William Berry
OXFORD, Miss. – Outstanding students from all academic disciplines and the campuswide top teacher are to be recognized Thursday (April 10) at the University of Mississippi’s 71st annual Honors Day Convocation.
The convocation begins at 7:30 p.m. at the Gertrude C. Ford Center for the Performing Arts. Seventy students are to be presented with Marcus Elvis Taylor Memorial Medals, the university’s highest academic award, and one faculty member is to receive the Elsie M. Hood Outstanding Teacher Award.
Guest speaker for the convocation is the 2013 Hood Award recipient Will Berry, assistant professor of law. A reception follows the ceremony in the Ford Center’s orchestra level lobby.
At separate events, new members are to be inducted into the university’s top two student honor societies. The Phi Kappa Phi ceremony is scheduled for 3 p.m. Thursday at the Ford Center. Phi Beta Kappa holds its ceremony at 3 p.m. April 11 in Paris-Yates Chapel.
The Taylor Medals, established in 1904, are the university’s highest academic award and recognize no more than 1 percent of the student body each year. The Hood Award was first given in 1966 and allows faculty, staff, students and alumni to nominate a deserving professor for superior classroom teaching.
Around 80 students are to be inducted into Phi Kappa Phi, the university’s highest academic honor across all disciplines. The speaker is John Z. Kiss, dean of the Graduate School.
Some 60 students are slated for induction into Phi Beta Kappa, the university’s highest academic honor in the liberal arts. Michele Alexandre, associate professor and Jesse D. Puckett Jr. Lecturer at the School of Law, will speak at the ceremony.