Hendrix Alumni Blogazine

From Baseball to Biology, Rwandans embrace American experience

By MARK SCOTT
Director of Media Relations 

Pierre Urisanga watched carefully as the student in front of him at the Hulen Cafeteria strategically put together a hamburger. The meat and cheese go inside the bun? And lettuce and tomatoes, too? Such a novel concept, he had to try one for himself, and with the first bite he became infatuated with the popular college cuisine.

A memorable first experience eating at Hendrix, it wasn’t long before he branched out and found his true fast-food love: The Big Mac. “That’s the best,” the Rwandan student responds when asked about his favorite American food.

Pierre’s first year at Hendrix was dotted with variety of firsts – his first baseball game, his first ice storm, his first trip to the beach – and a challenging course load that perhaps weighs more heavily on him than the typical Hendrix student. Pierre will use his degree to rebuild his country.

One of 20 students from Rwanda now attending Hendrix, Pierre is part of the Rwandan Presidential Scholars Program, a partnership that began in 2007 between Hendrix College and Rwandan President Paul Kagame as an effort to provide American college educations to future leaders of the central African country. An educated workforce, from doctors to engineers to research scientists, is needed in the central African country ravaged by a bloody genocide in 1994.

A Hendrix-led higher education consortium with Rwanda was the brainchild of David Knight ‘71, the chief legal council at Stephens Inc. and a member of the Hendrix College Board of Trustees. Knight worked with Hendrix President J. Timothy Cloyd to begin Hendrix’s relationship with Rwanda, and both men have been instrumental in recruiting new colleges to the consortium during the past two years.

Beginning at Hendrix College in 2007 with four Rwandan students, the program’s consortium grew in 2008 to include the University of Arkansas-Little Rock, Harding University in Searcy, Philander Smith College in Little Rock, Ouachita Baptist University in Arkadelphia and Wofford College (S.C.). This year, University of Arkansas-Fayetteville, Henderson State University in Arkadelphia, Lyon College in Batesville, Southwestern University (Texas), Birmingham Southern (Alabama) and Sewanee: The University of the South (Tennessee) joined the consortium.

In all, 81 students are now earning college degrees through the innovative program.

Rebuilding Rwanda

In addition to the loss of more than a million lives, one of the most devastating consequences of the genocide in Rwanda was the near-total destruction of the country’s government and private sector infrastructure.  Almost all of the senior government officials, educators and business leaders were killed or driven out of the country by the perpetrators of the genocide.  And while the Rwandan government has been successful in establishing a politically stable and secure environment over the last decade, the process of identifying, recruiting and training new leaders has proven to be an understandably slow and laborious process.  This program is a key response to this critical need, and its importance to the future development of the country is evidenced by the government’s major, long-term investment in this program.

The Rwandan government has initially chosen math, physics, chemistry and biology as the areas of primary focus for the program.  Pools of scholarship candidates are established based on national high school test scores, and representatives of the consortium colleges then travel to Rwanda each spring to interview prospective students. It’s an intriguing and thorough process, as students are selected based on their ability to succeed in such a rigorous educational pursuit.

Pierre and other Rwandan students were initially surprised by the breadth and depth of the liberal arts curriculum at Hendrix. In Rwanda, physics students only study physics; but here, students are exposed to electives and other educational requirements that expand their knowledge. Pierre chose to take a public speaking course during the college’s Maymester program, which he said enlightened him to a different communications dynamic. He put his newly-enhanced communications skills to quick work, interning in the college’s Office of Communications and Marketing and participating in feature interviews conducted by a National Public Radio affiliate and a Little Rock newspaper. He also volunteered to work with the college’s Alumni Office for the annual Hendrix Night at the Travelers event, which exposed him to his first professional baseball game. 

Campus Life

Peter Gess, Hendrix’s director of international programs and the facilitator of the Rwandan Presidential Scholars Program, knows what it’s like to be a stranger in a foreign country. As a Peace Corps volunteer just out of college, Gess flew to Poland for an assignment and initially stayed with a family that couldn’t speak English. Gess’s inability to speak Polish made communication quite interesting.

