Mid-South Sociological Association

The Mid-South Sociological Association (MSSA) is a non-profit professional organization of sociologists and social scientists established in 1976 to promote the study and understanding of sociological and related issues and problems. Professional interests include crime, aging, deviance, demography, environment, family, education, race and ethnic relations, religion, global and community development, occupations, health, inequal8ity, gender, corrections, community, political economy, science and technology, urban/rural, law, ecology, and others. Its first president was Julian B. Roebuck, professor of sociology at Mississippi State University. The MSSA holds annual meetings in late October in locations around the Mid-South region. Recently scheduled locations have included Lafayette, Louisiana (2009), Huntsville, Alabama (2008), Mobile, Alabama (2007), Lafayette, Louisiana (2006), Atlanta, Georgia (2005), and Biloxi, Mississippi (2004.

At its annual meeting, the MSSA holds sessions for the presentations of professional papers, roundtable discussions of current social issues, and hosts speakers. The organization also has a banquet, usually on Thursday evenings, at which the current president gives a talk and officers give out awards. These awards include the Stanford M. Lyman Memorial Scholarship, given each year to a worthy doctoral student completing a dissertation; the Graduate Student Distinguished Paper Award, given to the best graduate student paper delivered at the meeting; the Undergraduate Paper Award, given to the best undergraduate paper delivered at the meeting; the Sociological Spectrum Outstanding Article Award, given to the best article published that year in the journal Sociological Spectrum; and the Stanford M. Lyman Distinguished Book Award, given to an outstanding book authored by a member of the organization in the previous three years.

The main publication of the MSSA is its official journal Sociological Spectrum, a refereed interdisciplinary social science journal that publishes theoretical, methodological, quantitative and qualitative substantive research, and applied research articles in the areas of sociology, social psychology, anthropology, and political science. Sociological Spectrum is published six times every year by the Taylor and Francis Group.

References

Mid-South Sociological Association website

Sociological Spectrum website