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| From the
Director |
Summer 2007 Issue |
 It
is a drop-dead beautiful day, and I just enjoyed a
yummy lunch at Millsaps alum Jeff Good’s newest
venture, Sal & Mookie’s New York Pizza and
Ice Cream Joint. The pizza was awfully good.
What’s lingering in my mind,
though, is the idea of Jeff as a kind of role model
for our current Millsaps students. As many of you
know and my lunch today reminded me, Jeff is a successful
entrepreneur. He’s also a swell guy who is generously
committed to greater goods than his own bank account
or family. Too often, I think, we assume that only
ministers, teachers, or social workers have work worthy
of being described as a vocation or calling. But aren’t
we each “called” in some sense?
The Faith & Work Initiative engages
students in an exploration of vocation (from vocare,
voice or call) in two distinct but related directions.
First, we help students discern and explore their
own voice--their distinctive gifts and skills, their
particular set of interests, curiosities, and aptitudes.
Second, we challenge students to listen for the call
of the world in their lives: What needs, wounds, or
healing possibilities in the wider world call out
to them and summon them for response? A vocation,
says Frederick Buechner, is the place where your deep
gladness meets the world's deep needs. The trick,
of course, is finding those places where personal
passion and common good come together--where, to use
theological language, faith meets work. For our students,
role models are a key to developing habits for good
living and working.
This newsletter acknowledges with
gratitude some of the dozens of men and women who
have been role models for our students. You are ministers,
social workers, doctors, lawyers, educators, writers,
artists, and even pizza makers! This newsletter also
articulates experiences and places where faith and
work have come together for our students in powerful,
life-changing ways. It features student and faculty
voices, a mobile tomato garden (no kidding!), and
an incredibly exciting new project at Millsaps known
as 1 Campus, 1 Community. Enjoy, and let us hear from
you.
In Community,
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| Contents |
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Up
Close & Personal: Jessica Hoffpauir |
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Students
Win Fellowships |
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1
Campus, 1 Community |
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Mentors
Make the Difference |
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Open
Those Gates! |
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Back
to the Delta |
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From
Classroom to Community |
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Parting
Reflections |
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| Up
Close & Personal: Jessica Hoffpauir, Student |
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 As
an undergraduate, sitting across a small table from
the Bishops of the Episcopal and Methodist churches,
the Vicar of the Catholic church, a representative
from the lieutenant governor’s office, and a
state senator while they discuss the needs of children
across the state is a pretty overwhelming experience.
This is just one of the many fascinating conversations
I was a part of through my Lilly Internship with Catholic
Charities in the fall of 2006. Read
More...
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| 1
Campus, 1 Community |
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 By
Phalia McCorkle, special to the Northeast Ledger November
15, 2006
Millsaps
College is preparing its students and faculty to become
long-term providers of service in the community surrounding
the college's Jackson campus.
Students, faculty and staff recently launched "1
Campus, 1 Community," a multiyear initiative
that will streamline and reinvigorate the college's
historic commitment to serving its neighbors. The
focus of the initiative will be the K-12 education
community and the school's immediate neighbors in
the North Midtown community.
Read More... |
| Open
Those Gates! |
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 The
sun was shining, a gentle breeze was blowing, and
the West Street gates—locked for decades and
a painful symbol of exclusion—were thrown open
to welcome some 200 members of the North Midtown neighborhood
onto the Millsaps campus. Joined by an equal number
of Millsaps students, faculty, staff, alumni, and
children, the celebration of the first Millsaps-North
Midtown Block Party was a smashing success. Read
More...
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| From
Classroom to Community |
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Since
its inception the Faith & Work Initiative has
helped Millsaps faculty develop and implement service-learning
projects for their academic courses. These projects
deepen student engagement with course materials while
helping them connect their classroom learning and
intellectual skills with needs and challenges in the
local community. Read about five such projects below...
Katrina,
the Red Cross, and Millsaps Computer Science Students
With so many evacuees coming to
shelters in the metropolitan Jackson area in the aftermath
of Hurricane Katrina, locating them had become chaotic.
Workers could track them only manually, fumbling through
hundreds of handwritten cards. When
classes were resumed after Katrina, Dr. Don Schwartz,
chair of the computer science department, created
a service-learning course in advanced database. "Students
designed and implemented a web-based application for
organizing and managing the information about the
volunteers," Schwartz said. Read
More...
