Deidra Jackson, Ph.D.

Director, UM-Tupelo Writing Center and Instructor

Deidra Faye Jackson, who earned a Ph.D. in Higher Education from the University of Mississippi, teaches undergraduates and graduates advanced writing and higher education courses, respectively. She researches the connections between beginning research writing and critical thinking skills, faculty perceptions of scholarly productivity, writing groups as faculty development, and faculty persistence within "publish or perish" R1 universities. She is the director of the UM-Tupelo Writing Center and holds master's and bachelor's degrees in journalism. A former newspaper editor and reporter in North Carolina and Mississippi, she has been a contributing writer to Inside Higher Ed. She also has presented research at the annual meetings of the American Educational Research Association, the Association of Rhetoric and Writing Studies, the Mississippi Writing Centers Association, and the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication. She also has co-authored and authored articles in the Journal of Community Engagement and Scholarship and the Journal of Contemporary Research in Education.

Gender Studies -Related Research Interests: Gender and race influences in publishing persistence, as well as faculty relationships and collegiality as they relate to scholarly productivity.