Through Gess’s leadership, the consortium has provided an intensive English summer program for the Rwandan students to help them enhance language skills and better prepare them for their classroom experiences. The program has allowed these students to “hit the ground running,” Gess said, which made for a much smoother transition to college life. This past summer, students also participated in the three-day Rwandan Presidential Scholars Program Academy, focusing on civic involvement and concluding with a tour and luncheon at the Clinton Presidential Library. Linda Poindexter Chesterfield ’69, the first African-American graduate of Hendrix, was the keynote speaker.

The Rwandans’ adaptation to the U.S. has been incredible, both socially and academically.  Given no preferential treatment in the classroom, the Rwandan students completed the spring semester with an average GPA of 3.67 – above the 3.49 average of non-Rwandan Hendrix students. Six of the 29 participants last year had perfect grades, and two were recognized with special academic awards during the college’s annual Honors Day festivities.  

The Rwandan students are also branching out socially. One student is working as a residential assistant in Hardin Hall, another does volunteer work at a local hospital. Pierre is active in a church youth group and was participated in an annual summer youth beach trip in Florida. The group as a whole organized a Genocide Remembrance Week on campus in the spring, including a candlelight vigil in the Hulen Sunporch and a documentary about the Rwandan genocide.

It would be easy to write the program off as a charitable effort to a developing country, but that wouldn’t be accurate.

“There is a service motivation to provide assistance to Rwanda, but we really think of this as a two-way bridge,” Gess said. “As we help them, they help us. They bring us their stories, views and examples of life in general to our campus, and that is a tremendous benefit to the diversity of Hendrix. It’s great to have students from California and Massachusetts, but it’s also great to have students from Rwanda and from around the world. They truly make life richer here at Hendrix.”

Space Shuttle crew thanks Thomason with Silver Snoopy

Arthur Thomason ’97 was presented a Silver Snoopy in October from Astronaut Robert Behnken and the STS-123 Crew that worked on the March 2008 Space Shuttle Mission. The award was given for his outstanding support of the U.S. space programs in his position as extra-vehicular activity — space walk — task manager for the crew.

Thomason is an engineer for Barrios at NASA Johnson Space Center in Houston. His job involves training and support for astronauts for space shuttle and space station missions.

Thomason was directly responsible for the development of all EVA procedures used during the first five EVA missions scheduled and executed at the International Space Station. He was critical in the re-planning associated with the addition of the mission's fifth EVA late in the training flow and the development of a plan to get the crew members trained for the tile repair simulation in time for its execution during the mission.

Thomason earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Hendrix College and a master's degree in mechanical engineering from Texas A&M before taking a position with Barrios and NASA in 2002.

Your Hendrix Odyssey:  Engaging in Active Learning 
4 years, 5,000 projects, more than $1 million in grants

By Helen Plotkin
Editor

The Class of 2009 has earned a spot in Hendrix history as the first class for which Odyssey participation was a graduation requirement.

Students who entered in fall 2005 knew they would be part of a new program focusing on engaged learning, but the details were a bit sketchy. Many of them had already chosen Hendrix for other reasons.

“I was pretty sold on the college, so the talk of Odyssey was only a bonus for me at the time,” Jordan Kennedy ’09 said. “I was intrigued, but I had no idea how much it would impact my time in college before I got there.”

For many 2009 graduates, Odyssey defined their Hendrix experience – and that’s no accident. In 2003 when Hendrix President J. Timothy Cloyd challenged the faculty to create what became the Hendrix Odyssey he asked that it “be universal (required of all) and defining of the Hendrix experience.”

Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning has clearly met both goals.

“The Odyssey program is as cool as you want to make it,” said Justin Warren ’09. “It’s like a very efficient machine: the amount of work and imagination that you put into it is directly proportional to the amount of cool that you get out of it.”

Mallory Bader ’09 agreed. “The first thing that I explain to people when I tell them where I went to college is the Odyssey program,” she said.

 So, what is Odyssey?

 “Odyssey grew from the active learning environment that has long been cultivated at Hendrix,” President Cloyd said. “It has become the unifying ethic for how we approach liberal arts and sciences education.”

