Jackson Free Press

Millsaps Site for Truth, Racial Healing & Tranformation Campus Center

The Association of American Colleges & Universities recently selected Millsaps College as a site for one of the organization's new Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Campus Centers, which are part of an initiative with the W.K. Kellogg Foundation to engage and empower campus and community stakeholders to break down racial hierarchies and create a positive narrative about race in the community.

Millsaps is one of 10 institutions AAC&U chose out of 125 colleges and universities that applied for the program nationwide. AAC&U will award Millsaps an initial $30,000 grant to develop programming to engage stakeholders and examine the underlying issues driving the current atmosphere of racial tension in the country.

AAC&U selected institutions for the program based on their ability to create positive narratives about race, and to identify and examine current realities of race relations in communities. Over the course of the program, AAC&U will provide strategic direction to the Campus Centers with the support from the THRT advisory board, which is a network of national advisors and experts.

The other institutions selected as TRHT Campus Centers include Austin Community College in Texas, Brown University in Rhode Island, Duke University in North Carolina, Hamline University in Minnesota, Rutgers University in New Jersey, Spelman College in Georgia, The Citadel in South Carolina, University of Hawai'i and University of Maryland Baltimore County. Teams from the selected institutions will participate in a kick-off TRHT project meeting in September 2017 and attend AAC&U's inaugural Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation Institute in January 2018 in Washington, DC.

To learn more about AAC&U's TRHT initiative, visit http://www.aacu.org/trht. To learn more about Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation, visit http://healourcommunities.org.

Local Schools Named Best for Economic Mobility

Education research publisher SR Education Group recently released its 2017 Top Online Colleges for Student Economic Mobility, which is a listing of the top 97 accredited online colleges and their economic mobility rates.

Colleges in Mississippi that made the list include Belhaven University, Jackson State University and Mississippi University for Women. The full list and SR Education Group's methodology for selecting schools for the report are available at http://www.guidetoonlineschools.com/online-schools/economic-mobility guidetoonlineschools.com. SR Education Group will update the report annually.

All of the schools on the list have a mobility rate in the top 20 percent of schools that offer 10 or more fully online degrees at the associate level or higher. Schools with high mobility rates have the highest percentage of students moving from the lowest income bracket in the United States to the highest.

SR Education Group's website also features reports on the 15 Top Online Schools for Economic Diversity and Upward Mobility and the 25 Most Affordable Online Schools for Student Economic Mobility. For more information, visit guidetoonlineschools.com.

Belhaven Establishes Public Relations Program

Belhaven University has established a new Bachelor of Arts in public relations program for students looking to pursue a career in public relations, journalism, sports broadcasting and electronic communication.

Those majoring in the subject will learn to handle communications for a wide spectrum of companies and organizations, and can transition into careers that specialize in social media, television or radio management, marketing, advertising or journalism.

The program covers crafting and distributing persuasive messages, the basics of writing and reporting, how to communicate using social media, and the history and background of modern public-relations practice. Students will then move on to more advanced work in the field and must complete an internship to refine their knowledge in the workplace. The program will also offer networking events, special speakers, trips to media outlets and public-relations agencies, and more.

IHL Establishes Committee to Search for a New MVSU President

At a meeting on Aug. 17 in Jackson, the Mississippi Board of Trustees of State Institutions of Higher Learning announced that it is establishing a Board Search Committee to find a new president for Mississippi Valley State University. Dr. Jerryl Briggs is currently serving as interim president of the university until the board names a permanent president. The position has been vacant since former MVSU president Dr. William Bynum became president of Jackson State University in May 2017.

IHL Board President C.D. Smith appointed trustee Shane Hooper of Tupelo as the new committee's chair. All of the board's trustees will serve as members of the Board Search Committee.

For updates and additional information follow the search on Twitter @MVSU_Search and @MSPublicUniv.