With a $300,000 grant, The Teagle Foundation has enabled the University of Mississippi to establish a new pre-college program that invites underserved high school students to study humanity’s deepest questions about leading lives of purpose and civic responsibility with a focus on what it means to live a good life.
“The Teagle Foundation works to support and strengthen liberal arts education, which we see as fundamental to meaningful work, effective citizenship and a fulfilling life,” said Andrew Delbanco, the foundation’s president. “Our aim is to serve as a catalyst for the improvement of teaching and learning in the arts and sciences while addressing issues of financial sustainability and accountability in higher education.”
The new UM program, The Good Life, is part of the Teagle Foundation’s Knowledge for Freedom network and is being led at Ole Miss by Wendy Pfrenger, director of pre-college programs; Ashleen Williams, instructional assistant professor in the Office of the Provost; and Anne Cafer, associate dean for research, scholarship and graduate education in the College of Liberal Arts and associate professor of sociology.
“Nothing pleases me more than to see this group of faculty come together around these priorities of supporting first-generation students, serving under-resourced communities and school districts and connecting our humanities disciplines to the practice of citizenship, government, freedom and democracy,” said UM Chancellor Glenn Boyce.
Knowledge for Freedom programs, as demonstrated by the “Freedom and Citizenship” model program at Columbia University, have proven to dramatically improve college readiness, admission prospects and college graduation, while building interest in humanistic writing and issues, as well as habits of civic engagement that persist during and after college.
The question of what makes a good life — a quandary that has intrigued philosophers, writers and academics for centuries — was the central theme for eight high school students who participated in The Good Life pilot program last summer.
Led by the Office of Pre-College Programs in partnership with the College of Liberal Arts and the Office of the Provost’s Flagship First-Gen program, the initiative is designed to encourage rural and first-generation students to explore the role that humanities and civic engagement play in determining quality of life.
The program is an interdisciplinary endeavor, drawing perspectives from philosophy, English, history and other humanities disciplines.
“The University of Mississippi embraces its public flagship mission of inspiring and educating our communities so that all individuals can intellectually, socially and culturally thrive through transformative experiences on our campus and beyond,” said Provost Noel Wilkin. “Establishing a Knowledge for Freedom program removes barriers for students who do not often participate in programs of this caliber and creates a pathway to realizing a future through higher education.”
The goal is to get participants to think big.
“I think students are already asking these questions themselves,” said Williams. “Our goal is to empower them to think boldly, to wonder and to ponder the big questions and problems of our world.
“We want them to move beyond the notion of just getting a job to pay bills. Instead, we encourage them to think about how they can be the solution to creating a more creative and inspired future world.”
The students took part in discussions and activities that challenged their understanding of happiness, goal setting and living a well-rounded life.
They attended sessions led by the Center for Practical Ethics, toured the University Museum, examined the role of community engagement in improving quality of life and visited Rowan Oak, home of Nobel Prize-winning author William Faulkner.
“The outreach provided by the Knowledge for Freedom project is essential to our efforts to reach students and communities that have historically been overlooked and underserved,” said Lee Cohen, dean of the College of Liberal Arts. “A humanities education provides these students with more impactful ways to engage with the social challenges facing their communities than is provided by their available K-12 education.”
How does the program work? Between their junior and senior years of high school, students come into residence on the Ole Miss campus, where they experience the intensity of a seminar-sized discussion taught by professors focused on major works of philosophy and literature.
“These students, who are often unable to participate in opportunities available to their more affluent peers, are given the chance to undertake college-level work in the humanities, to build meaningful relationships with faculty and college students, who serve them as mentors, and to develop, through practice, civic skills with their peers,” Delbanco said.
Over the following year, while applying to college during their senior year in high school, the students engage in civic initiatives inspired by the recognition that their lives are interconnected with the lives of others.
For Pfrenger, that’s the meaning of a good life: “Being connected to the world, as in the natural world, being connected to the people around you, being connected to yourself and not just connected but deriving meaning from those connections.”
To make a gift in support of pre-college programs at Ole Miss, click here or contact Katie Morrison, director of development, at katie@olemiss.edu or 662-915-2135.
By Bill Dabney/UM Foundation