Students from Mississippi State University will tour the Delta over the next week, and their professors hope that in coming years students from across the country will tread in their footsteps.
Cade Smith, assistant dean of students for the university and the director of its office of student leadership and community engagement, said the program, now in its second year, attempts to give students an experience in which they can both perform service and learn about the area they are serving.
In Leflore County, students will attend services at North Greenwood Baptist Church and Salem Missionary Baptist Church. Showing students one mostly white church and one mostly African-American one will, said Smith, provide students with a lesson in the contrasts that exist in the Delta.
“Having one thing that a student can contrast with another enhances learning,” he said.
Students will help clean up the riverbanks in Clarksdale, visit both rural and more industrial farms in Greenwood, prepare vegetable beds at Clarksdale High School and construct a greenhouse in Shelby, among many other projects.
“We hope that students have a better understanding of both the challenges and opportunities that communities all across the country face,” said Smith. “Many students come into the Delta to work, but they don’t have the social and historical context to determine what the region really means.”
Smith, who is a native of Grenada, said that the trip’s organizers are working to draw students from all over the country down to the Delta. The university has hired an AmeriCorps worker to oversee implementation of the program, and it will also roll out a new website next month.
Smith said a crucial element of the program’s national appeal is the important role the Mississippi Delta plays in the history of the United States.
Students from MSU are educated on that subject before they come here. To prepare, students read the James C. Cobb classic “The Most Southern Place on Earth: The Mississippi Delta and the Roots of Regional Identity.” This ensures that students have a better understanding of the problems facing the Delta before they arrive, and it also provides them with a context for how the Delta fits into the broader story of a nation.
“We’re offering students an experience to do service, but we’re also offering them an opportunity to understand that service,” said Smith.
Smith said that often college students go on service trips and work with a single entity, so they never get out of, say, a particular farm or school. With MSU’s resources, however, students will meet with a number of local entities, and their experiences will be better rounded to serve and understand local communities.
“They will learn and serve, and that will allow them to be better citizens in their home communities,” said Smith. “Or, maybe they’ll come back to the Delta for good.”
• Contact Jeanie Riess at 581-7235 or jriess@gwcommonwealth.com.
