FACULTY HighLights
NANCY DUPONT N By Samantha Mitchell
ancy Dupont grew up in Gulfport, Mississippi, as a sixth generation Mississippian. She spent much of her childhood in front of the television after her parents bought their first television six months after she was born in 1952. During that time, television shows covered events such as the United Nations and Congressional hearings in their entirety. “They didn’t chop things up as much back then,” Dupont said, “and they ran political conventions all day and all night, so you got a sense of what actually was happening.” Dupont was inspired by what she saw. She received a bachelor’s degree in broadcast journalism from Loyola University New Orleans in 1974. Her career path started in Biloxi, Mississippi, and took her to South Carolina, Tennessee, Florida, Arizona and, eventually, back to New Orleans. “I went where the opportunities were,” Dupont said. “I do think there’s a bit of a misperception of Mississippi throughout the world, that it is a completely backward place — and I hope I’ve been able to dispel a little of that with the places I’ve gone.” Towards the end of her 17-year career as a journalist, Dupont decided to pursue a master’s degree at Loyola. She received the opportunity to teach a course while taking classes. She became a faculty member at the university in 1993 and received her master’s in 1994. She then began commuting back and forth to get her Ph.D. at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg. Hurricane Katrina would change the course of fate for many in New Orleans. Her childhood home in Gulfport was destroyed in the storm, and Loyola ended its broadcast courses in 2006. Dupont then received an email from then Student Media Director Ralph Braseth telling her about an opening in broadcast journalism at Ole Miss. At first she thought it was a joke, but she was hired to teach in the fall of that year. She would bring along her parents, who had lost everything during the hurricane, and her husband who had recently retired. Today she is living out her passion, teaching at the university that her father once attended. “Ole Miss is the best employer I could ever dream about,” Dupont said. Dupont has taught print and broadcast journalism classes in her nine years at the university. The one that stands out the most for her is JOUR 480, Advanced Television Reporting,
54 MEEK SCHOOL
