home page news Archives - Page 4 of 4

Archive for the ‘home page news’ Category

Bruce Levingston: An Undivided Artist

Posted on: February 18th, 2015 by erabadie

Populi Magazine Interview with UM Chancellor’s Artist in Residence Bruce Levingston

February 3, 2015 | By Eleanor Anthony | ecanthon@go.olemiss.edu

Bruce Levingston

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with Mr. Bruce Levingston, world-renowned pianist and native Mississippian who has contributed a great deal to the University of Mississippi with both his time and talent. He was kind enough to answer a few questions with regards to his life and work, his new role at the Honors College and Department of Music, as well as his performance and presentation at the Spring Honors Convocation on February 10th, 2015, and an Honors Conversations Course he is teaching in Spring 2015.

Two excerpts from the interview by Eleanor Anthony, a mathematics and philosophy major and an editor of Populi Magazine follow. Click here to read the full interview.

Can you tell me a bit about your start as a musician and what ultimately brought you to Ole Miss?

I grew up in a nearby town called Cleveland, located in the Mississippi Delta. I started playing when I was four, and then my mother gave me my first piano lessons. Eventually I went on to study with some fantastic teachers around the world; my career now is as a concert pianist, and I have lived most of my adult life in New York City. A few years ago, the Chancellor and other friends connected to Ole Miss reached out and asked me if I would come here to see the campus. I had not been to Oxford since I was a boy, and I was quite surprised by how much development had occurred and how much the university had grown. After a few visits and performances, the Chancellor asked me to come here as his adviser of the arts, and that led to my meeting Dean Douglass Sullivan-González; after we came to know one another, DSG asked me if I would become a fellow in the Honors College, and so I did that for a year, and enjoyed working with him very much, and that led to my being offered a Chair in the Honors College in the humanities that was recently established thanks to a generous gift by Ruff Fant, whose father taught here many years. I am officially titled the Chancellor’s SMB Honors College Artist in Residence and am also the Artist in Residence for the Department of Music. So this gives me the opportunity to work with some of the great musicians here on campus as well as some of the great students at the Honors College. And sometimes they are one and the same! So, that’s a lot of fun.

I know you are very active in terms of collaborating with other artists—could you tell me about some of the recent collaborations on which you’ve worked?

So one of the most important and thrilling things I’ve been able to do since I’ve been on campus is to work with some of the great artists that are here in different areas. I’ve already had a chance to work with some of the superb musicians in the music department, and we are going to collaborate further on a performance that I will be giving on March 27th at the Ford Center where the amazing singer Nancy Maria Balach will come on to the program with one of her superb students and perform with me as well as Jos Milton, the wonderful tenor, and Robert Riggs, chair of the music department and a terrific violinist. I had a chance also to work with the great percussionist Ricky Burkhead on Thacker Mountain Radio which was a marvelous collaboration. But I also think of the arts not divided into writing or music or painting but as just one thing. We really are a part of the same family. So when I first came, I had the opportunity to meet Beth Ann Fennelly, the acclaimed poet, and her husband, Tom Franklin, a brilliant novelist. We immediately set out to collaborate on some works about words and music. I even wrote a piece that was based on their novel called The Tilted World. And we gave a performance in New York City together; they will also come on the program with me in March and read, and I will play some things inspired by their words. I have also had the chance to work with the Southern Foodway Association and to collaborate with great artists like Kevin Young, the Pen Faulkner Award-winner, and Justin Hopkins, a superb opera singer from Philadelphia, on a wonderful project based on the words of Booker Wright, an important figure from the Civil Rights era from Greenwood, Mississippi. We recently performed that, and I think it was a very special collaboration. We will perform it next year in New York City at Carnegie Hall. To be able to engage with other artists really makes life fulfilling because it helps one feel a part of the whole artistic community.

Read more here.

Law School’s Affiliated Faculty Program Brings Innovative Approach to Scholarship, Teaching

Posted on: October 24th, 2014 by erabadie

October 22, 2014

The University of Mississippi School of Law recently approved its first four affiliated faculty as part of the law school’s new affiliated faculty program: John Green from the Department of Sociology and Anthropology; Steven Skultety from the Department of Philosophy and Religion; and John Winkle from the Department of Political Science, and Robert Mongue from the Department of Legal Studies.

“The Law School’s new Affiliated Faculty Program is meant to promote creative collaborations in teaching, research and service between law faculty and other UM faculty,” said Jack Nowlin, associate dean for faculty development and professor at the law school. “There is so much scholars from different fields can learn from working with each other. Our work only gets better when we collaborate across disciplines.”

