The Ina E. Gordy Honors College at Mississippi University for Women will open its fall Forum Series Thursday, Aug. 27, with Dr. Melissa Smith, assistant professor of communication at the university. Her 6 p.m. presentation in Nissan Auditorium is “Political Advertising and the Money that Fuels It.”
As experts predict that $5 billion may be spent on the 2016 presidential race, Smith says people should pay attention to political campaign financing, although “the discussion of politics and money often provokes people to shake their heads either in confusion or disgust.”
Smith says she will provide tips on media and political literacy as we are drawn into another presidential campaign that will largely be played out in mass and social media.
Additional programs
The Forum will also feature three presentations focused on the civil rights movement, beginning on Sept. 24, when history interns at The W present their findings from ongoing research in the university archives on campus race relations in the 1960s. Their work is helping to prepare the university to commemorate its 50th anniversary of desegregation.
On Oct. 8, Daphne Chamberlain, assistant professor of history and coordinator of civil rights and social justice initiatives, Tougaloo College, will give her talk “‘Full-Fledged Agitators’: Youth Protest in Civil Rights-Era Mississippi.” This event will coordinate with The W’s Common Reading Initiative focus on Anne Moody’s memoir, “Coming of Age in Mississippi.”
And on Nov. 5, journalist and producer/director Ellen Ann Fentress will screen and discuss her film “Eyes on Mississippi,” chronicling veteran journalist Bill Minor’s coverage from his home state of some of the most significant events of the civil rights era.
The Series will also offer a discussion of study abroad led by Erinn Holloway, coordinator of The W’s Study Abroad Programs, on Sept. 10, and undergraduate research presentations in the Honors College’s Fall Research Symposia, slated for Nov. 19 and Dec. 3.
All presentations, which will be at 6 p.m. in Nissan Auditorium, are free and open to the campus and community. For more information, contact Kim Whitehead, interim director of the Honors College, at [email protected], 662-241-6850, or visit muw.edu/honors/forum.
You can help your community
Quality, in-depth journalism is essential to a healthy community. The Dispatch brings you the most complete reporting and insightful commentary in the Golden Triangle, but we need your help to continue our efforts. In the past week, our reporters have posted 41 articles to cdispatch.com. Please consider subscribing to our website for only $2.30 per week to help support local journalism and our community.