Laurel Middle School students read University of Mississippi Chancellor Emeritus Robert Khayat’s memoir.
OXFORD, Miss. – “The Education of a Lifetime” is more than the best-selling memoir of University of Mississippi Chancellor Emeritus Robert Khayat. For some Laurel Middle School students, it also represents a rare opportunity to visit the university, to see sites from the book and to meet the author.
More than 40 eighth-graders plan to visit campus April 16-17. Their first-day itinerary includes meeting with admissions staff, a tour and a final stop at the Haley Barbour Center for Manufacturing Excellence. There, they will hear presentations by UM School of Engineering officials who work with K-12 students interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics.
The following day, the students are scheduled to meet Khayat in the Lyceum for a discussion of his book, which the students have been reading. Following lunch, they will tour the Manning Center practice facility and meet Rebels head football Coach Hugh Freeze before heading back to Laurel.
“My students have been reading ‘The Education of a Lifetime,’ and their response to this entirely optional assignment has been overwhelming,” said Joshua Walters, a teacher at LMS. “Out of 51 students, 42 purchased the book and are actually reading it. Watching them take an interest in the many issues that the book raises and guiding their thoughts and discussions about its mature subject matter has been an extremely rewarding experience for me as a teacher.”
The students’ viewpoints on the Confederate flag and other race-relations issues have been particularly intriguing as all but six of them are African-American, Walters said.
“As they’ve been reading the book, my students expressed a desire to take a field trip to the University of Mississippi campus and to meet Chancellor Khayat,” he said. “I agreed to see if I could make this happen for them. I knew my students would appreciate his football stories and humorous anecdotes. My students are very excited about meeting Chancellor Khayat and having the opportunity to ask him questions.”
Khayat was more than willing to honor the students’ request.
“News of Mr. Walters’ project thrilled me for a number of reasons,” Khayat said. “First, his students will read an accurate account of the evolution of Ole Miss in recent years. It is exciting to know they are interested not only in Ole Miss but in recent history. Second, there is nothing quite as informative as an in-person visit to a place of interest. By coming to see us, the students will feel, as well as see, the university.
“And finally, once they visit us, it is likely that many of them will choose Ole Miss as their university, and we will welcome them to our community.”
Walters anticipates his students will benefit in several ways from meeting Khayat and seeing campus.
“As a graduate of Ole Miss, I wanted my students to read ‘The Education of a Lifetime’ in order to dispel the negative stereotypes that many of them had about the university,” Walters said. “Also, since they will be entering high school next year, I wanted them to start thinking about college and some of the social issues, both good and bad, that they may face in the real world.”