Your Hendrix Odyssey requires that all students complete at least three experiential learning projects chosen from six categories: artistic creativity, global awareness, professional and leadership development, service to the world, undergraduate research and special projects. Hendrix graduates receive an Odyssey transcript in addition to their academic transcript.

Students and faculty are eligible to apply for grant funding to support their Odyssey projects. More than $1 million in funding as been awarded since Odyssey began in 2005. At the end of the 2008-09 academic year nearly 5,000 Odyssey credits had been recorded and 240 projects involving 604 students and 83 faculty had shared $1.18 million in grant funding.

Dr. Mark Schantz, the first Odyssey director (who left Hendrix at the end of the spring semester to become provost of Birmingham Southern University in Birmingham, Ala.), said the Odyssey Program has “succeeded wildly. The evidence of success is in the projects that faculty and students develop and the incredible creativity of the students.”

Dr. Nancy Fleming, the current Odyssey director, said the way Odyssey functions as an umbrella to draw many facets of the Hendrix experience together is unique.

“Odyssey draws on so many different kinds of experiences and recognizes the value of them,” Dr. Fleming said. “It pulls together the components of a well-rounded education. It speaks to our motto of ‘unto the whole person.’ ”

In a relatively short period of time, Odyssey has grown from an intriguing concept to an integral part of the Hendrix experience.

“Odyssey is not an add-on. It’s not an extra little something we’ve added to our curriculum. It’s who we are,” President Cloyd emphasized.

 How has Odyssey changed Hendrix?

The idea of Odyssey has done more than transform the lives of individual students. It has also refined the way Hendrix thinks about itself and its mission.

 “Odyssey has made Hendrix better at being Hendrix,” said Dr. Robert E. Entzminger, Provost and Dean of the College.

“We have always had students and faculty who are creative and who work well together outside the classroom,” Provost Entzminger said. “The funding and the program have made it possible for more of our faculty and students to realize their dreams.”

Several Hendrix administrators identified Odyssey as a primary reason for the recent expansion of international programs and dramatic growth in the number of Hendrix students traveling abroad.

 “Odyssey has been a catalyst behind our impressive growth in international study and service projects,” President Cloyd said.

Another benefit of the Hendrix Odyssey has been a significant impact on the College’s ability to recruit students from across the country.

“Odyssey has put us on the radar screen in a way we really hadn’t been before,” Provost Entzminger said. “Without Odyssey we would not have as many students from as many places.”

Although he believed the Odyssey concept would be well received, Dr. Entzminger said he and others were surprised by the level of success.

“There is no way we could have seen that we would grow 40 percent in four years, that we’d be able to recruit as far as we have, or that our national visibility would be where it is now,” he said.

For example, Hendrix was recently listed in as the nation’s top “up-and-coming” liberal arts college by U.S. News & World Report. Innovation and a constant push to improve were the key criteria for inclusion on the list.

 So what is next for Your Hendrix Odyssey?

Hendrix is now widely seen as a model for engaged liberal arts and sciences education. As other institutions work to copy the College’s success, Hendrix must keep improving Odyssey  to maintain its leadership position. President Cloyd has responded by once again asking Hendrix faculty members to be creative and bold in their thinking as they develop Odyssey 2.0. The faculty has responded with an array of proposals with the potential to enrich the Odyssey concept as they are developed and unveiled.

Dr. Entzminger sums up the goal for Odyssey’s future: “We are looking to make it even more robust and more integral to the whole educational experience.”

 UNDERGRADUATE RESEARCH

Luke Erickson – Chesterfield, Mo.

Chemical Physics

 One of Luke Erickson’s Odyssey projects set him on his career path; another revealed his passion. Both might help him stave off climate change.

 As a chemical physics major, Erickson participated in undergraduate research with Dr. David Hales, professor of chemistry. The two explored the use of sulfur compounds as a short-term means of slowing global warming, testing the hypothesis of Nobel Prize-winning atmospheric chemist Paul Crutzen.

 Erickson said the research gave him important lab experience, which will be useful to him this fall when he begins graduate studies in mechanical engineering at the University of Colorado. Erickson hopes to do his Ph.D. research at the National Renewable Energy Lab. He sees research as his career path, if not his calling.