The law school hopes this program will increase collaborative activities such interdisciplinary participation in the law school’s academic workshop program, joint sponsorship of speaking events, joint research projects and team-teaching.

UM faculty recognized as law school affiliates will appear on the law school’s faculty page with that title and will also receive special invitations to attend law school speaking events and participate in workshop programs.

Each of the law school’s four new affiliated faculty members is an outstanding UM faculty scholar with a solid history of interdisciplinary collaborations with the law school.

Professor John Green is an associate professor of sociology and director of the Center for Population Studies. His interests include community development, health and health care, limited resource and minority farmers, and the social dimensions of disaster. He has worked with the law school’s transactional clinic and engaged in joint research projects with Professor Desiree Hensley.

“I am elated to be an affiliated faculty member with the School of Law,” Green said. “As a research center director and faculty member in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology, I am working on a wide range of applied programs in community development, agrifood systems and health. This association with the School of Law has expanded the reach of my work and my professional connections.”

Steven Skultety is an associate professor of philosophy and chair of the Department of Philosophy and Religion. Professor Skultety’s interests lie in ancient philosophy, especially the work of Aristotle, and in republican and democratic theory. Skultety’s collaborations with the law school include co-sponsoring speaking events and regularly participating in the law school’s faculty writing groups.

“Philosophy and law both rest on an ability to make clear and persuasive arguments,” Skultety said. “Whenever I work with my colleagues in the Law School, I’m struck by how much we have in common. Anyone who attends one of our co-sponsored events – like our annual Constitution Day talk or the Jack Dunbar lecture in philosophy and law – will also see the similarities. As an affiliated faculty member, I’m looking forward to continuing my own collaboration with law professors, and I’m also excited to search for new ways the Law School and the Department of Philosophy and Religion can work together.”

John Winkle is professor emeritus with the Department of Political Science. Over his 40 year career, he has taught courses on constitutional law, judicial politics the American legal process, and many other topics. He has published numerous articles on wide range of subjects such as lobbying by federal judges before Congress, state-federal judicial councils and the political role played by the administrative office of the U.S. courts. Winkle’s long history of collaborations with law faculty include team-teaching, participating in joint speaking events and circulating drafts to law faculty for comment.

“I am delighted to be a law school faculty affiliate and look forward to continued work with my colleagues in the law school,” said Winkle. “Some of my fondest associations over the years have been with active and retired law school faculty whom I am pleased to call my friends.”

Robert Mongue, associate professor of legal studies, has had over 30 years’ experience practicing law in addition to his academic accomplishments. He specializes in paralegal education and is the author of the “Empowered Paralegal” book series. His collaborations with the law school include giving guest lectures, organizing interdisciplinary speaking events and working on projects to better integrate graduate and undergraduate legal education.

“I look forward to the opportunity to strengthen the bond between the law school and the Legal Studies Department, especially the Paralegal Studies Program,” Mongue said. “While my previous communications have focused on those of our students who intend to apply for admission to law school, I think that it would be just as helpful to both paralegal students preparing for careers as paralegals and law students preparing for careers as attorneys to engage each other during their education for purposes of improving their working relationships when that education is complete.”

UM faculty interested in collaborative opportunities with the law school should contact Associate Dean Jack Nowlin. UM faculty may apply for affiliated faculty status by sending Dean Richard Gershon a curriculum vitae along with materials highlighting recent collaborative activities with law faculty. A copy of the law school policy is available here: Affiliated Faculty Policy.

Learn more about these affiliated faculty members on the faculty directory page.

SEC Announces 2014-15 Academic Leadership Development Program Fellows

Posted on: October 13th, 2014 by erabadie

OCTOBER 9, 2014 | BY UM COMMUNICATIONS STAFF

Forty-eight faculty members and administrators from Southeastern Conference universities have been selected as 2014-15 SEC Academic Leadership Development Program fellows.

The SEC Academic Leadership Development Program is a professional development program that seeks to identify, prepare and advance academic leaders for roles within SEC institutions and beyond. It has two components: a university-level development program designed by each institution for its own participants, and two three-day, SEC-wide workshops held on specified campuses for all program participants.

This year’s workshops will be Oct. 13-15 at the University of Missouri in Columbia, and Feb. 18-20, 2015, at Texas A&M University in College Station.

The SEC ALDP is managed locally by a liaison, who is designated by provosts to serve as the primary point of contact on each campus. Liaisons lead their fellows through the yearlong SEC ALDP and organize university development opportunities.

“The SEC ALDP, through formal workshops and on-campus activities, aims to provide future academic leaders the opportunity to learn and develop the skills needed to meet the challenges of academic leadership,” said Peter Ryan, the program liaison at Mississippi State University and chair of the SEC ALDP.

