For decades Millsaps College has pursued high standards of excellence and has vigorously asserted that it has the best academic reputation of any college or university in Mississippi.

The Jackson-based college's president, Dr. Frances Lucas-Tauchar, is the latest in a line of leaders seeking to continue the distinguished tradition.

On Tuesday she became more familiar with another place committed to excellence: The Mississippi School for Math and Science. She visited the school for the first time and met with faculty and students. Later, she seemd right at home with the school's key leaders at a get-acquainted luncheon.

"I am very impressed with the commitment of the faculty, and I think the faculty here believe they have the best high school teaching jobs in the state," she said. "I think the culture at the math and science high school is very similar to the culture - the academic culture - at Millsaps - small classes, outstanding faculty, engaging students in what I believe is a pinnacle learning experience, which is research," she said.

"Here they have high school students matched with faculty to do original research," she said. "And we do the same at Millsaps. I think many of the values at the math and science school are exactly the same values that we have at Millsaps College."

Lucas-Tauchar, 44, is the first female to serve as president of the college, a private United Methodist liberal arts and pre-professional institution. Her father, Dr. Aubrey Lucas, was president of the University of Southern Mississippi until recently retiring.

She did not have the privilege of being a Millsaps student, but she set high goals. In 1978 she graduated from Mississippi State University with honors with a degree in communications.

She pursued a career in higher education administration, knowing from age 22 forward that she wanted to be a college president.

She did her graduate and doctoral work at the University of Alabama. She worked in residence life on the Tuscaloosa campus before going back to Starkville and serving as assistant dean of students at Mississippi State.

At age 29, she became a vice president of student affairs at Baldwin-Wallace College, an institution much like Millsaps and located in Ohio.

She was in her eighth year as a senior vice president at Emory University in Atlanta when she received one, then two phone calls asking whether she was interested in becoming the president of Millsaps.

She said that she was not interested after the first call because she has two children, but she said that her interest peaked after the second call.

"They seemd more serious about me as a candidate, not just because I was a woman," she said. "Women in higher education have to be careful with national searches in that they might be used as tokens. The search firm was able to convince me I would not be a token."