When licensed professional counselor and Mississippi State alumna Julie Vence Hepp announced the creation of the Thomas J. Vence Memorial Endowed Scholarship in March 2025, it was more than a gift—it was a tribute.

“Curiosity is the foundation for every scientist’s motivation to understand complex problems,” said Chandler Woo, a senior chemistry major at Mississippi State. “Exploring the uncharted and finding answers to a problem that has not been successfully solved is what excites me about research in general.”

A Mississippi State University administrator and faculty member reckons with the contradictions of America’s antislavery movement in a forthcoming biography of U.S. Civil War figure Cassius Marcellus Clay.