MEDIA ADVISORY: School violence expert speaks

Contact: Sammy McDavid

A nationally recognized researcher and authority on school violence will discuss "Kids and Guns: Why They Do It" during a 2 p.m. Thursday [April 3] program in Mississippi State's Mitchell Memorial Library auditorium.

Professor David C. May, an alumnus of the university, is a Center for School Safety Research Fellow in the department of safety, security and emergency management at Eastern Kentucky University. He holds a 1997 MSU doctorate in sociology, with emphasis in criminology.

May is the author of numerous articles about responses to school violence, perceptions of the severity of correctional punishments and adolescent fear of crime and weapon possession, as well as two books examining gun ownership and possession among male delinquents.

His campus presentation is sponsored by the MSU department of sociology, anthropology and social work and its criminal justice and corrections program.

For additional information, contact program director Peter Wood at 662-325-7876 or wood@soc.msstate.edu.

For more information about Mississippi State University, see http://www.msstate.edu/.