The Department of Social Sciences at Alcorn State University will host its Annual Constitution Day on Monday, Sept. 18, at 11 a.m. in the Dr. Rudolph E. Waters Building Auditorium.

Constitution Day is a federal holiday commemorating the Sept. 17, 1787, signing of the U.S. Constitution. It was established by law in 2004.

The speaker for this year’s event is Judge Toni Walker Terrett.

Terrett began her career as news director and senior producer for WPRL-FM at Alcorn State University. She left to attend law school but returned a few years later as a visiting professor of mass communications. She has remained a long-serving member of the department’s faculty.

In 2018, she was elected as a judge for the Ninth District Circuit Court of Mississippi in November 2018.

Becoming the first woman elected in her district to serve in this capacity. As a circuit court judge, she presides over felony criminal and civil matters in Warren, Sharkey, and Issaquena counties. She is also a presiding judge for the Ninth District Intervention Court, which provides long-term treatment and attention for drug and alcohol addiction and/or chronic mental illness.

In addition, at Alcorn, she advises the National Association of Black Journalists and the American Advertising Federation student chapters.

She is a member of the American Bar, Mississippi Bar, Warren County, Magnolia Bar Associations, the National Association of Women Judges, and the Women in the Profession Section of the Mississippi Bar. She is a Fellow of the Mississippi Bar Foundation, the Foundation’s highest honor.

In her second year as the chair of the Mississippi Bar Association’s Access to Justice Committee, she has successfully implemented a summer clerkship program that exposes law students to the state’s more rural areas.

Terrett earned a Bachelor of Science in chemistry from Tougaloo College. She furthered her education at Purdue University before completing a Master of Arts in journalism at the University of Memphis. She earned her juris doctor from the Mississippi College School of Law.

She is the recipient of various awards for community service and professional accomplishments, but her pride and joy are her five children – Gabrielle, Aaron, Samuel, Elysse, and Ellis; and grandson, Eddie Jr.