Speakers

Katrina M. Caldwell, PhD

Vice Chancellor for Diversity and Community Engagement

Provost/VC for Academic Affairs

The University of Mississippi

Katrina Myers Caldwell, PhD has 25 years of experience in higher education and has spent the majority of that time working on initiatives that increase access and opportunities for students.

She began serving as the University of Mississippi's first vice chancellor for diversity and community engagement on Jan. 1, 2017. In her role as vice chancellor, Caldwell's responsibilities include leadership and coordination of UM's efforts to create and supervise a diverse, inclusive and welcoming environment for all members of the community. She is organizing and integrating an infrastructure that will facilitate and encourage community engagement, developing partnerships to effectively facilitate transformation, and identifying and supporting target areas to maximize the university's impact.

Formerly the assistant vice president for diversity and equity at Northern Illinois University, the Memphis, Tennessee, native has a track record of successful strategic planning and implementation of diversity programs at Chicago-area higher education institutions since the mid-1990s. Caldwell holds a Ph.D. and master's degree from the University of Illinois at Chicago and a bachelor's degree from Spelman College. She was also a Diversifying Faculty in Illinois fellow. Prior to accepting the NIU post, she served eight years at DePaul University. Caldwell was hired there as director of adult student affairs in 2004, and by 2008 she was creating cultural programs that celebrate the values of the diverse communities at the university as director for the Center for Intercultural Programs, serving on the President's Diversity Council responsible for DePaul's university-wide diversity strategic plan.

At the University of Illinois at Chicago, Caldwell served as assistant dean of minority affairs from 1998 to 2004, developing and successfully implementing a strategic plan to increase outreach to prospective students, retention/graduation of graduate fellowship students, and professional development programs. Prior to 1998, Caldwell served as director of the Higher Education Basics Program, Student Assessment and Outcomes at East-West University and associate director of the Summer Research Opportunities Program at UIC.

Caldwell's honors include the White House's Presidential Award for Excellence in Science, Mathematics and Engineering Mentoring, Illinois College Personnel Association Award for "Outstanding Contribution to Social Justice" and Who's Who in Black Chicago. In 2011, she was recognized as a recipient of Diversity MBA magazine's Top 100 Under 50 Executive and Emerging Leaders award as a result of her leadership and vision in the field.

Sarah Frances Hardy

With a juris doctorate cum laude from the University of Mississippi School of Law, a Bachelor of Arts in fine art from Davidson College (Class of 1991), and subsequent studies at Parsons School of Design in New York and Paris, Sarah Frances Hardy took an early retirement from practicing law to paint and write full time.

As a painter, Sarah Frances showed in galleries throughout the Southeast as well as New York, and her paintings were chosen by Steve Wynn for his corporate collection at the Beau Rivage Resort in Biloxi, Mississippi.

Sarah Frances’s first children’s book PUZZLED BY PINK which she both wrote and illustrated was published in April of 2012 by Viking Children’s Books. Her subsequent books PAINT ME! and DRESS ME! were published by Sky Pony Press in 2014 and 2015. DRESS ME! was chosen as a featured selection in the Children’s Book of the Month Club as well as a finalist for the SCBWI MidSouth Crystal Kite award. She is currently working on middle grade novels as well as other picture books.

Sarah Frances lives in Oxford, Mississippi, with her husband John and three daughters where she serves as Chair of the City of Oxford Historic Preservation Commission and President of the Friends of the J.D. Williams Library Board.

Ann J. Abadie

Ann J. Abadie was associate director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi from 1979 to 2011. She is co-editor of 38 annual volumes of proceedings of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference (1974-2012) and associate editor of the Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (1989), the 24-volume New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture (2006-2013), and the Mississippi Encyclopedia (2017).

She coordinated the Oxford Conference for the Book for 19 years and served on the Board of Director of the University Press of Mississippi for 23 years.

Jay Hughes

Representative, District 12, Mississippi

Representative Hughes is a U.S. Army Veteran and represents District 12 in the House of Representatives for Mississippi. He will be our after-lunch speaker for the program.

Baretta Mosley

Circuit Clerk, Lafayette County

Baretta Mosley is a native of Lafayette County and attended Oxford City Schools and Ole Miss. In 1988 she became a deputy circuit clerk for Lafayette County and in 2011 was elected Circuit Clerk. She is presently the president of the Mississippi Circuit Clerk's Association, the first Circuit Clerk from Lafayette County to hold this office since its inception in 1936. She was appointed by Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann as one of two representatives to U. S. Election Assistance Commission. She has been married to Fred Mosley for 42 years and has two children and three grandchildren.

Lisa Howorth

Lisa Howorth and her husband, Richard, opened Square Books (named as the 2013 Bookstore of the Year by Publishers Weekly) in Oxford, Mississippi, in 1979. She received the Governor's Award for Excellence in the Arts in 1996 and a MacDowell Colony Fellowship in 2007. Her writing has appeared in Garden & Gun and the Oxford American. Her first novel, Flying Shoes, was published in 2014. Her second novel will be published by Doubleday in spring of 2019.

Julia Thornton

Julia Thornton is a retired attorney and lobbyist, having held positions of General Counsel for the University of New Orleans, VP of Federal Relations for BlueCross/BlueShield of Louisiana and as an Associate with Blue, Williams, LLC, of New Orleans.