 “While I’ll pay the bills for awhile doing renewable energy research, I’m confident that the best way to mitigate the twin challenges that will define my generation – climate change and peak oil – is by growing our own food and supporting small, local agriculture,” he said.

 During his sophomore year, after volunteering at a community garden for a summer, Erickson decided to start a Hendrix community garden.

 “I loved the garden on every level,” he said. “Of my experiences at Hendrix, I am most proud of starting the community garden and watching it grow. It was extremely important to me to be able to eat some totally local food in an age when most of our food has traveled 1,500 miles to get to our plates, and in classes I was studying the terrible climatological effects of that system.”

SPECIAL PROJECTS

Mallory Bader – Memphis, Tenn.

Environmental Studies, Sociology/Anthropology

 For 12 days, Mallory Bader ran around England with some of the country’s best and wackiest cross country runners. As a longtime runner, Bader had a deep interest in exploring the country where cross country running originated as a sport. And as a sociology/anthropology major, she appreciated the unique culture of each running club she accompanied.

 “The trip allowed me to pursue an interest that could not have been explored within the classroom setting, as well as practice my cultural anthropological skills of interviewing and participant observation,” she said.

 Bader ran with three different Hash Harriers clubs in London. Portrayed as “a drinking club with a running problem,” the Hash Harriers appeal to a young crowd by starting and ending their group runs at a pub or bar. Bader also observed the annual relay race of the Thames Hares and Hounds, the oldest cross country running club in the world.

 While abroad, Bader carried a small notebook to jot down her observations and record interviews. She drew strongly on the skills she learned in her Ethnographic Methods class, but the trip was more than an academic exercise for her.

 “I’ll remember the trip forever in the sense that, being a competitive runner for so long, I was kind of burned out on it,” she said. “But then I saw 60- and 70-year-olds running with the Hash Harriers, just running because they enjoy it. It was nice to see that running can still be fun and it’s something that people can do for their entire lives.”

ARTISTIC CREATIVITY

Justin Warren – Little Rock

Theatre Arts

 Billed as “the play Shakespeare would write if he were from Arkansas,” Burn Out Macbeth: A Southern Gothic Tale was actually written by seven Hendrix students and their theatre arts professor, Ann Muse. They wrote and produced the play in three weeks and performed it on a seven-by-seven foot stage – in Scotland, at the world-famous Edinburgh Fringe Festival.

 “For the first time, I was involved with the theatrical process from the very beginning,” said Justin Warren ’09. “This experience was unique in that our professors came in with merely an idea, and really gave us the freedom to take it in the direction that felt right to us.”

 The group ended up with a hillbilly version of the classic Macbeth: a bloody comedy set in the Ozark Mountains. After weeks of eight-hour practices, they packed up their costumes and props and flew to Edinburgh. That year the Fringe Festival, the world’s largest arts festival, attracted nearly 20,000 performers in 2,088 shows from 46 countries.

 Despite the tough competition, the Hendrix actors attracted a sizeable audience. The average attendance for a Fringe performance is seven people, but Burn Out Macbeth routinely received five times as many attendees. On the final night, they performed to a sold-out audience.

 “This project taught me how to be a performer on a grass-roots level, which strips away all of the glamour of being an actor in a traditional theatre with lights, a huge stage, and stage crews for assistance,” he said. “It ultimately made us much greater performers.”

 PROFESSIONAL AND LEADERSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Alex Graddy-Reed - Los Angeles, Calif.

Comparative Public Policy

 As chair of Campus Kitty, Alex Graddy-Reed helped the organization celebrate its 60^th birthday in style, by raising more than $62,000 for local charities. It was an astronomical achievement for the Hendrix organization, which sponsors a week of fundraising events each spring. The 2008 total, which itself had been a record-breaker for the club, was $42,025.

 “There’s no doubt this was the best thing I did at Hendrix,” Graddy-Reed said. “It was an amazing time when I was constantly busy planning and executing events all while staying focused on why we were trying to raise all this money.”

