Contact: Karyn Brown

STARKVILLE, Miss.—As part of its 60th anniversary celebration, Mississippi State’s largest and most diverse unit is recognizing an equal number of its very accomplished graduates.

The College of Arts and Sciences has selected 10 alumni from each decade since being created in 1956 to feature and honor during its year-long anniversary observance. Collectively, their stories help illustrate how the college—and university of which it is a major part—have made numerous positive impacts on the state, nation and world over the late 20th and early 21st centuries.

Today, more than 5,000 arts and sciences majors are enrolled, taught by some 300 full-time and numerous part-time faculty members.

If standing alone, MSU’s College of Arts and Sciences would constitute the state’s fifth largest institution of higher learning.

Additionally, Interim Dean Rick Travis has announced a campaign called “Discover Your And,” which refers to the ampersand connecting the distinct general academic fields in its name. The ampersand is used on all of the college’s official documents and promotions.

“‘Discover Your And’ is designed to promote a continuing discovery of our differences; our different interests, talents and areas of expertise,” said Karyn Brown, the college’s communication director and coordinator of the effort.

“As we continue bringing each of our individual academic paths together, the goal of the campaign ultimately is to help build a better world through collaborations with others who also are discovering their ‘&’ or ‘and,’” Brown added.

Graduate student Hannah Bateman of Columbus led in developing the list of alumni for feature profiles from a national survey distributed last year to college alumni. A 2016 summa cum laude graduate of the communication department, she works in the dean’s office while pursuing a master’s degree in public policy and administration. Both the communication and political science and public administration departments are located in the college.

“These alumni have amazing stories and getting to read each one truly has been a blessing,” Bateman said. “The love they have for MSU makes me proud to be a part of this university.” 

To read about the 60 alumni, visit http://www.cas.msstate.edu/discoveryourand/featured/.

Though launched in the mid-1950s, Travis said the college’s roots go back to the land-grant institution’s founding nearly 139 years ago. Many of its courses were among the inaugural curricula when Mississippi Agricultural and Mechanical College opened its doors in 1880 after being established by the legislature two years earlier.

Today, 25 undergraduate and 23 graduate degree programs are offered in 14 different departments. In addition to communication, and political science and public administration, they include anthropology and Middle Eastern cultures, biological sciences, chemistry, classical and modern languages and literatures, English, geosciences, history, mathematics and statistics, philosophy and religion, physics and astronomy, psychology, and sociology.

Natural and physical science research projects generated in the college have been supported over the decades by, among others, the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health and National Science Foundation.

Research expenditures in the humanities are also an important part of Mississippi State’s overall research portfolio. Additionally, the NSF has ranked MSU among the top 25 for research expenditures in the social sciences. 

September 10, 1956, is the college’s official birth date. That was when the Board of Trustees, State Institutions of Higher Learning voted to implement the results of a study conducted by John E. Brewton, the nationally recognized surveys and field studies director at George Peabody College, now a part of Vanderbilt University. Brewton’s report called for the incorporation of then-Mississippi State College’s existing School of Science with humanities and social science programs found elsewhere on campus.

Travis said the college family has worked diligently since its earliest days to foster an academic environment where diverse groups of scholars may learn and work together.

“We often talk about arts and sciences being the heart of Mississippi State, not because almost every university student will pass through arts and sciences classes at some point, but because what we teach and what we do is at the very center of improving humankind,” he said.

A veteran political science professor and administrator at the university, Travis said the “Discover Your And” campaign hopefully will encourages both students and alumni “to continue relentlessly pursuing their dreams in order to better the world as a whole through collaboration, hard work and embracing others’ ideas, interests and talents along with one’s own.”

For more on the college, visit www.cas.msstate.edu.

MSU is Mississippi’s leading university, available online at www.msstate.edu.