Odyssey grants awarded
CONWAY, Ark. (April 10, 2008) – A photographic journey through German concentration camps, an internship with a “Bollywood” movie production company in India, a mission to equip Mexican orphanages with computers, and the continued development of the “Hendrix Community Garden” in Conway – Hendrix College awarded grants for 55 such engaged-learning experiences to its students and faculty Thursday, totaling more than $197,000 through the college’s Odyssey Program.
The grant awards announced Thursday were the largest amount awarded in Odyssey Program’s thee-year history. In total, Hendrix has awarded more than $800,000 to support student and faculty projects.
The Hendrix Odyssey Program, established in 2005, requires Hendrix students to complete three Odyssey experiences during their undergraduate career in areas selected from six categories: Artistic creativity, global awareness, professional and leadership development, service to the world, undergraduate research and special projects. Students and faculty themselves define what course of study they’d like to experience, and award decisions are ultimately made by the college’s Committee on Experiential Learning.
This summer, Hendrix students Lauren Bartshe and Julie Champlin will travel to Germany and Poland to visit concentration camps primarily used to house and kill prisoners during World War II. At each site, they will record the camp’s current state and eventually pair each image with writings by Holocaust survivors, American soldiers and prison guards. The images and writings will be used in a book they will design and produce.
Hendrix student Aditya Oza will travel to India where he will experience the country’s filmmaking industry behind the scenes as an assistant to the production crew for a movie scheduled to begin filming in June. The popular film industry based in Mumbai, India – often referred to as “Bollywood” – produces approximately 40 percent more films each year than its American counterpart and grosses more than $100 million a year at the U.S. box office alone.
Closer to home, Hendrix students Ben Samuelson, James Depper and Emily Nichols will continue the development of the Hendrix Community Garden, a produce garden adjacent to campus that was originally created as an Odyssey project in 2005. The garden has seen several harvests of significant amounts of produce, and the new phase will create additional plots and enrich soil with mulch and fertilizer.
“Our society is structured in a way that demands instant gratification, but gardening is a patient activity in which steady working and waiting make results more deeply satisfying,” Samuelson said.
In all, students will travel to numerous countries around the globe this summer -- from Little Rock to Kansas to Australia to the Republic of Georgia.
Hendrix, founded in 1876, is a selective, residential, undergraduate liberal arts college emphasizing experiential learning in a demanding yet supportive environment. The college is among 165 colleges featured in the 2008 edition of the Princeton Review America’s Best Value Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.