 By her senior year, Graddy-Reed was already an experienced fundraiser. She had spent the previous summer as an intern with the advancement office of the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, planning events and working with high-level donors.

 Both the internship and the Campus Kitty chairmanship gave Graddy-Reed valuable job skills, and she earned a Professional and Leadership Development credit for each experience. The experiences also led to a career path: she plans to work in fundraising for several years, and then attend graduate school.

 “Both opportunities prepared me for this career and gave me a set of skills that most people don’t gain until entering the work force,” she said. “The Odyssey program gave me the opportunity to explore development work in different settings, which cemented my desire to work in the field after graduation.”

GLOBAL AWARENESS

Joe Muller – St. Louis, Mo.

International Relations

 Joe Muller’s path to law school passed through three continents. In 2007, Muller leapt at the opportunity to travel to Rwanda with a group of Hendrix students, faculty and administrators. The following year, he and Mary Flanigan ’09 received Odyssey funding for a service trip to Guatemala. This fall, he begins work on his law degree at George Washington University in Washington, D.C.

 “My Odyssey proposals helped prepare me for the law school application process,” Muller said. “My experiences abroad have encouraged my interest in law in general, and international law in particular.”

 In Rwanda, Muller met with government officials like Rwandan President Paul Kagame. He and the other Hendrix students were able to ask questions about policy issues and governing in Rwanda. They also toured health clinics and microfinance projects, and stopped to see a Gacaca Court in action.

 “The Gacaca Courts are one of the remedies that Rwandans have developed to deal with overflowing prisons from the 1994 genocide,” he said. “The courts are many people’s only judicial remedy for crimes committed during the Genocide, and as foreigners we were really fortunate to see how they actually worked.”

 Muller also confronted injustice in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, where he volunteered at a shelter for women and children. He was awed by the resilience and tenacity of the children there.

 “I think my Odyssey trips have been an integral part of my experience at Hendrix,” he said. “My Odyssey experiences have been some of the most defining and memorable experiences that I’ve had in my undergraduate career.”

SERVICE TO THE WORLD

Jordan Kennedy – Bogalusa, La.

Studio Art, Art History minor

 Jordan Kennedy spent the spring break of her junior year on an island in the Bahamas, but not at a resort. She and other Hendrix students on a Hendrix-Lilly mission trip worked side-by-side with residents to repair homes destroyed by a hurricane. While re-shingling rooftops and mixing cement, she realigned her priorities in life.

 “The experience secured within me my desire to spend my life in service to others,” Kennedy said. “I believe you can’t fully get a grasp of who you are until you are granted the opportunity to completely abandon yourself and fully serve another individual.”

 Kennedy was granted two such opportunities during her time at Hendrix, thanks to the Hendrix-Lilly program (now called the Hendrix-Miller Center). A few months after her trip to the Bahamas, Kennedy received a Lilly Service Fellowship to travel to Ghana for seven weeks. She spent six weeks as a civil servant in the small village of Etordome, where she assisted with community development and taught at a secondary school.

 During her free time she organized a formal photo shoot for the community, particularly the schoolchildren, who had never seen photographs of themselves. An Odyssey grant funded the production of her senior art show, an on-campus exhibition of the photographs she took in Ghana.

 “I am particularly passionate about telling the stories of those who would otherwise not be heard,” Kennedy said. “It is my hope that my camera can be the microphone through which than can have freedom and comfort to speak.”

Jamie Fotioo, Admission Counselor and Enrollment Communications Manager, coordinated the interviews and Katie Rice ’10, student writer, drafted the text for this story.

Inspiration in Iowa
Trip to caucuses motivates Hendrix’s politics expert

By MARK SCOTT
Director of Media Relations

On the night of Iowa’s Democratic presidential caucuses, Hendrix College professor Jay Barth personally witnessed the intriguing electoral procedure at a small precinct called “Des Moines 9.” As delegates were being counted, the final holdout that night was an   older African-American woman who initially supported Christopher Dodd but found herself undecided during a subsequent round of balloting. 

