Stephanie Rolph is a native of Jackson and a Millsaps alumna (1999). She earned her MA in 2004 and her PhD in 2009 from Mississippi State University, where she specialized in the history of the American South. An active scholar in post-1945 southern politics and conservative ideology, Rolph’s work has appeared in The Right Side of the Sixties (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012) and in the Journal of Southern History (August 2016). Her first book, Resisting Equality: The Citizens’ Council, 1954–1989, will be available June 2018 from Louisiana State University Press.
Since arriving in fall 2010, Rolph has offered a variety of courses including Mississippi History, Civil War, Colonial America, Gilded Age and Progressive Era, Masculinity in the Twentieth Century, Women and Men in America, and African-American Heritage, in addition to Compass Curriculum courses. Rolph also serves as the internship coordinator for the History Department and director of Community Engaged Learning (CEL). Most recently, she has been named academic director for the Shepherd Higher Education Consortium on Poverty (SHECP), a national coalition of colleges and universities committed to poverty-related coursework and internships. Her expertise in southern history, her Jackson roots, and her commitment to Millsaps as her alma mater make active, experiential learning a priority for Rolph. Her students are likely to find a rigorous exposure to the discipline’s traditions and are challenged to consider innovative ways that historians can make contributions to their communities through preservation, memory, educational outreach, and the construction of identity.