Students at the Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage at the University of Southern Mississippi recently put together a collection of oral histories concerning the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on people in the state.

Kevin Greene, director of the COHCH, assigned the project to students in the USM Oral History graduate course late in the spring 2020 semester as the pandemic began to worsen, anticipating a shelter in place order and a need to switch to online instruction from traditional methods for the course, a release from USM says. Students used skills associated with the course, such as formal interviews and transcription, to compile stories on people the virus heavily impacted, such as health care workers, law enforcement and first responders, as well as people who contracted the virus and recovered.

The COVID-19 oral history project has compiled one dozen oral histories from Mississippians so far and is set to continue even after the pandemic has passed, the release says.

For more information about the USM Center for Oral History and Cultural Heritage, visit https://www.usm.edu/oral-history-cultural-heritage/index.php.

Belhaven University Offering Scholarships for Online Students

In light of challenges students are facing during the COVID-19 pandemic, Belhaven University recently announced that it is giving traditional students who enroll full-tuition scholarships for any of its online masters or graduate degrees.

The scholarship is for freshmen, transfers and returning students who enroll for the fall semester’s traditional campus program. Students must stay enrolled each semester as a full-time, traditional-campus student until they graduate to qualify. Students can use the full-tuition scholarship for any graduate degree.

Belhaven will guarantee a minimum scholarship of $12,500 to the Mississippi Class of 2020 high school graduates and community college transfers.

The University is also offering a tuition free scholarship for double major students. Students must come as freshmen and stay continuously enrolled to qualify. If a student's completion of a double major requires a ninth or 10th semester, their extra year of study will be tuition-free.

For more information, visit belhaven.edu.

Millsaps College Not Requiring Standardized Test Scores for Admission

Due to lack of student access to standardized testing sites nationwide during the COVID-19 pandemic, Millsaps College recently announced that applicants will not have to submit standardized test scores for admission consideration for at least the next application cycle.

More than half of all U.S. four-year colleges and universities will be test-optional for the fall 2021 admission cycle, a release from the National Center for Fair and Open Testing says.

Millsaps College will consider factors such as high school grades, course selection, activities, an essay and recommendations when students apply for admission during the next application cycle. For more information, visit millsaps.edu.