MILLSAPS - Key Persons
Job Titles:
- Interim Vice President of Enrollment
- Vice President of Enrollment and Director of Athletics
Job Titles:
- Admission Welcome Center Coordinator
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- Director of Financial Aid
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- Associate Dean of Arts & Humanities
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- Religious Studies Professor
Religious Studies professor Dr. Darby Ray articulated the spirit of John Wesley in a welcome speech to visiting high school students, which shows how Millsaps embraces the Wesleyan spirit.
Mary Harmon was a Belhaven college home economics professor from 1952-1982. An advocate of hands-on learning, she helped her students carry out projects that benefited their communities.
In October, 2008, Mrs. Harmon celebrated her 102nd birthday. To honor her on this extraordinary occasion her daughter, Millsaps alumna Mary Parker Buckles, wanted to showcase her mother's teaching methodology and her lifelong love of plants and gardening. Mother and daughter invited Millsaps professor Debora Mann to work with her botany students in identifying and researching noteworthy campus trees. The map below is the result.
The labeled trees are located in five areas on campus: Whitworth Circle, the Bowl, the Plaza, the Nicholson Garden, and the south lawn of the Christian Center. Together they constitute the Mary Harmon Tree Trail.
The first Millsaps Alma Mater was written in 1907, by Dr. James Ailed Wamsley, who was the professor of history and economics. The words were sung to the tune of "My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean."
Job Titles:
- Director of Academic Advising and Student Support
Job Titles:
- Associate Professor of Modern Languages
Job Titles:
- Associate Dean of Sciences
Job Titles:
- Interim Associate Provost
Job Titles:
- Interim Provost and Dean of the College
Job Titles:
- Director of International Education
Job Titles:
- Catalog and Systems Librarian
Job Titles:
- Director of Pathways and First - Year Experience
Job Titles:
- Dean of the Else School of Management
"Major Reuben Webster Millsaps (1833-1916), American layman and philanthropist, was born May 30, 1833, in Copiah County, Miss., a son of Reuben and Lavinia Clowers Millsaps. Young Reuben left his home at the age of seventeen, walked to Natchez, a distance of about sixty miles, where he took passage on a steamboat for Madison, Ind., to enter Hanover College. After two years at Hanover he transferred to DePauw University, from which he graduated in 1854. He went back to Mississippi and taught school for two years, saving every penny he made so he could go to Harvard Law School. After receiving his law degree at Harvard, he practiced law in Pine Bluff, Ark., from 1858 to the beginning of the Civil War. He saw extensive service in the Confederate Army and came out at the close of the conflict with the rank of major. After his discharge, he returned to south Mississippi and entered the business of cotton buying and transporting. From that he entered merchandising at Brookhaven. In 1880 he sold his business and went to St. Louis, Mo., where he established a wholesale grocery and cotton commission business. In 1885, he returned to Hazlehurst, Miss., and established the Merchants and Planters Bank, then moved to Jackson, Miss., in 1887 and became president of the Capitol State Bank.
"In 1869 he married Mrs. Mary F. Younkin, daughter of Horace Bean, a wealthy banker of New Orleans. They had no children, but reared a niece whom they adopted.
"Major Millsaps was a stalwart Methodist and a loyal churchman. He was a constant attendant at the business meetings of the church from the local Church Conference to the General Conference. No layman in Mississippi was more frequently elected a delegate to the General Conference than he.
"His great work was in laying the foundation for Millsaps College with an initial gift of $50,000, in 1889. All told, he gave more than ten times that amount to the college which bears his name and took a prominent part in its first Board of Trustees. In addition, he gave the property on which the Mississippi Methodist Children's Home was located, and gave financial help to other educational and religious institutions.
"He died on June 28, 1916, and was buried in a mausoleum on the campus of Millsaps College."
Job Titles:
- Associate Athletic Director and Head Volleyball Coach
Job Titles:
- Director of Communications and Community Engagement
Class members Lee McCormick (1966), Ward VanSkiver (1965), and Kay Barksdale (1964), headed the campaign to raise funds for the sculpture. The idea came from McCormick, who saw the sculpture of Gandhi, located near Sullivan Harrell Hall, and thought it only fitting that a sculpture of John Wesley also be placed on the campus. The Gandhi sculpture was a gift from the India Association of Mississippi, so McCormick suggested that alumni from the mid-sixties raise the funds for a Wesley sculpture. In addition to the three alumni classes, Millsaps Methodists were also invited to contribute to the sculpture.
In 1926, several students decided that there was a need for an area where students could gather between their classes to linger. So, the classes of 1926, 1927, and 1928 held a conference and settled on a plan to erect a bench located between Murrah Hall and the Major's Tomb. It is now known to most students simply as the "M Bench," having borrowed its name from the famous "C Bench" at the University of Chicago. The project was the dream of Bill Ewing, Catherine Pail, Orrin Swayze, and many other members of the student body. The romantic tradition of the "M Bench" is that the first person a Millsaps student kisses on the bench is the person he or she will marry. In warm weather, professors often use it as a classroom.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Institutional Advancement
Job Titles:
- Collection Development and Interlibrary Loan Librarian
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Student Life and Dean of Students
Job Titles:
- Director of Human Resources
Job Titles:
- Executive Assistant to the President
Job Titles:
- Instructional Technology Librarian
Job Titles:
- Dean of the Chapel and Director of Church Relations and Campus Ministry
Job Titles:
- Director, Center for Career Education
Job Titles:
- Assistant Dean of Student Life, Diversity and Inclusion
Job Titles:
- Director of Information Technology
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Marketing and Communications
Job Titles:
- Associate Director of Admission
Job Titles:
- Associate Vice President for Development Operations
The walking stick of Major Reuben Webster Millsaps has a gold knob handle inscribed "Major R.W. Millsaps from W.B. Jones." Jones was a prominent minister in the Mississippi Methodist Conference, serving 15 years as secretary of the conference and 50 years as a pastor and a presiding elder. A member of the College's third graduating class in 1897, Jones was awarded the Founders Medal. Mrs. Webster Millsaps Buie, Jr. donated the walking stick to the Millsaps College Archives in 2002.
Job Titles:
- Vice President of Finance and Administration