Date March 7, 2006

For more information, contact: Kimberly Kreider (901) 333-4023

Blues Legend and Well-known Authors Visit Faculty Institute
Written by Brenda J. Rayner

The National Collegiate Honors Council is sponsoring a faculty institute, “Blues Terrains: Experiential Teaching and Learning.” The institute, a partnership project with Southwest, will take place in Memphis from March 10 –15.
Bobby “Blue” Bland, along with noted blues authors John Pritchard and Robert Gordon, will be among the featured experts. Bland, a living legend, recorded for Duke Records in the 1960s and became a household name for discs like “Cry, Cry, Cry,” “I Pity the Fool,” “Turn on Your Love Light,” and “Lead Me On.” His career has spanned almost six decades and he is enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
Pritchard is an English professor who recently published his first book, Junior Ray, a
novel set in the Mississippi Delta that cradled the blues.
Gordon, a film producer as well as an author, is known for his biography of Muddy Waters, published as a book and presented as a Gordon-produced documentary on
PBS in 2003. He also is a Grammy nominated author of album liner notes.
Participants in this faculty institute will explore famous Beale Street, cemeteries and museums during the workshop. They will spend a night in authentic “shotgun” shacks in the Mississippi Delta, all while discovering how to incorporate place-as-text methodology in their own course offerings.
The institute, which will involve faculty from 15 states, is co-sponsored by the Honors Semesters Committee of the National Collegiate Honors Council and the Honors Academy of Southwest, Coordinator, Dr. Clarence Christian. Facilitators include Dr. Bernice Braid from Long Island University, Brooklyn, New York; Dr. Ada Long from the University of Alabama, Birmingham; Dr. Shirley Forbes-Thomas from John Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island; and Dr. Bill Daniel from Winthrop University in Rock Hill, SC.