For the fifth straight year, the University of Mississippi has been named among the nation’s best values in higher education. The editors of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine placed UM on its “Top 100 Values in Public Colleges” list for 2018. The university was ranked No. 75, a jump of 13 spots from the 2017 list. It is the only public institution in Mississippi to be named a “Best Value.”
Sylvester “Sly” Lee, UM alumnus and co-founder of Emerge Inc., an independent technology company in Los Angeles, recently made Forbes magazine’s annual “30 Under 30” list of rising entrepreneurs in manufacturing and industry. The 28-year-old Oxford native and his two co-founders have invented a hardware and software device that enables users to feel virtual objects in augmented reality without the need for wearables, controllers or gloves. It uses a proprietary technology to create precise force fields mid-air, allowing users to feel shapes, volumes and even textures.
Two University of Mississippi mechanical engineering student teams have brought home top prizes from an international robotics competition in Tampa, Florida. The 2017 American Society of Mechanical Engineers Student Design Competition (The Robot Pentathlon: Citius, Altius, Ingenious) challenged each team to create a fast, strong and agile robot.
The University of Mississippi’s campuswide work to reduce waste that winds up in landfills has led to the university being named “Recycler of the Year” among educational institutions in the state and recognized at Recycling Day at the State Capitol.
The University of Mississippi, which has a mobile app, training and other programs aimed at preventing crime, has been named one of the nation’s safest college campuses. The National Council for Home Safety and Security ranked Ole Miss No. 64 nationally among public universities. UM placed second on the list among Southeastern Conference schools, trailing only Texas A&M University.
Collaboration by researchers from multiple schools and departments earned the University of Mississippi a $346,641 Major Research Instrumentation award from the National Science Foundation for the acquisition of a new field-emission scanning electron microscope.
The University of Mississippi Museum was named to College Rank’s 50 Most Amazing College Museums in the country. This is the third time the museum has appeared on national rankings lists in five years – a first in the museum’s 78-year history.
The inaugural session of the Living Music Institute, which ran Jan. 18-21 at the University of Mississippi, got high marks from students and music professionals alike. The Living Music Institute, a production of the Living Music Resource in the UM Department of Music, is an intensive workshop for opera aria singers. During the workshop, students received personal attention from faculty members and special guest and opera star Kallen Esperian.
Davita L. Watkins, UM assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry, has been named a 2018 Young Investigator by the Polymeric Materials: Science and Engineering Division, a branch of the American Chemical Society.
Karen Raber, a UM English professor who specializes in Renaissance literature with an emphasis on ecostudies, animal studies and posthumanist theory, has been officially announced as executive director of the Shakespeare Association of America.