department of Philosophy and Religion.

The immersion experience program designed for juniors or seniors in the College of Liberal Arts introduces the fellows to the real-world ethical issues and challenges that face medical professionals, said Steven Skultety, professor and chair of philosophy.

“Much like students in medical school, our biomedical ethics fellows are assigned to ward teams, where they observe patients as they experience their illnesses, the environment in which their care is given, as well as the physicians, nurses and other staff as they provide that care,” Skultety said.

Besides interacting with medical and nursing students, the fellows attend selected classes and meetings of review boards, participate in tutorials and small group discussions, and write an essay that analyzes an ethical, cultural, or social issue encountered during the experience.

With rapid medical discoveries and technological advancements, bioethical issues are becoming more prominent in society. “One only has to hear one newscast to be convinced that ethics training is needed in many areas of our society, and this is clearly part of what we want to achieve with the fellowship,” said Didlake. “Beyond that, we want to fully understand how social and cultural issues impact health and health care.”

Emma Willoughby, (BA sociology and liberal studies with concentrations in anthropology, biology, and psychology ’14) currently at the London School of Economics for a master’s in international health policy, was a recent bioethics fellow.

“I’m very passionate about social disparities in health-care delivery methods and access,” Willoughby said.

Last June she conducted research for her thesis on trust relationships between patients and staff at a community health center in the Mississippi Delta. “I was learning about trust relationships between patients and providers,” Willoughby said. “At this health center, strong community bonds created a welcoming, nurturing atmosphere. In Jackson, at UMMC, things were very different—the medical system was much larger, more impersonal, and disparities between patients and providers were starkly clear to me. Contextualizing what I had experienced at the Delta clinic in the bigger picture of health care proved to be critically important for my thesis research and analysis.

“As we know, health care is linked to many facets of society and therefore requires the input from many different kinds of people, including philosophers and ethicists, economists, psychologists, social workers, policymakers and lawyers, managers, those in marketing, and countless others. But it’s important that these folks are all on the same page about what influences and shapes our health care delivery—socially, politically, and economically—if we really want to improve the health care system we’ve created.

“While the typical biomedical framework likes to say that medicine is equal and fair and just because it’s ‘science,’ this just isn’t true. We can’t extract our social relationships from health care, because it’s inevitably social as well.”

“Our intent is to grow a population of humanities scholars who can apply the skills of their disciplines to a better understanding of the challenges we meet in health care,” said Didlake. “Emma absolutely exemplifies what this fellowship is about.”

Leadership Laboratory: From Pupil to Pulpit

Posted on: February 12th, 2013 by erabadie

C.J. Rhodes

This year Black History Month events at the University of Mississippi began with a speech by alumnus Rev. C. Edwards “CJ” Rhodes (B.A.’04).

Rhodes’ years at UM shaped the leader he is today. The son of famed civil rights attorney Carroll Rhodes Sr., was the youngest pastor of the oldest historically black congregation in Jackson, Mount Helm Baptist Church, from 2010 until September 2013 when he became Alcorn State University rector of the Oakland Memorial Chapel, director of student religious life and assistant professor in the Department of Social Sciences. The author and radio show host also serves on the board of the Urban League of Greater Jackson, the Center for Ministry, the Mississippi Religious Leadership Conference, and is former president of the Farish Street/Main Street Project.

The Hazlehurst native took full advantage of his collegiate experience—working with the William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, serving an appointment to the Chancellor’s Committee for Respect and Sensitivity, co-founding two college ministries and serving as associate minister to youth and young adults at two local Baptist churches.

“I was surrounded by great professors and students who saw my potential and persuaded me to use my gifts to do good,” he said. “Through the Winter Institute and the leadership of director Susan Glisson, I found a safe space to think out loud about strategies and goals to help the University become greater through challenging the administration and student body to reimagine who we are.”

The only black philosophy major at that time found support in the department. “I still laugh at Dr. Bill Lawhead, who inquired how a Baptist-Pentecostal preacher found his way into philosophy, given how mistrusting many Evangelicals are of the area of study,” Rhodes said. “I am a better leader because folks like him inspired me to be.”

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Dr. Ethel Young-Minor, Senior Fellow at the Lucky Day Residential College and associate professor of English, first saw him sitting on the floor in the Union bookstore reading books about religion from the shelf as if in a library. “I was so intrigued by this voracious reader that I had to ask his name and by the end of the conversation I was taking him home to meet my husband, who took him in as our son in ministry,” she said.

UM prepared Rhodes for Duke Divinity School, where he earned a master’s and served as vice president of the Black Seminarians Union. “There were a few moments at Duke where my ability to mediate tense conversations around race and gender, cultivated during UM days, were essential in moving seminarians and administration through difficult yet critical decisions,” he said.

Rhodes appreciates his time in college and advises students, “You have at least four years to get a quality, world-class education. Get it! Let nothing or no one get in the way of becoming intellectual and culturally well rounded and deep. Get as much book knowledge as possible, attend every major lecture or event. Ask the right questions. Be in the room when decisions are being made. When you leave, know that you’ve amassed excellent skills to be competitive in the market but more importantly to be a global citizen able to do the most good in your chosen field of influence.”

Ole Miss News and the Daily Mississippian contributed to this story by Mary Love Fair.