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by Jane Clover Alexander
Jane Glover Alexander, B.A. 1986, received her master's in journalism frm the University of Mississippi in 1995. She is currently Assistant Editor of Mississippi Magazine. |
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| In the turbulent
year 1967, Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Hodding Carter, Jr., said
of Millsaps College, "There is not an institution in the country that cannot
learn something from this little school in Mississippi. It is a candle
burning in the darkness." That same year the Millsaps Arts &
Lecture Series was inaugurated, and for 30 years it has cast a celebratory
light across the campus and city into communities far beyond.
Envisioned by then-president Benjamin R. Graves, the Arts & Lecture Series' mission has been to bring the best of Millsaps and the best of the outside world to the people of the Jackson metropolitan area. Its first executive director was Magnolia Coullet, B.A. 1924, a faculty member in the music department, now a near-legend in the Jackson arts community. In an early newspaper article about the series, Mrs. Coullet explained that President Graves "wanted to form some kind of organization to show Millsaps off. He felt we were sort of a little Athens, that we had so very much to offer in the way of art and entertainment." |
In
its opening season, the series featured the Millsaps Players twice, the
Millsaps Singers with the New Orleans Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra,
and lectures and readings by David Brinkley and Eudora Welty. It
would be the first of several times that Miss Welty shared her writing
and views with spell-bound audiences, and it has become a series tradition
to open each year with readings by Southern writers.
The original mix of musical and theatrical performances with talks by national literary and cultural spokespersons was an overwhelming success. And from the sixties to the nineties, the format has remained both remarkably fresh and insightful. Later programs read like a who's who of national and international talent, including Dave Brubeck, Howard K. Smith, Dame Judith Anderson, Jean-Michael Cousteau, Ellen Douglas, William Styron, John Houseman, Will D. Campbell, David Halberstam, Lewis Nordan (B.A. 1963), Dr. Werner von Braun, Richard Ford, Willie Morris, C. Vann Woodward, Beth Henley, Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy among many others. PAGE 1 of 3 | NEXT PAGE |
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Millsaps Magazine | Millsaps | Last Edited April 27, 1998 |