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Arts Commission News

Acclaimed Harvard Medical School Psychiatrist to Teach at Whole Schools Summer Institute

DATE:             July 12 , 2007

CONTACT:     Susan Dobbs, Public Relations Director                                       601-359-6031 or sdobbs@arts.state.ms.us

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 

JACKSON— Dr. John Woodall, acclaimed psychiatrist with a special expertise in posttraumatic stress disorder, will be a featured instructor at the Mississippi Arts Commission’s Whole Schools Summer Institute.  The Institute, a premier professional development opportunity for educators, will be held July 15-19, 2007 on the campus of the University of Mississippi in Oxford.

Woodall, a research fellow at the Judge Baker Children’s Medical Center at Harvard University, is the founder and director of The Unity Project and co-founder of the Healing Arts Project.  The Unity Project is a not-for-profit organization that uses the arts and service learning as methods to promote competent global citizenship.  His area of greatest interest is building cohesive communities in the aftermath of conflict.  He has consulted with government agencies, the United Nations and international nongovernmental agencies on issues of community building and inter-ethnic reconciliation in the United States.  While Hurricane Katrina brought crisis to Mississippi, many children who live in poverty experience trauma in their daily lives.  At the Institute, he will share with teachers some tools they can use to understand what is necessary to build resilient responses to crisis.

Approximately 300 teachers, artists and education administrators from more than 40 schools are registered to attend the Institute.  A complete agenda is available on the Whole Schools website at www.mswholeschools.org.

The Mississippi Arts Commission is a state agency funded by the Mississippi Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Wallace Foundation and other private sources. The Whole Schools Summer Institute is funded by a generous contribution from Donna and Jim Barksdale.

The Mississippi Arts Commission serves more than 1.7 million Mississippians through grants that support programs to enhance communities across the state; assist artists and arts organizations; promote the arts in education and celebrate Mississippi’s cultural heritage. The Commission is the official grants-making and service agency for the arts in Mississippi

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