Ole Miss Staff Pursue Passions Through Creative Residencies

The Mississippi Lab invites all Ole Miss staff to apply for its Staff Creative Residency program, where selected staff members receive one week away from their daily tasks to pursue a creative endeavor of their choosing, plus a stipend for supplies. The term can be as long as eight days with one five-day stint in the summer and three days in the winter.

"At the Mississippi Lab we are incubators of and supporters of creativity for this campus, for the state, the region," said John T. Edge, the organization's director. "This is the fifth year of Staff Creative Residencies, and I'm really proud to say that across those five years, more than 80 staff members here at the University of Mississippi have had the opportunity to explore their creative passions, with the full support of the university."

This year's projects ranged from crocheting granny squares representing books read and candle making to cooking and restoring a family porch swing. The program held its culminating showcase recently, allowing 21 staff members to share their projects with the university community.

"No other university than I am aware of does this," Edge said. "Other universities support continuous education related to your jobs, but as far as I can tell, this university is the only one that's supporting its people in this way."

The program was established with creative staff members in mind, said Hunter Haney, associate director of human resources business partners.

"This program allows us to take an inward look in our staff and celebrate the creativity and uniqueness that really makes this campus community a great place," Haney said.

Brenda Sissoko, executive assistant for the Division of Student Affairs and a caregiver, pursued her passion of candle making and shared it with other caregivers.

"I wanted to do something for caregivers, but I realized that caregivers don't have a lot of time to leave their loved ones, so I created a kit that has everything in it for them to make a candle at home," she said. "They choose what scent they want, and I package it up, put the scent in there along with instructions."

Sissoko's kits also include a journal.

"This is for you to sit and reflect and have some time to yourself," she said. "It's to give you a moment to say that you're supported. We see you, you matter and this time is for you."

Anya Goldman, manager of project resources in the Office for Research and Economic Development, combined her culinary skills and desire to preserve her Ukrainian family history during her residency.

"My mom grew up in Berdyansk, Ukraine, during a time when scarcity was part of everyday life, and that continued into her young adulthood, when she often had to make do with what she had," Goldman said "She had a sweet tooth, so she gathered various recipes and scraps of recipes and compiled them all into a composition book for my sister and me to re-create."

However, Goldman is also a pastry chef.

"I noticed that the formatting wasn't exactly standardized, so I was concerned about whether the recipes could be re-created," she said. "I used the residency not only to preserve my family's history, but also to make these recipes accessible to people in Mississippi who may have never encountered European pastries like these and give them an opportunity to try them for themselves."

Her favorite part about re-creating her mother's recipes was the different style of pastry baking.

 "You're used to pâte à choux (French pastry dough), sponge cakes and all of that, but every single one of these has been different, and all of them have thrown me for a loop somehow," she said.

Other staff members' residencies also centered around family.

April Holifield-Scott, director of the Desoto and Grenada campuses for the Division of Outreach and Continuing Education, traveled with her husband, Chris Scott, throughout the Mississippi Delta and wrote a song about it titled "Anywhere with You."

"I've always enjoyed writing, but I had never written a song before," Holifield-Scott said. "I wanted us to do something that would take us away from home and give us a chance to experience the Delta together. As we traveled, we worked many of the places, images and stories we encountered into the song."

One of her favorite lines reflects two of those memorable stops: "Thinking back on the memories we made, a kudzu church and a witch's grave."

The "witch's grave" refers to the Mississippi folklore tale of the "Witch of Yazoo," who supposedly cursed the town of Yazoo City with her dying words and returned to spark the great fire of 1904.

The couple also visited Friars Point, birthplace of country music legend Conway Twitty.

"We listened to 'Hello Darlin'' on the way to Friars Point, so of course that had to make it into the song, too," Holifield-Scott said. "Friars Point was also special because it is one of the few places with public access to the banks of the Mississippi River in the Delta."

Webb Lewis, assistant director of marketing and brand strategy in University Marketing and Communications, created a video series with his son.

"For my project, I did something I wanted to do for a long time," he said. "I sat down with my son, who was 13 years old, and we opened old packs of baseball cards and made a video series out of that, and it was a lot of fun."

Lewis realized during his residency that he wasn't just making a project, but rather, a space to create.

"The best part wasn't really the final product," he said. "It was the mess. It was the kitchen table that was turned into a studio, learning new gear, trying new things, watching an idea that was in our head become a reality, and getting to do it with my son is something that I'll take with me forever.

"But the surprise that came out of all of this is, I think it may have made me better in my day job. Because when you spend your career talking about creativity, it's easy to forget how vulnerable it feels to actually create something yourself, and you remember what it's like to risk and to play with an idea, to fail small and to keep going."

The creativity and support will continue with the next call for applications, set for April 2027.

"I have a belief that we're all creative," said Castel Sweet, director of community engagement. "We just need the space and the opportunity to create some things."

Top: Jennifer Baumbaugh (left), operations coordinator for the Office for Research and Economic Development, tastes a cake sample that Anya Goldman baked as part of her Staff Creative Residency this summer. Goldman re-created some of her mother's Ukrainian recipes and standardized them to make them accessible for bakers in Mississippi. Submitted photo