Contact: Kenneth Billings
STARKVILLE, Miss.--Mississippi State and Jones County Junior College are announcing affiliation of the Ellisville institution's Charles Pickering Honors Institute as a new chapter of the Appalachian Leadership Honors Program.
"We're very pleased to have Jones County Junior College become the first in-state institution to join our national honors collaboration," said MSU President Robert H. "Doc" Foglesong.
Foglesong, who also is president of the Appalachian Leadership Education Foundation, founded the Sonny Montgomery Chapter of the program shortly after becoming MSU's chief executive last year. Marshall and Concord universities in his native West Virginia also are members.
In signing the compact Monday [Nov. 5] with JCJC President Jesse Smith on the Jones campus, Foglesong said the event is the first step in achieving his announced desire to have a Mississippi State-based national consortium of senior and junior colleges participating in the mentoring and education of young men and women.
"We hope Jones County Junior College will be the first of many other institutions who become part of our efforts," he said.
About 50 Jones students will participate in the inaugural program designed to challenge students academically while also stressing leadership and character development aspects from a variety of perspectives.
The new collaboration will involve mentoring and instruction via special classes on leadership, as well as seminars and lectures throughout the semester. The agreement requires that a minimum of three such seminars/lectures be conducted each semester.
Additionally, graduates of the Jones program enrolling at MSU automatically will be extended membership invitations to the ALHP-Sonny Montgomery Chapter on the Starkville campus.
Students were selected for the program on the basis of academic qualifications, including grade-point average, ACT scores and class ranking.
Mississippi State's Appalachian Leadership Honors Program is a highly selective program that last year involved 29 participants in the study of leadership skills and strategies. They also took part in seminars to learn more from national and local leaders in a variety of professions.
For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.