Tougaloo, MS- The 12th Annual Tougaloo Art Colony is scheduled for the week of July 12th - 18th, 2008 on the historic Tougaloo College campus. The Colony is a week of studios for nationally acclaimed artists, emerging artists, art educators, art students and interested adult learners. Guest artist instructors conduct the studios in a variety of media and the evening sessions offer an opportunity for artists to gain insight from instructors, to explain and discuss their own work, the work of other artists and other participants and to exchange techniques and theories.

This year's colony features guest artists such as Carmen Hathaway (Digital Dreams: How Do I Get There from Here), Charles Crossley (Creative Realism with Abstract Connection), Sarajane Helm (Polymer Clay), Ronald G. Koehler (Textural Approach to Wood Carving), Allen Uzikee Nelson Henderson (Life Drawing). For registration forms and more information on the artists and workshops, you may visit www.tougaloo.edu and click the link to 2008 Art Colony Registration.

The Tougaloo College Art Colony is a retreat that provides an opportunity for artists to form close associations with one another forged through a week of intensive study. Applications and further information may be obtained by calling 601-977-7839 or on the website.

Founded in 1869, Tougaloo College is a private, historically black, coeducational four-year liberal arts institution, located on the northern edge of Jackson, Mississippi. Known nationally as "The Cradle of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi," the College is led by its first female and 13th president, Dr. Beverly Wade Hogan. Dr. Hogan is a 1973 graduate of the College and a native Mississippian. Under her visionary leadership, the College has increased its enrollment by 12% and boasts a student retention rate of 68%.

Tougaloo College ranks among the top 50 U.S. institutions whose graduates earn PHDs in science and engineering disciplines and among the top 15 historically black colleges and universities in the graduation of females with undergraduate degrees in the physical sciences. The College has produced more graduates who have completed their PhD degrees through the UNCF-Mellon Doctoral Fellowship Program than any other institution in the nation.

Listed as one of the Best Colleges in the Southeast by The Princeton Review (2007 and 2008 editions), the highest ranking Mississippi HBCU on U.S. News and World Report's list of "America's Best Black College" (2008) and the only Mississippi institution ranked among the top 20 liberal arts institutions in the nation by Washington Monthly (2007), 66% of its graduates enter professional and graduate schools immediately after graduation. Tougaloo College is the leading producer of African American health professionals, including over 40% of the physicians and dentists, practicing in the state of Mississippi. Among its graduates are more than one-third of the state's African American attorneys and educators including teachers, principals, school superintendents, college/university faculty and administrators.