Since its inception in 2008, SEC ALDP has graduated more than 230 faculty and academic administrators, and program alumni have become deans and provosts at universities around the SEC and country, including Laurence Alexander from the University of Florida’s 2012-13 cohort who is chancellor at the University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff.

The SEC Academic Leadership Development Program is part of SECU, the conference’s academic initiative. SECU serves as the primary mechanism through which the collaborative academic endeavors and achievements of SEC universities are promoted and advanced.

The 2014-15 SEC Academic Leadership Development Program fellows are:

Lisa Lindquist Dorr, University of Alabama, associate dean of social sciences, College of Arts & Sciences
Diane Johnson, University of Alabama, senior associate dean, Culverhouse College of Commerce
Alice March, University of Alabama, associate dean for graduate programs, College of Nursing
Joseph Phelps, University of Alabama, department chair, Communication & Information Sciences
Micah Hale, University of Arkansas, associate department head, Civil Engineering
Bart Hammig, University of Arkansas, department chair, Health, Human Performance & Recreation
Cynthia Sagers, University of Arkansas, associate vice provost for research, Biological Sciences
Kathryn Sloan, University of Arkansas, department chair, History
DeWayne Searcy, Auburn University, director, School of Accountancy
Bret Smith, Auburn University, interim associate dean for academic affairs,
College of Architecture, Design & Construction
Ana Franco-Watkins, Auburn University, undergraduate program director, Department of Psychology
Mark Law, University of Florida, director, Honors Program
Robert Ries, University of Florida, director, M.E. Rinker, Sr. School of Building Construction
Melissa Harshman, University of Georgia, director, First Year Odyssey Program
Stephen Miller, University of Georgia, director, Bioimaging Research Center
Judith Wasserman, University of Georgia, director, Advanced Visualization Initiative
Kimberly Ward Anderson, University of Kentucky, associate dean for administration & academic
affairs, College of Engineering
Karen Badger, University of Kentucky, associate dean of academic & student affairs, College of Social Work
Kathryn Cardarelli, University of Kentucky, associate dean for academic & student affairs, College of Public Health
Andrew Hippisley, University of Kentucky, director, Linguistics Program
Jacqueline Bach, LSU, Elena & Albert LeBlanc Professor, English Education & Curriculum Theory
Troy Blanchard, LSU, associate dean, College of Humanities & Social Sciences
Joan King, LSU, undergraduate curriculum coordinator, School of Nutrition & Food Sciences
Meghan Sanders, LSU, associate dean for sponsored research & programs, Manship School of Mass Communications
Virginia Rougon Chavis, chair of the University of Mississippi Department of Art
Amy Wells Dolan, University of Mississippi, associate dean, School of Education
Steven Skultety, chair of the University of Mississippi Department of Philosophy & Religion
Donna West-Strum, University of Mississippi, department chair, Pharmacy Administration
David Dampier, Mississippi State University, director, Distributed Analytics & Security Institute
Mark Lawrence, Mississippi State University, associate dean, College of Veterinary Medicine
Rebecca Long, Mississippi State University, interim associate dean, Graduate School, College of Business
David Morse, Mississippi State University, interim department head, Educational Psychology
Heidi Appel, University of Missouri, senior associate director, Honors College
Bryan Garton, University of Missouri, associate dean, College of Agriculture, Food & Natural Resources
Christopher Hardin, University of Missouri, department chair, Nutrition & Exercise Physiology
Matthew Martens, University of Missouri, interim division executive director, College of Education
Christy Friend, University of South Carolina, director, Center for Teaching Excellence
Augie Grant, University of South Carolina, J. Rion McKissick Professor of Journalism
Robert Ployhart, University of South Carolina, Bank of America Professor of Business Administration
Sara Wilcox, University of South Carolina, director, Prevention Research Center
William Dunne, University of Tennessee, associate dean for research, College of Engineering
Bruce MacLennan, University of Tennessee, Faculty Senate president
Brent Mallinckrodt, University of Tennessee, associate dean for graduate studies, College of Arts & Sciences
Lane Morris, University of Tennessee, associate dean for undergraduate programs & student affairs, College of Business Administration
Richard Kreider, Texas A&M University, department head, Health & Kinesiology
Kirsten Pullen, Texas A&M University, director of graduate studies, Performance Studies
David Threadgill, Texas A&M University, director, Whole Systems Genomics Initiative
Douglas Woods, Texas A&M University, department head, Department of Psychology

Consciousness Conference Bringing World-Class Experts to Campus

Posted on: April 16th, 2014 by erabadie

The University of Mississippi hosts the “Conscious Thought and Thought About Consciousness” conference April 27-30, bringing world-class philosophers and cognitive scientists to campus.

