TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- The 36th annual meeting of the Alabama-Mississippi Sociological Association will be held at The University of Alabama Bryant Conference Center Thursday and Friday, Feb. 24-25.

A number of social scientists, practitioners and students from UA and throughout the two-state region will present their research and community-based activities through a series of poster sessions, workshops, panels and paper sessions. The event is hosted by the UA College of Arts and Sciences.

The program and banquet planned for Thursday evening, Feb. 24, at Smith Hall will feature distinguished speakers including Dr. J. Kenneth Davidson, senior professor emeritus of the University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire whose son Steven is an alumnus of the University; Dr. Michael Hughes of Virginia Tech University who is the president of the Southern Sociological Society and a UA alumnus; Stephen Foster Black of the Birmingham law firm Maynard, Cooper and Gale; and, Dr. Carla Howery, associate executive director of the American Sociological Association in Washington, D.C.

Dr. Dennis L. Peck, UA professor of sociology, currently serves as the president of the Alabama-Mississippi Sociological Association, and he will welcome the group of scholars to the University at the general session. The session will convene in Rast Room-B at the Bryant Conference Center at 9:30 a.m. on Thursday, Feb. 24. Following the opening comments, a series of 18 sessions will be held throughout Thursday and will end Friday afternoon.

An additional feature of the program will be the book and journal display sponsored by 12 publishers and the American Sociological Association that will showcase some of the national and international pure and applied research initiatives currently being undertaken by members of the discipline.

The general public is invited to attend the sessions and may learn more about this unique association by visiting their website at http://www2.una.edu/almssa/ . The association will soon become one of the first regional associations to have an online journal in which the research findings and information pertaining to the applied initiatives undertaken within the two-state region will be published.