Art Professor Karlos Taylor Named William Winter Scholar

Mississippi College graphic design professor Karlos Taylor

Graphic design professor Karlos Taylor represented Mississippi College as one of the William Winter Scholars at the Natchez Literacy & Cinema Celebration.

The Jackson native joined humanities division professors and students from Mississippi universities and colleges as Winter Scholars at the 25^th annual conference in late February.

An award-winning Mississippi governor from 1980-84, Winter championed education reform during and after his service at the Capitol. The William Winter Institute for Racial Reconciliation is named in his honor at the University of Mississippi, his alma mater.

It was quite an honor to represent Mississippi College at the event that attracts prominent writers, historians, artists, civil rights leaders and others to the Southwest Mississippi city, Taylor said.

This year’s theme was “60 Years and Counting: Voices of the Civil Rights Movement.”

A former vice president of the Black Student Union as a Mississippi College undergraduate, the MC art professor said he left the conference “with a much better understanding of the Civil Rights Movement and a Christian’s responsibility within it.”

At the conference coinciding with Black History Month, Taylor met James Meredith, the first African-American admitted to Ole Miss amid riots in 1962 and former Gov. Winter. He also spoke with Jacquelyn Dace, the lead curator at the Civil Rights Museum being built in Jackson.

“I left there with a new torch to bear for those that lived through that time to have young people to see Christ in everything that happened, is happening and will happen as it relates to civil rights.”

MC Vice President for Academic Affairs Ron Howard first got to know Taylor when he was an undergraduate active with the Black Student Union on the Clinton campus about 15 years ago.

“He was a dynamic student leader then and he is a most enterprising mentor and administrator today,” Howard said. Taylor is providing strong leadership at MC’s masters of fine arts in graphic design program, he added.

Art professor Steve Cook suggested to Dr. Howard that Taylor would make an excellent choice to represent Mississippi College at the Natchez conference. He’s known Taylor for many years.

“His personal graciousness, sense of righteousness, fairness and absolute justice overcomes all barriers,” Cook said. “His concern is for all the people that he can serve,” as a leader in the African-American community, an educator and “artist with a noble vision of what art can accomplish.”

Taylor served as a former art director for an architectural firm in Jackson. He’s taught art classes at Jackson State University, Tougaloo College and Belhaven University. The MC alumnus earned his MFA in computer arts at the Memphis College of Art. The Jacksonian is seeking a master’s in higher education leadership at Kaplan University.