Senator David Pryor to Moderate Discussion of Women and Minorities in the Contemporary South

The presentation is part of the New South Consortium 2005 Conference. The conference, which is free and open to the public, is also part of the gala celebration marking the successful billion-dollar Campaign for the Twenty-First Century at the University of Arkansas.

One of the most important topics the group will discuss is how they can work together in the future to conduct research and polls on questions important to the South.

“We’ll look at questions of public health, such as obesity being a serious Southern problem, at environmental concerns which are becoming a Southern problem because so many industries are locating here but Southern states don’t often have the infrastructure or legal protections to prevent substantial environmental damage. We’ll also look at education, which continues to be a Southern problem with school quality in the South often lagging behind that in other states and regions and the desegregation plans that have basically failed,” said event co-sponsor Todd Shields, director of the Blair Center in Fulbright College.

“Without successful public education, economic growth and viable immigration policies, the South and the nation will face a difficult future,” said Shannon Davis, event co-sponsor and director of research in the College of Education and Health Professions.

The Blair Center and the Department of Education Reform founded the New South Consortium, which is composed of 12 Southern U.S. universities that annually conduct public opinion surveys on issues such as economic development, taxes, education reform, demographic trends, leadership and politics. The consortium provides the researchers an opportunity to collaborate on their findings and share them with the public.

Before the discussion begins, Larry Foley, UA professor of journalism, will preview a new documentary he and graduate student Robyn Starling Ledbetter produced, “Progress and Hope.” The documentary is dedicated to UA student April Love, one of the researchers for the film, who was the victim of a homicide in her Fayetteville apartment in September. The film features the stories and perspectives of four women and their views on the progress of education in the South. When completed in March 2006, it will be distributed to public television stations around the nation.

Conference panelists, all of whom are directors of their state’s annual survey poll, include Kirby Goidel, Louisiana State University; Debra McCallum, University of Alabama; Janine Parry, University of Arkansas; Mary Stutzman, Florida State University; James Bason, University of Georgia; Ron Langley, University of Kentucky; Steve Shaffer, Mississippi State University; Robert Stevenson, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill; Bob Oldendick, University of South Carolina; Michael Gant, University of Tennessee; Brian Cannon, Texas Tech University; and David Urban, Virginia Commonwealth University.

 “It is readily accepted that neither scholars nor policy leaders have sufficient information about the attitudes of Southerners to be confident about how certain policy decisions will impact the region,” said Davis. “This is particularly true with regard to how we work to provide Southerners with quality public education, affordable housing and health care, and how we integrate our communities and balance the demands of growing populations with the corresponding environmental impact.”

During this inaugural conference, Shields and Davis will coordinate plans to host future meetings that will provide valuable information for policy and economic leaders. Following the conference, they will publish a book based on the efforts of this conference and will include detailed descriptions of the changes in the lives of residents in each Southern state during the past few decades.