Contact: Checky Herrington

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State continues the #StateProud Week tradition Oct. 22-26 to celebrate the university’s many accomplishments and the extraordinary people behind them.

A highlight will be a live remote with SuperTalk Mississippi on Thursday [Oct. 25] featuring interviews with MSU President Mark E. Keenum and other campus leaders discussing a broad range of #StateProud achievements in research, academics, student life, athletics and more.

“There are so many exciting things going on at Mississippi State, and #StateProud Week is an opportunity for us to share our success stories with the world,” Keenum said. “When you tap into personal expressions of pride from across the MSU community, you get a rich picture of what the university has accomplished through the years and the limitless potential for the future.”

The #StateProud live remote will be broadcast from the steps of MSU’s historic YMCA Building from 6 a.m. – 6 p.m. T-shirts and prizes will be offered to fans who drop by during the program.

#StateProud Week activities also include a social media initiative in which followers will be asked to share why they are #StateProud. A selection of these stories will be posted on MSU’s social media platforms.

To support personal expressions of State pride, MSU has posted #StateProud Week resources here that can be shared with broader audiences, including #StateProud cover photos for Facebook, videos, success stories, and “Pride Points” — a collection of MSU highlights that can be used for civic club presentations and other promotional opportunities.

#StateProud is an outgrowth of the We Ring True branding campaign launched in 2015 to reinforce MSU’s longtime standing as a premier research institution where students are driven to make a difference. Student-led research teams at MSU are taking real-world problems and developing solutions in diverse fields ranging from veterinary medicine, agriculture, engineering and business to education, aerospace, architecture and cancer research.

Recognizing the university’s accomplishments, the Phi Beta Kappa Society recently awarded a chapter of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious academic honor society to Mississippi State after a rigorous, multi-year review.

Additionally, MSU is among the National Science Foundation’s Top 100 research universities and has been ranked in the top 5 percent nationally for agricultural research expenditures for the last 10 years. Of significance is the university’s international work with the United Nations and the World Food Programme to find solutions for world hunger and food insecurity.

MSU serves as the national lead for the FAA’s Center of Excellence for Unmanned Aircraft Systems, and an MSU-led partnership was chosen by the Department of Homeland Security to operate the DHS Science and Technology Directorate’s Small Unmanned Aircraft Systems Demonstration Range Facility.

At the local level, the MSU Extension Service is focused on making quality health care more accessible to underserved populations in Mississippi through innovative community partnerships.

At MSU’s Social, Therapeutic and Robotic Systems Lab, researchers are working with local law-enforcement teams to develop crime-fighting robots, while researchers at the College of Veterinary Medicine’s Center for Environmental Health Sciences are developing nerve-agent antidotes that could one day render chemical weapons obsolete.

MSU’s scientists at the university’s Center for Advanced Vehicular Systems are working with an international team to produce the world’s first all-electric, autonomous SUV for on-and-off-road driving; and with the opening of the new CAVS Mixed Reality Lab on campus last year, MSU became one of the first universities in the country to open a virtual-reality lab for all students.

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