Final Loftin gift to enhance graduate program

The estate of a late Mississippi State administrator will significantly increase support for graduate students in the university's academic area he once led.

Loftin

Marion T. "Red" Loftin of Starkville was retired vice president of graduate studies and research and professor emeritus of sociology when he died last July at age 81. Mississippi State is the beneficiary of a life insurance policy and the bulk of Loftin's estate, together valued at nearly $700,000.

The money will be added to the existing Marion T. Loftin Graduate Assistantships for the Social Science Research Center, a fund established in 1990 with a gift from Loftin. The assistantships provide stipends for sociology graduate students who conduct research in the university's Social Science Research Center that Loftin helped to establish almost half a century ago.

The SSRC will match the annual stipends from the Loftin Assistantships to create "one of the most competitive graduate awards in the country," said Martin L. Levin, head of the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Social Work.

For nearly five decades, SSRC researchers have analyzed economic and social issues in Mississippi, the Southeast, and the nation. The center annually conducts around 25 sponsored and numerous other research projects.

"Red" Loftin came to Mississippi State in 1949 as an assistant professor. He was named vice president of graduate studies and research in 1979, serving in that post until retirement in 1985. During his tenure, he also was a Thomas L. Bailey Professor of Sociology and Rural Life, head of the Sociology Department, and dean of the Graduate School.

A World War II Army veteran, he held a doctorate from Vanderbilt University, as well as bachelor's and master's degrees from Northwestern Louisiana State and Louisiana State universities.