The event is scheduled for the E.F. Yerby Conference Center, and all events are free and open to the public.

Leaders in several fields, including philosophy and neuroscience, will converge on campus to promote cutting-edge work in hopes of creating better understanding of human and animal consciousness, its relation to the brain and how humans think about sentient beings, among other topics, said Donovan Wishon, UM assistant professor of philosophy.

“What’s particularly remarkable about this event is that it will bring together scholars with vastly different views about consciousness, thought and the methods we should use to come to grips with the mind, its workings and its relation to physical reality,” Wishon said. “What’s more, the conference is intended to educate the students and the general public about how philosophy, and the humanities in general, can work side-by-side with the sciences to answer fundamental questions about who we are and what our place is in the world.”

The event is sponsored by the UM departments of philosophy and religion, and psychology, and the university’s College of Liberal Arts, the Office of the Provost, University Lecture Series and Office of Research and Sponsored Programs. It’s also co-sponsored by the Mississippi Humanities Council, the Mississippi Philosophical Association and the Mississippi State University Department of Philosophy and Religion.

For more information, click this link to a website devoted to the event. For assistance related to a disability issue, contact the UM Department of Philosophy and Religion at 662-915-7020.

VIDEO: Students’ Vercelli Book Restoration

Posted on: October 18th, 2013 by erabadie

Eleanor Anthony

When Eleanor Anthony visited Vercelli, Italy, last spring, she was smitten with damaged 10th century manuscripts that she and others from the University of Mississippi were there to help recover. Little did she know that six months later, she would be presenting a plan to make those documents legible at an international conference in London.

Anthony, a junior mathematics and philosophy major from Jackson, was the only undergraduate student presenter at the DigiPal Symposium in mid-September at King’s College London. The conference, hosted by the King’s College Department of Digital Humanities, attracted notable paleographers and scholars from around the globe.

“After Stewart Brookes and Peter Stokes, the conference organizers, notified me that I was accepted to speak at the symposium, I was thrilled,” said Anthony, who spoke for 20 minutes about a correlation and probabilistic-based approach to transcription methods of damaged manuscripts. “I knew it would be a fantastic opportunity to meet scholars working in the field of digital humanities and see their research.”

As part of the Lazarus Project, a UM program specializing in the multispectral imaging of cultural heritage pieces, Anthony visited the Museo del Tesoro del Duomo in Italy. It was there she first laid eyes on the Vercelli Book and discovered what has become one of her life’s passions.

“I have always found data and narrative to be fascinating,” Anthony said. “As humans, we participate in a conversation that extends through time and encompasses all human endeavor. It’s amazing to interact with manuscripts that record the contributions of previous generations.”

While studying the Vercelli Book and conducting spectral imaging on the book’s text, the Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College student learned the importance of finding ways to successfully transcribe old data and manuscripts. Upon her return home, Anthony submitted a written summary of her own proposal for how transcription methods can be improved to the DigiPal Symposium. Her abstract was accepted.

“This 10th century Anglo-Saxon manuscript suffered physical damage due to the application of a chemical reagent during early transcription efforts, and as a result, large swathes of the text are completely illegible,” Anthony said. “After processing the spectral images, we are left with data that can be used in correlation-based approaches for text identification, and it is these methods, combined with contextual analysis, that should lead to a better understanding of the text.”

Eleanor Anthony and other Lazarus Project participants discuss the Vercelli Book
[youtube]lnSxqmfi4qw[/youtube]

Her presentation touched on the history of the Vercelli Book and the Archimedes Palimpsest, as well as the basic mathematics behind the system she hopes to extend and implement while addressing the current problems within the data being researched now by the Lazarus Project. Anthony’s work is being hailed as “groundbreaking” by her mentor and sponsors.

“It is incredibly rare for an undergraduate paper to be selected for an international conference. It speaks to the uniqueness and quality of Eleanor’s research,” said Gregory Heyworth, UM associate professor of English and director of the Lazarus Project. “The character-recognition techniques that she is developing for damaged manuscripts are cutting-edge work, something that is appropriate for Ph.D. candidates or professors.

“Add to that the fact that the manuscript she is working to recover, the Vercelli Book from the 10th century, is the oldest example of Anglo-Saxon literature in existence, and scholars are bound to take notice.”

Douglass Sullivan-González, dean of the Barksdale Honors College, agrees.

