DR. CLAUDIA LIMBERT’S DECLARATION OF WAR: MUWAA V. CLAUDIA LIMBERT

In 2006, Mississippi University for Women\u27s president, Dr. Claudia Limbert, made a decision to temporarily dismiss the alumni relations staff, seized their office records, and placed both alumni relations director and assistant director on administrative leave for a week. This conflict sparked what is now known as the Alumni Wars, a three-year period pivotal to the W\u27s history. During this time, the 117-year-old alumnae association was divorced from the university and a new association was formed, further enflaming the battle. These events highlight the significance of alumni networks to the overall health of an institution

A Model of Social Functioning in Schizophrenia: Symptomatology, Personality, and Brain Region Volumes

Social cognitive deficits are a hallmark of the negative symptomatology of schizophrenia. Recent theories on the role of social cognition in schizophrenia have suggested that deficits may result from illness pathology, and that simultaneously the resulting decreased level of social interaction both perpetuates and exacerbates the illness in those affected with the disorder. Neuroimaging techniques provide a unique perspective not only on the pathophysiology of schizophrenia, but also on the ways in which hypothesized social circuits function in individuals not affected by mental illness. This study examines the fusiform gyrus (FG), a region shown to be involved in neural circuits underlying social cognitive processes, and its contributions to different symptom profiles in individuals with schizophrenia. A model for social cognition and its neural correlates is proposed using evidence from already published articles (regarding the role of the superior temporal gyrus, STG) and newly analyzed data (regarding the FG). Previously collected data will be analyzed to explore the relationships of symptom ratings, personality inventories, and 1.5 Tesla MRI volumetric measures of FG. In an archival sample of persons with chronic schizophrenia, hierarchical regression analyses will be used to examine the relationships of (a) symptom expression and individual differences in personality and (b) the respective contributions of each of these putative measures of social cognition to STG and FG gray matter volume

On a Sunbeam: Queering and Challenging Heteronormativity and Gender Binaries in YA Graphic Literature

Graphic literature, while once considered a low-brow form of literature, has surged in popularity both in scholarly work and leisure readings. Dominating specific niches where the intermedial form lends itself to being especially fitting, graphic literature has been evaluated to be of significant importance for its narrative quality. In the niche of queer literature, graphic texts find themselves blooming beyond traditional fiction narratives. By blending together queer and graphic literature, the impact of narratology on the text is significant as it invites the reader to experience intermedial narrative forms that both challenge and conform to traditional narrative expectations. On a Sunbeam by Tillie Walden is a YA queer graphic novel that employs intermedial narratives to deliver both prose and a visual representation of marginalized and oppressed people that both defies traditional literary conventions and demonstrates how literary studies should evolve to accept and encompass intermedial forms. This is significant for challenging educators’ tendency toward enforcing heteronormativity and gender binaries, rather than challenging them, in the classroom

Risk, Resilience, Recovery: In Search of the Protective Factors of Mental Health

For centuries, the study of psychiatric disorders has focused on pathology and deficit models of illness. In more recent years, the field of positive psychology have precipitated a shift toward focusing on sources of strength, resilience and wellbeing in both mental health and mental illness. Concentrating only on deficits may blind us to the possibility of flourishing within mental illness, or to see it as an exception to the rule. The emerging consensus is that mental health is not simply the absence of mental illness, but rather each represents a distinct set of emotional, cognitive, social and behavioral experiences. The central research question of the current study is thus, what are the fundamental characteristics of wellbeing and how might these factors shed light on the dynamics of risk, resilience, and recovery in early stages of mental illness? Accordingly, we proposed an inchoate model of wellbeing that unites three distinct but related domains: 1) social-emotional perception and personality traits; 2) cognitive abilities of attention and concentration; and 3) attitudinal predispositions and related to mindfulness, self-awareness, resilience, and insight. Consistent with Keyes (2007), this study conceptualized wellbeing on a continuum, and hypothesized that variations in wellbeing could be explained by differences in social cognition, mindfulness, and attention/concentration. Participants recruited from a student population on a spectrum of risk for a variety of mental disorders completed multiple measures, including self-report measures of wellbeing, mindfulness, and resilience as well as performance-based tests of emotion perception, metacognition, and attention/concentration. In addition, a subset of these measures was administered in a clinical population established as having a high risk for psychosis (HRP) syndrome, recruited from an ongoing study of stigma and insight in this population. Findings suggested that in the population of students on a spectrum of risk, mindfulness may buffer against the negative effects of risk symptoms in this population, and that those with high and low wellbeing have distinct personality profiles, marked by variations in conscientiousness and neuroticism. In the HRP group, increased positive symptoms of risk were associated with lower wellbeing, and increased mindfulness was associated with higher levels of stereotype awareness

Opening Plenary

Opening plenary featuring welcoming remarks, roll call of schools, and introduction to the conference format. Hosted by the Ina E. Gordy Honors College and Honors Student Council, Mississippi University for Women

Q&A Session - Humanities

Live Q&A Session with undergraduate researchers in the Humanities category. Faculty volunteer for the session: Session chair: Dr. Kristi DiClemente Faculty evaluators: Dr. Tom Velek, Dr. Reyna Vergara, Dr. Cecy Brooks, Dr. Tom Richardson, Dr. Bob Sample, Dr. Amy Pardo, Dr. Leigh Ann Puckett, and Dr. Thomas Easterlin

Opening Remarks

Opening remarks by Hillary Richardson, Coordinator of Undergraduate Research, followed by a brief keynote by MUW Alum, class of 2021, Victoria Choate

Psychiatric risk and resilience: Plasticity genes and positive mental health

Abstract Objective The at‐risk mental state (ARMS) for psychosis has long played a key role in diathesis‐stress models of schizophrenia. More recent studies, however, have called for extending the boundaries of the ARMS construct beyond attenuated psychosis in nonhelp‐seeking samples to include not only other vulnerability indicators but also protective factors related to genotype, mental health, personality, and cognition. Method Accordingly, we assessed in a sample of 100 college students, the ARMS construct with the Brief Prodromal Questionnaire (PQ‐B) for psychosis, in conjunction with measures of positive mental health, childhood adversity, psychiatric symptoms, personality traits, social cognition, and genetic variables derived from assays of the serotonin transporter (5‐HTTLPR) and the brain‐derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF). Results Higher PQ‐B scores correlated positively with vulnerability indicators of childhood adversity and heightened levels of a wide variety of psychiatric symptoms but correlated negatively with protective factors of better overall mental health, social cognition as well as with a distinct NEO profile marked by reduced neuroticism and elevated agreeableness and conscientiousness. Multivariate analyses indicated that a composite ARMS measure comprised of PQ‐B scores plus anxiety and depression symptoms revealed significant genotype differences, with lowest risk and highest resilience for allelic carriers of 5‐HTTLPR‐short and BDNF Met polymorphisms. Conclusions Results provided support for extending the ARMS construct, pointing to important contributions of personality, social cognition, and genes that support neural plasticity in mitigating vulnerability and enhancing resilience and well‐being