MAGNOLIA—Southern Arkansas University will host a book signing for James F. Willis, University Historian and author of Southern Arkansas University: The Mulerider School’s Centennial History, 1909-2009 at 7 p.m. on Nov. 30 in the Grand Hall of the Donald W. Reynolds Campus and Community Center.
The event will include a reception for Willis at 6:30 p.m. and dinner at 7 p.m. Copies of Southern Arkansas University: The Mulerider School’s Centennial History, 1909-2009 will be available for $34.99. Following the dinner, Willis will autograph copies of the book. Royalties from the book will benefit Southern Arkansas University through the SAU Foundation.
The 378-page book offers readers an in-depth look at the legacy of SAU. It tells a rich history of the University beginning with its origin as a residential agricultural high school, the Third District Agricultural School, established in 1909 by Act 100.
The book also covers the school’s transition to a junior college, Magnolia A&M, in 1925 and to a four-year institution, Southern State College, in 1951. The years as Southern Arkansas University since 1976 are dealt with more briefly. The book chronicles the activities of students and faculty as well as presidents. Finally, it places SAU’s history in the context of Arkansas’s evolving higher education system during the 20th century.
Willis is an alumnus of Southern Arkansas University, class of 1967. Awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship, he attended Duke University where he earned a Ph.D. in 1976. He taught one year at Little Rock University before returning to his alma mater in 1969 then took early retirement in 2005 to research and write SAU’s centennial history. Willis is also the author of Prologue to Nuremberg: The Politics and Diplomacy of Punishing War Criminals of the First World War (1982, Greenwood Press).
Tickets for the event are $15 and will include two free DVDs: Mulerider Memories, a historical campus tour by Doug Waterfield and the recent Great Southern Arkansas Mule Ride. For reservations or more information, please contact the SAU President’s Office at (870)235-4001 or (870)235-5090.
