Chris Arguedas
Christopher.arguedas@usm.edu
LIS 201
August 30, 2009
Southern Miss – Special Collections Visit

The Special Collections visit was a great experience for me. I’m entering my senior year of college and I’ve never had the opportunity to learn about so much of our history as a University. It was enjoyable for me to learn from a hands-on on perspective about the artifacts Southern Miss has collected over the years. I really thought it was interesting to take a look at how females were required to live on campus through the Southern Miss manual. The rules were so different then for women than they are now and it gave me a broader perspective on how Southern Miss has evolved over the decades. Women were treated in college with more rules and regulations than most students in high school. Most of the memorabilia included on the visit were snapshots in time of how things once were. I especially enjoyed the picture of campus from the early 1900’s. It was nice to see how much we have grown architecturally in the past 99 years of existence. I’m proud to call myself a student here and I know that we will only continue to grow in the years to come. Another one of my favorite components of the exhibit was some of the racial documents regarding the missing visitors who were working to help combat some of the issues facing African Americans. Although it was not the brightest time for the University or Mississippi, I think it is important to remember the racial struggles that we have overcome as a college and a state. Today Southern Miss has African American leadership throughout its campus and has prospered from those administrators as well. I think it speaks volumes about how far we’ve come and it is important to remember the people who fought, and died, for the liberties we share today. I am very glad that we took the time out to go and visit the Special Collections exhibit and I hope to be able to use it in the future for research. Especially now that I am more aware of the resources available to me as a student.