09/20/2007
OXFORD, Miss. – Attracting more than 19,000 participants
and generating nearly $2.5 million in revenue the past
season, summer programs at the University of Mississippi
are big business.
The Department of Intercollegiate Athletics brought in the
most “summer campers,” with more than 10,000 girls and boys
participating – especially in football and basketball camps
– during June and July. Other big draws were cheer camps,
which attracted more than 500 participants, generating
revenues of more than $100,000.
Other offerings that proved to be especially popular were
the Summer Academy for gifted junior high students and the
Lott Institute’s leadership camp for ninth-graders.
“This year we offered a three-and-a-half week Summer
Academy for junior high gifted students, and because of the
interest, we’re adding another academy next year,” said
Jason Wilkins, director of Summer Academy, Division of
Outreach and Continuing Education.
“The academy is popular because it offers electives, such
as botany, environmental science, creative writing and
psychology, not offered by some smaller schools.
“This summer we also offered a special leadership camp for
ninth-graders through the Lott Institute and we’re planning
to start one for eighth-graders.”
Additionally, summer workshops and conferences attracted
nearly 50 filmmakers and scriptwriters, 150 Faulkner
Conference attendees and more than 250 Southern teachers
participating in advanced placement institutes or weeklong
teacher workshops.
“The one-week teacher workshops went tremendously well,”
said Don Howie, director of Summer School for Outreach. “In
fact, the English-related workshops were so full we had to
turn some teachers away. The algebra workshops were full,
too.”
While the workshops were popular with Mississippi teachers,
Mary Leech, grant writer and special projects coordinator
for outreach, said the program also attracted teachers from
other states.
“This summer we had advanced placement teachers from
Mississippi, Louisiana and Tennessee. We also had college
board-endorsed teaching consultants from Georgia, Florida
and North Carolina to attend our workshops,” Leech said.
With the influx of visitors, the hotel business at Ole Miss
and in Oxford experienced a boom. Howie said that fewer
than a dozen teacher participants stayed in campus
residence halls, while the others opted to lodge at The Inn
at Ole Miss or at other Oxford-based hotels. Student
campers were housed in campus residence halls.
Wilkins said he looks at the summer programs for students
as a “boot camp for students” to ease the transition
between high school and college.
“We want to continue to get more students here. I hope that
they will come back next summer and eventually enroll as
freshmen at Ole Miss,” Wilkins said. “But, even if they
don’t come here, I know we will have helped prepare them
for whatever college they attend.”
For more information on summer programs at UM, go to