Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on History and Context Membership
The Chancellor’s Advisory Committee on History and Context comprises 14 members who were selected after careful consideration and consultation from nearly 100 nominations received from the university community through June 30, 2016. CACHC membership was based upon the following five previously announced criteria:
- Expertise in relevant subject matters such as history, sociology, English, law or race relations;
- A demonstrated track record of consensus building and collaboration;
- A deep understanding of the UM community and culture;
- Experience in commemoration and contextualization of historic sites; and
- A commitment to a process that is inclusive, respectful, civil, candid, transparent and honors the UM Creed.
It is important to acknowledge that an individual committee member may not possess all the desired criteria, but collectively the committee possesses these qualities and areas of expertise and will ensure that all voices are heard.
Don Barrett, J.D.
Partner, Barrett Law Group
Barrett is a founding member of the advisory board of the Center for Civil War Research and serves as a member of the governing board of the Civil War Trust, the nation’s largest nonprofit organization dedicated to the preservation of America’s Civil War battlefields. He was awarded the Public Justice Achievement Award by Trial Lawyers for the Public Justice Foundation. Barrett holds a B.A. and a J.D. from the University of Mississippi. He is a member of the 1967 Ole Miss Hall of Fame and is active with the University of Mississippi Foundation.
Donald R. Cole, Ph.D. (co-chair)
Assistant Provost and Assistant to the Chancellor for Multicultural Affairs
Besides being assistant provost and assistant to the chancellor for multicultural affairs, Cole is an associate professor of mathematics at the University of Mississippi. He oversees issues relating to minority affairs, including minority student and faculty recruitment and retention. Cole also leads the Ronald McNair Program and the National Science Foundation Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation at the university, and he co-directs the Alliance for Graduate Education. He holds a B.A. from Tougaloo College, an M.A. in applied mathematics from the University of Michigan, an M.A. in mathematics from the State University of New York and a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Mississippi.
Rose Jackson Flenorl (co-chair)
Manager of Global Citizenship, FedEx Corp.
Flenorl has served as manager of global citizenship at FedEx in Memphis for 15 years. In this role, she directs and implements the company’s community outreach strategy in the areas of global entrepreneurship, employment pathways, road safety, education, and diversity and inclusion in national and international markets. She earned a bachelor’s degree in English and journalism from the University of Mississippi in 1979. Flenorl was inducted into the UM Alumni Hall of Fame in 1998, and served as president of the Ole Miss Alumni Association in 2008. She is a charter member of the Ole Miss Women’s Council and was elected chair of the University of Mississippi Foundation board of directors in 2014. Flenorl is also a member of the board of directors for the National Civil Rights Museum.
Jeffrey T. Jackson, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Sociology
At UM, Jackson teaches courses on race and ethnicity, globalization and international development, and has been involved in various efforts aimed at broadening the understanding of racial issues on campus, including the 40th and 50th anniversaries of UM’s integration. His research focuses on the sociology of the “global South” and a historical examination of racial inequalities in Mississippi. He is a founding member of the UM Critical Race Studies Group and is co-chair of the UM Slavery and the University Working Group. He received his B.S. from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of Texas, and is author of The Globalizers: Development Workers in Action (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2007).
Shawnboda D. Mead
Director, Center for Inclusion and Cross Cultural Engagement, and graduate student in Higher Education Administration
Mead came to the University of Mississippi after serving as associate director of diversity and multicultural education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. Throughout her career, she has been committed to helping underrepresented student populations succeed and providing diversity education opportunities for all students. Mead earned a bachelor’s degree in educational psychology from Mississippi State University and a master’s degree in student affairs/higher education administration from Western Kentucky University. She is pursuing a doctoral degree in higher education administration at the University of Mississippi.
Andrew P. Mullins, Ph.D.
Professor of Education and Assistant Director, Mississippi Teacher Corps
Mullins has more than 43 years of experience in government and education, including 19 years with the University of Mississippi. He served in various positions at UM, including as chief of staff to Chancellors Dan Jones and Robert Khayat. Mullins had responsibility for many historical markers on the UM campus, including the state archives markers for Ventress Hall, the Old Y, the Lyceum, the Confederate Cemetery and Guyton Hall. He served as an adviser to Govs. William Winter and Bill Allain, and he co-founded the Mississippi Teacher Corps and the Mississippi Principal Corps. Mullins wrote a book on the political history of the Education Reform Act of 1982, and compiled and edited a book of Gov. Winter’s writings. He holds a B.A. in history from Millsaps College, an M.E. in history from Mississippi College and a Ph.D. from the University of Mississippi. He has served on the Mississippi Humanities Council for the last 14 years.