 Ripe
for Learning: Millsaps Mobile ‘Maters
Students in Professor Michelle
Acuff’s Advanced Studio Art course created an
intriguing public art project this past spring. Read
More...
Making
It Real 
by
Dr. Laura Franey
Service-learning
has been a great addition to Introduction to Women's
and Gender Studies, a class I teach every spring to
a diverse cross-section of students ranging from freshmen
to seniors and representing nearly every major. Read
More...
Teaching
to Learn
In
the fall and spring semesters of 2006 and 2007, students
in Professor Robert Kahn’s Spanish classes had
the opportunity to share their skills in Spanish with
elementary school students at Saint Richard’s
Elementary School in Jackson. Read
More...
I
Can Learn!
On Thursday, April 26, students from Dr. Don Schwartz’s
Software Engineering class traveled to St. Richard
Catholic School in northeast Jackson to install and
test I Can Learn!, which the Millsaps class designed
specifically for pre-K students at St. Richard.
Read More...
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| Students
Win Fellowships |
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Fund
for Theological Education
by Chris Spear
Today’s college culture is not one notable
for its patience.
Students today are always on the run, always going
somewhere, always doing something – we’re
known for our energy drinks, instant messaging, power
naps. We’re often so busy, we don’t have
the time to eat, much less sit back and reflect leisurely
on our lives. There is a reason 30-second microwavable
macaroni and cheese is popular among college students.
So my attendance at the Fund for Theological Education’s
Conference on Ministry this summer was quite a switch.
It was a sudden change of pace, a forced slowdown
in the middle of a very busy summer. And yet, somehow,
by the end of the time I didn’t yet want to
return to Millsaps. The Fund had put on an outstanding
conference, no question, but I couldn’t quite
fit it into the big picture yet. There was something
I still needed to consider, a conclusion I couldn’t
quite articulate. Only in retrospect, remembering
both the social and the personal revelations of the
week, did I understand the lessons of quiet patience
God had been conveying through my time at the FTE
conference. Read
More...
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Mentors Make The
Difference |
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 Committed
mentors can make a world of difference in the lives
of young people. Professionals who are willing to
mentor students provide a critical bridge between
academic preparation and meaningful work. The Lilly
Interns and Fellows programs continue to be blessed
by professionals in a wide variety of fields who take
the time to welcome students into their workplaces
and help them begin to sketch out the contours of
a meaningful life. The Faith & Work Initiative
would like to thank these excellent professionals
who served as mentors in 2006 & 2007. Read
More...
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| Back
to the Delta |
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 After
a one year hiatus due to Hurricane Katrina relief and
recovery, a group of Millsaps students returned to the
Mississippi Delta for a spring break service trip. “Delta
Delivery” is an annual trip that was started in
2002 by a student (Katie Hardy ’03) who picked
up a magazine in her dentist’s office and found
an article about the Mississippi Delta. It convinced
her that mission opportunities are available right here
at home and she organized a trip that included a delivery
of basic necessities for people in the Delta. The name
“Delta Delivery” stuck and the trip has
become an annual spring break trek. Read
More... |
| Parting
Reflections |
|
 Dazed,
but not Confused – Parting Reflections by Graduating
Senior Chris Spear
Reprinted with permission from the Purple &
White (Millsaps College student newspaper)
Perhaps, Mr. or Ms. Typical Millsaps Student, you
feel like you’ve finally gotten the hang of
this whole life-at-college thing. You’ve thought
about your major and considered some ideas for career
possibilities, you know precisely where to locate
ice cream in the Caf’, and you’ve picked
out the perfect spot in the Bowl for lounging like
an indolent tabby in the late-afternoon sun.
Yes, it’s taken you quite a while, but you’ve
finally nailed it.
Read
More...
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| Other
Links |
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- To contact the
Millsaps Faith & Work Initiative, click here.
- To visit the Faith
& Work Initiative web site, click here.
- For information
about Millsaps campus events, click here.
- To view current and
past issues of the Millsaps Magazine, click
here.
- Want to order Millsaps
apparel or gifts? Visit the online bookstore
or
call the bookstore at 601-974-1230.
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Faith
& Work Initiative
1701 North State Street
Jackson, MS 39210-0001
601-974-1470
To
subscribe to the Millsaps Faith & Work E-newsletter,
email faithwork@millsaps.edu
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