Honorable Mentions

Today, Wade speaks with the new interium dean of the Shackouls Honors College, Dr. Tommy Anderson. Dr. Anderson has been a member of the English faculty at Mississippi State since 2005 and has been associated with the Honors College since 2006. He previously served as the director of the Office of Prestigious and External Scholarships, where he mentored the university’s first Rhodes Scholarship winner in a century. He has also served as the interim dean of the university’s library system and is the current associate dean for academic affairs in the College of Arts and Sciences. He is a graduate of Vanderbilt University where he earned a PhD in English literature with a specialty in Shakespeare. He is the author of the book, Shakespeare’s Fugitive Politics and has published several articles in journals such as English Literary Renaissance, Milton Quarterly, the Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies and Shakespeare Bulletin.

Today, Wade has a fascinating conversation with Shackouls Honors College faculty member and Mississippi State University Philosophy professor Dr. John Bickle. Dr. Bickle has feet in both the worlds of philosophy and science, specifically neuroscience. He talks with Wade about what that means, why science literacy is so important, and the very nature of consciousness itself.  The pair also discuss the upcoming book Dr. Bickle co-edited and co-wrote, "The Tools of Neuroscience in Experiment: Philosophical and Scientific Perspectives," which is scheduled for release in early 2020.

Students are steadily arriving at the Shackouls Honors College. If you are a new student for the 2021 Fall Semester, make sure you listen to this episode. In it, Mr. George Dunn lets you know about several important (some mandatory) events happening in the Honors College over the next couple weeks.

The director of the Office of Prestigious External Scholarships, Dr. David Hoffman, talks to Wade about his job helping students pursue some of the world's most remarkable and life-changing academic awards.

Today on Honorable Mentions Wade talks about the Shackouls Honors College's Oxford Summer Study Abroad Program with Dean Christopher Snyder and distinguished Oxford professor Dr. Tudor Jones.
Dr. Jones gives some history about the centuries-old University of Oxford, details about the Summer Study Abroad program, and explains Oxford's unique approach to educating undergraduate students. Wade also discovers Oxford has a baseball team.
A political historian, Dr. Jones explains to Wade the concept of liberalism in terms of its historic and European meaning and how it differs from American understandings of the term. Finally, they talk about Dr. Jones' most recent book, Bob Dylan and the British Sixties: A Cultural History.

Fei Fei Zeng is a graduate of Mississippi State University and the Shackouls Honors College who earned degrees from the College of Arts and Sciences and the College of Business, focusing on International Business. In the fall of 2021 Zeng will begin work on her Master's degree at Harvard.

Dr. Brad Jones is a 2000 alumnus of Mississippi State University and the university's honors program, which predated the Shackouls Honors College. He holds degrees in Industrial Engineering from MSU and Georgia Tech. Originally from Heidelberg, Mississippi, Dr. Jones now lives in Atlanta, Georgia where he is the owner and operator of Life Well Promotions, a public health consulting firm. Dr. Jones has served on multiple Mississippi State alumni organizations and is currently the President of the Shackouls Honors College Alumni Advisory Board.

On today's episode, Wade talks with senior faculty fellow Dr. Donna Clevenger about how her class has used the current pandemic as an opportunity to try something new. In years' past, the Honors College has fielded a classical Greek or Roman play, but this year that was not possible. Instead, Dr. Clevenger and the students of the Honors College looked at the radio dramas of the 1930s as guidance and produced an audio drama of Seneca's Oedipus. Later in the show, Wade talks to three of the students responsible for making the show a reality. The Shackouls Honors College Presents Seneca's Oedipus will debut right here on Honorable Mentions on Monday, October 26, 2020.