Foncree Receives Mississippi Humanities Teacher Award

JACKSON, MS (10/30/2012)(readMedia)-- Mrs. Rose Mary Foncree, Associate Professor of English, is the 2012 winner of the Mississippi Humanities Council Teacher Award. This award recognizes the contribution of humanities faculty at each of the state's colleges and universities.

Dr. Dan Fredericks, Senior Vice President and Provost, said, "Rose Mary has read more widely than any professor I have met. She draws from years of classroom experience, but as a true champion of the humanities, she personifies

Belhaven's emphasis on studying and assessing human thought from a biblical standard rather than arbitrary personal or faddish perspectives. We are proud to have her represent us in this award."

Each award recipient is required to prepare and deliver a public lecture and recipients are then recognized at the Mississippi Humanities Council's annual awards banquet in the spring.

Foncree will be giving her presentation on November 15 at 7:00 p.m. in the Belhaven Student Center Theatre and her lecture is titled "The Ubi Sunt Motif in Anglo-Saxon Poetry". There will be a reception immediately following to honor Foncree. This event is open to the public.

"Ubi sunt is an abbreviation in Latin that asks rhetorically, 'where are those who were before us?" said Foncree. "This motif is a dominant refrain in Anglo-Saxon poetry of the seventh through ninth centuries and is wistfully mournful in form and intent."

Foncree adds, "This tendency toward deep reflection, regret, and pessimism toward the future seems to have been influential in forming the Anglo-Saxon persona and, has often been suggested, became part of the British character–the 'stiff upper lip,' the unflinching facing of sorrow and catastrophe, and the longing for an age that has vanished in the mists of what seems to be an ephemeral history."

The Mississippi Humanities Council is a private nonprofit corporation funded by Congress through the National Endowment for the Humanities and provides public programs in traditional liberal arts disciplines to serve nonprofit groups in Mississippi.

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Belhaven University stands among select Christian colleges and universities and has been repeatedly named one of "America's 100 Best College Buys." The University offers 30 academic majors across a full spectrum of disciplines as well as a variety of graduate programs. In addition, Belhaven has achieved the distinction of being among only 30 universities nationally accredited in each of the major arts – music, theatre, visual art and dance. All programs are taught from a Christian worldview perspective and are guided by the mission to prepare students academically and spiritually to serve Christ Jesus in their careers, in human relationships, and in the world of ideas.

Belhaven University serves over 3,700 students offering undergraduate and graduate degrees on its residential campus, an online degree program, and graduate and adult degree programs in Jackson, Memphis, Orlando, Houston, Chattanooga, and Atlanta.