“Eleanor’s success represents what can happen when a high-performing student takes advantages of the doors of opportunity here at Ole Miss,” he said. “Eleanor’s intellectual curiosity, her philosophical drive combined with unparalleled support from Professor Heyworth, the SMB Honors College, Liberal Arts and the Provost Office produced an extraordinary moment for an undergraduate: presenting and defending a research topic at a graduate-level conference in the U.K. We are very proud of Eleanor’s stellar accomplishment.”

Vercelli Book

Anthony’s London presentation impressed those in attendance, but she was equally impressed by those she heard there.

“A particular highlight of the trip was speaking with Donald Scragg, a well-known authority on the Vercelli Book,” she said. “He has devoted most of his academic career to studying this manuscript, and I was excited to discuss my research with him. I found him to be enthusiastic about the project, especially in the sense that I will be recovering missing information that is not capable of being visually analyzed.”

She was also delighted to meet Brookes and Stokes and hear about their work on DigiPal, a digital resource and database of paleography and manuscripts.

“They seem to be doing really exciting work at the Digital Humanities Department at King’s College London,” Anthony said.

Listening to and interacting with both traditional paleographers and computer scientists discussing their research methods and text analysis proved very useful in Anthony’s own research.

“I learned much from the speakers on a wide variety of topics,” she said. “I was also happy to receive positive responses from the audience after giving my talk, with several useful recommendations for improvements I might consider. It is my intention to apply to present at conferences in the future as my research progresses.”

Anthony’s presentation will serve as the primary research leading to the design and implementation for her capstone project and honors college thesis entitled, “Archimedes’ Palimpsest to the Vercelli Book: Dual Correlation and Probabilistic Network Approaches to Paleography in Damaged Manuscripts.” Her ultimate goal is to create a computer program that will offer a transcription method for damaged text in manuscripts using word-level correlation approaches and sentence-level contextual analysis.

“On the whole, I think the experience will prove to be invaluable to be as I move forward with the project and in my study of digital humanities,” she said. “I am so appreciative of the opportunity to attend and present.”

The Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, the College of Liberal Arts, the English department and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs sponsored Anthony’s travel to London.

Mathematics Student’s London Conference Presentation

Posted on: September 21st, 2013 by erabadie

Eleanor Anthony

by Caty Cambron, courtesy of the Daily Mississippian
September 20, 2013

In March, junior mathematics and philosophy major Eleanor Anthony traveled to Vercelli, Italy, and discovered what has become one of her life’s passions.

As part of the Lazarus Project, a group of people specializing in the multispectral imaging of cultural heritage pieces sponsored by the University of Mississippi, Anthony visited the Museo del Tesoro del Duomo.

It was here that Anthony first laid eyes on the Vercelli Book.

While studying the Vercelli Book and conducting spectral imaging on the book’s text, Anthony learned the importance of finding ways to successfully transcribe old data and manuscripts.

“For me, data and narrative has always been fascinating,” Anthony said. “As humans, we think in terms of narrative, and so much of what we do, as humans, is contributing a piece to a larger conversation.”

According to Anthony, going to Italy allowed her to see “a physical instantiation of that conversation that has existed since the 10th century.”

In July, Anthony submitted an abstract, a written summary of her own proposal for how transcription methods can be improved, to the DigiPal Symposium, hosted by the Department of Digital Humanities at King’s College London.

Her abstract was accepted, and she spent more than a month preparing before traveling to London to give her presentation.

“It serves as a testament that we’ve still got part of the conversation playing into what we’re talking about today,” Anthony said.

On Sept. 16 Anthony spoke for 20 minutes about a correlation and probabilistic-based approach to transcription methods of damaged manuscripts. Her presentation touched on the history of the Vercelli Book and the Archimedes Palimpsest, as well as the basic mathematics behind the system she hopes to extend and implement while addressing the current problems within the data being researched now by the Lazarus Project.

Anthony was the only undergraduate student speaker at the DigiPal Symposium while being among notable paleographers and scholars.

The Sally McDonnell Barksdale Honors College, the College of Liberal Arts, the English department and the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs sponsored Anthony to travel to London to present her abstract.

According to Anthony, her recent presentation serves as the primary research that will lead to the design and implementation for her capstone project and honors college thesis to be called “Archimedes’ Palimpsest to the Vercelli Book: Dual Correlation and Probabilistic Network Approaches to Paleography in Damaged Manuscripts.”

“If anything, I was given great advice about the improvements of my initial start that will be part of my final thesis,” Anthony said. “I’m really thankful for all the support I received.”

Anthony’s ultimate goal is to create a computer program that improves transcription methods through looking at the correlation of the word level and by looking at the cause and relationship of words at the sentence level.