| The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History Contributor(s): Sansing, David G. (Author) |
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ISBN: 1578060915 ISBN-13: 9781578060917 Publisher: University Press of Mississippi OUR PRICE: $39.60 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: March 1999 Annotation: The University of Mississippi was established in the town of Oxford in 1848 so that the citizenry would have an alternative to sending Mississippi's young male gentry to the North or to England for collegiate education. The university's history has been linked to key events in the growth of the American nation and the national conscience. In the late 1850s, under the leadership of Chancellor Frederick A. P. Barnard, the university assembled perhaps the finest collection of scientific equipment in antebellum America. In 1861, when only thirteen years old and still struggling to win financial and popular support, the university closed as its students withdrew to enlist in the Confederate military service at the beginning of the Civil War. The University Greys, a company of students enrolled as Company A, 11th Mississippi Infantry, won "imperishable glory" in the Battle of Gettysburg. The institution reopened in 1865 after the war ended. Since 1897 the University of Mississippi has been known fondly as Ole Miss, a name derived from Ole Miss, the college yearbook. In the dosing decades of the nineteenth century and the first two of the twentieth century, the university evolved from a small liberal arts college with a prescribed classical curriculum into a university with a broader elective curriculum. But the development of professional schools notwithstanding, it retained many of the traditions and characteristics of the liberal arts college. In the late 1920s, after an unsuccessful attempt to move the university from Oxford to the more liberal state capital Jackson, Governor Theodore G. Bilbo dismissed the chancellor and several members of the faculty. During the civil rightsstruggle Ole Miss became a battleground when the federal government sent military troops to enforce the court order to admit James Meredith, a black student. In a resulting riot on September 30, 1962, there were two fatalities, the campus was extensively damaged, and for a time the university's image was nationally tarnished. Since Meredith's graduation in 1963 the university has made remarkable progress in accommodating the ethnic and racial diversity of the constituency it serves. Under the leadership of the current chancellor, Robert Khayat, the university has enjoyed unprecedented success in attracting private donations. |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - History | United States - State & Local - South (al,ar,fl,ga,ky,la,ms,nc,sc,tn,va,wv) - Education | History - Education | Higher |
| Dewey: 378.762 |
| LCCN: 98037388 |
| Physical Information: 1.45" H x 6.34" W x 9.5" (2.05 lbs) 432 pages |
| Themes: - Chronological Period - 1851-1899 - Chronological Period - 20th Century - Cultural Region - Deep South - Cultural Region - Gulf Coast - Cultural Region - Southeast U.S. - Cultural Region - South - Geographic Orientation - Mississippi |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: There is a mystique about Ole Miss, David G. Sansing says in his new book The University of Mississippi: A Sesquicentennial History (University Press of Mississippi, cloth $37.00). Sansing, a professor emeritus of history, says the University and its story hold a special attraction for those who have learned there. Some have called it holy ground, others hallowed ground. During a recent Black Alumni Reunion Danny Covington called Ole Miss addictive. Few Southern institutions have such a storied past. After its founding, the University assembled one of the finest scientific collections in the antebellum South. Closed during the Civil War, the University endured and re-opened to expand from a liberal arts institution to one with highly developed professional schools. In the civil rights struggle Ole Miss became a battleground. Since 1963 the University has made remarkable progress in serving the racial and ethnic diversity of its constituency. Working with the university libraries, the Department of Archives and History, and countless alumni, Sansing unfurls this 150-year history in The University of Mississippi, a book he labored on since 1995. Capturing dramatic changes was key to Sansing's efforts. The University that began with four professors and boasted electric power in 1901 is now listed by the internet site Yahoo! as one of the nation's most wired universities, referring to the University's level of hardware and internet access. African American historian John Hope Franklin, who had visited the campus during the civil rights struggle, visited again in 1998 and found a complete revolution in race relations on campus and declared, we don't have quite as far to go as we thought we did. Sansing says, In a world of ravishing change, when Ole Miss Alumni come back to Oxford, they do not just stroll across the campus and through the Grove, they retrace the steps of their forebears, not just over place and space, but back through time as well. For many alumni Ole Miss is more than their alma mater; it is a link, a nexus to who they were and are, to where they came from, Sansing says. This sesquicentennial history is written for them, the students, faculty, friends, patrons, and alumni of the university. |
Contributor Bio(s): Sansing, David G.: - David G. Sansing is the author of A History of the Mississippi Governor's Mansion (with Carroll Waller), Making Haste Slowly: The Troubled History of Higher Education in Mississippi, and Mississippi: A Study of Your State (with Ray Skates). In 1990, he was named Teacher of the Year at the University of Mississippi. |