John R. Neff, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History and Director, Center for Civil War Research
Neff joined the faculty at the University of Mississippi in 1999. His research focus is Civil War memory. His first book, Honoring the Civil War Dead: Commemoration and the Problem of Reconciliation was published in 2005 by the University Press of Kansas. Neff was named the 2005 College of Liberal Arts Teacher of the Year and received the 2009 Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award. In 2009, he became the founding director of the university’s Center for Civil War Research. Neff holds a B.A. in history from California State Polytechnic University at Pomona and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from the University of California at Riverside.
Austin Powell
President, Associated Student Body
Powell is a senior public policy leadership and philosophy double major at the University of Mississippi. He has served in a variety of leadership roles at the university, including as president of the Associated Student Body, a member of the Columns Society and a volunteer with Ole Miss Ambassadors. Powell is interested in social justice and economic policy in Mississippi. In summer 2016, he facilitated a leadership and entrepreneurial development class at Marshall County Correctional Facility in Holly Springs.
Charles K. Ross, Ph.D.
Professor of History and Director of African-American Studies
Ross joined UM in 1996, and has written extensively on the role of race in society. He serves as co-chair of the UM Slavery and the University Working Group. Ross holds a B.A. in history from Stillman College, and an M.A. and Ph.D. in history from Ohio State University.
David G. Sansing, Ph.D.
Professor Emeritus of History
Sansing has authored several books, including The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History and Making Haste Slowly: The Troubled History of Higher Education in Mississippi. His textbook, A Place Called Mississippi, is in use in public and private high schools in Mississippi. Sansing earned an M.S. in history from Mississippi College and a Ph.D. in history from the University of Southern Mississippi.
Jennifer A. Stollman, Ph.D.
Academic Director, William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation
As an instructor and academic director for UM’s William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation, Stollman is responsible for campus professional development, anti-oppression training, curricular and co-curricular development and crisis management, and is a consultant for detecting and eliminating institutional and interpersonal bias. Stollman earned a bachelor’s degree in American history and English literature at the University of Michigan, a master’s in American history from Wayne State University and a doctorate in American history at Michigan State University. Stollman spent 18 years in graduate and undergraduate classrooms as a professor of history and gender and women’s studies at several institutions, including Fort Lewis College, Salem College and Miami University of Ohio.
Anne S. Twitty, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of History
Twitty joined the UM faculty in fall 2010. Hired as a specialist in American slavery, she has taught undergraduate and graduate courses on the rise and fall of American slavery, slavery in antebellum Mississippi, emancipation and a variety of related subjects. Her research focuses on questions of 19th-century American social and cultural history, with a special emphasis on slavery, legal history, gender and women’s history, and the history of the South and Midwest. She is the author of Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 1787-1857 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2016), which examines how ordinary people, including slaves, slaveholders, free blacks and nonslaveholding whites, used their knowledge about the law to pursue their own interests in a vast region defined by the convergence of the Ohio, Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Twitty earned her bachelor’s degree in political science from George Washington University and her master’s and doctoral degrees in history at Princeton University.
Jacquline A. Vinson
Project Coordinator, Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation
Vinson serves as project coordinator for the Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation, a cooperative effort among the National Science Foundation, the state of Mississippi and its eight public universities. She is a co-principal investigator for the Bridge STEM Summer Program, an EDHE 105 instructor and a member of the UM Staff Council. She earned her B.B.A. and M.A. in higher education at the University of Mississippi. Vinson has been a member of the university community for 25 years.
Jay Watson, Ph.D.
Professor of English
Watson is the Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies and professor of English at the University of Mississippi. His publications include seven authored or edited books, and his articles on Southern literature, film and culture have appeared in numerous publications. During the 2002-03 academic year, he served as Visiting Fulbright Professor of American Studies at the University of Turku and Åbo Akademi University in Turku, Finland. He received his B.A. from the University of Georgia and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Harvard University.