Skip to main content

Moravian University Student Shelby Morgan '16 Shares Her SOAR Research Project

Finding a Voice in Activism through Research

Shelby Morgan '16 explores the importance of youth involvement through The Mississippi Freedom Struggle

By Marie Mikols ’16

Pushing yourself out of your comfort zone can be a frightening task, a task Shelby Morgan, senior education major at Moravian University, took when she decided to spend two weeks in Philadelphia through a student-teacher program. While she was living on her own in a place where she didn’t know anyone, Morgan was able to experience diversity and witness poverty firsthand, all of which added to her understanding of the world around her on a deeper level. This experience inspired her to further explore the concepts of poverty and inequality in Student Opportunities for Academic Research (SOAR), a program that allows students to explore scholarly or creative research in a topic of interest with a faculty member. She worked closely with Robert Mayer, professor of education, on a project that traces Mississippi’s much-maligned civil rights record.

As Morgan took to heart her experiences in Philadelphia, she began thinking about how she could apply what she learned about diversity and poverty on a bigger scale. Valuing honesty, knowledge and working with others, Morgan began to search for a way to relate what she had experienced to others who had not had the same opportunity. “It’s important to look outside yourself,” Morgan noted while reflecting on her choice of topic for SOAR.

Morgan and Mayer quickly narrowed down Morgan’s topic to the level of involvement on the part of young people. That Morgan’s father grew up in Mississippi added further to both the sense of urgency as well as the more subjective elements of the project for both student and mentor.

According to Morgan, the vaunted Mississippi Freedom Struggle was a broad-based movement that involved, among other things, teaching African Americans in rural Mississippi about activism and culture. During the struggle, many emergent young activists took part in the movement, showing the power of young voices in ways that Morgan hopes will inspire her contemporaries to get them more involved in activism in their local communities as well.

Throughout her time student-teaching at Bethlehem’s Freedom High School, Morgan engaged her class on the Civil War, demonstrating how its legacy impacts the nation still today, a matter that she plans to further explore in both her future research as well as her ongoing teaching plans. “I want to show my students what they are capable of,” said Morgan. In this regard, Morgan’s hope is for young people to become even more engaged with the world around them. As she reminds, “Young people hold more power than they realize.”

Mayer adds, “Young people should get involved because they are most impacted.” According to Mayer, few teachers talk about the Mississippi Freedom Struggle in a classroom setting, something that through his guidance, Morgan is hoping to change.

Her experience here at Moravian University will help her do just that. “Moravian has one of the best education programs,” she says. “Students have more opportunities for research than at a big university and can participate in individualized one-on-one studies [like SOAR] with professors due to the small size of the college.”

Looking toward the future, Morgan hopes she can have a similar relationship with her students. And just as she pushed herself out of her comfort zone to become a little revolutionary, perhaps she too will one day inspire her students to do the same through teaching others about the power of young voices and the importance of such integral movements as the Mississippi Freedom Struggle.