The room was separated with Clinton supporters in one area, Obama supporters in another and Edwards supporters in another. As she stood up to walk to where she would caucus, the 60 Obama supporters started chanting, “O-bam-a! O-bam-a!” They all clapped excitedly as she joined them – and ultimately thousands of others who awarded the state to the future president.

“In some ways, this little precinct summed it all up: the enthusiastic support for Obama from a Bobby Kennedyesque coalition of voters, the homogeneity and passivity of the Clinton supporters, and the interest in the process of rank-and-file voters that led 236,000 of them to turn out,” Barth wrote at that time on the Arkansas Times blog where he posted regularly throughout his time in Iowa.

In Iowa a year ago Barth witnessed the emergence of thousands of “new” voters – people who had never voted before but were motivated by Obama to do so. It was also in Iowa that Barth was introduced to the future president and his connection with voters, an observation that only grew stronger for him throughout the historic presidential election.

“It was one of the most rewarding things I’ve ever done,” Barth said of his Iowa experience, lofty words for a man whose political experiences are vast. “There was a deep understanding or desire for change in the electorate there. Barack Obama had emphatic support that was very visible in Iowa. I came away from there seeing his strength as a candidate and the amazing connection he had with the voters there.”

Barth acknowledges that Obama won his vote there in Iowa. He remained officially neutral, however, due to his leadership position on the Pulaski County Democratic Committee.

For Barth, the M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Distinguished Professor of Politics at Hendrix, such neutrality comes easily, however. While political scientists can fall into one of two extremes, he explains – either detaching from real politics and losing insight or completely engaging in partisan politics and losing objectivity – Barth has chosen a spot in between as his teaching philosophy. Despite his activity in the Democratic Party, many of his students – past and present – come out of his classroom without a hint of his partisanship. That is not accidental.

“There’s a time to be an activist and express your beliefs, and there’s a time to be more analytical,” Barth said. “I’m hesitant to ask students to get involved in something I’m involved in. I’m there to help provide opportunities to students rather than to be a cheerleader.”

It’s his role as the college’s Director of Civic Engagement Projects where his support of student opportunity regularly comes out. Students seeking opportunities and internships in public service can utilize his political expertise and have done so, participating in various political internships and activities throughout the country.

“There are all sorts of ways to be engaged, and I like to show students that public service can be a noble and honorable profession,” Barth said. “I certainly try to create as many opportunities as possible for students to find their calling in public service. That’s my primary responsibility – as a resource.”

A four-time recipient of Hendrix’s student-selected Faculty Appreciation Award and a noted expert in southern politics, Barth has an educational career beyond the classroom that combines a wide-ranging research agenda, an ongoing role as a public analyst on the politics of Arkansas and the South, and an active involvement in several advocacy groups. At Hendrix, Barth has taught nearly two dozen classroom courses ranging from American Political Thought to Gender, Sexuality, and American Politics to a two-course American Constitutional Law sequence. His courses increasingly link more traditional classroom content to pertinent real-world political practice.

Barth attended Hendrix College, graduating magna cum laude in 1987 with a bachelor’s degree in American Studies. He received a master’s degree in 1989 and a doctorate degree in 1994 in political science from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The focus of his graduate work was on the changing politics of the South. His post-graduate school training has included an NEH Summer Institute at Harvard University on “Teaching the Southern Civil Rights Movement” and The Ohio State University’s Summer Institute in Political Psychology. For 2000-01, Barth received the Steiger Congressional Fellowship from the American Political Science Foundation and served on the staff of the late U.S. Sen. Paul Wellstone of Minnesota, working on education and civil rights policy.

The media seek him out as a political expert – he has been quoted in dozens of newspapers throughout the U.S. both before and after the election. Even locally, more than 200 Hendrix alumni turned out to hear his opinion in Little Rock and quiz him about election issues days before the November election.

Barth’s love for politics was developed well before he stepped foot on Hendrix’s campus as an undergraduate. His grandparents, heavily active in Democratic Party politics in Saline County, took him to various campaign events when he was a child. He grew up in Arkansas during the political primes of Clinton, Pryor and Bumpers, admiring their ideals of public service.

He entered Hendrix in 1983, finding a much different political atmosphere from today’s left-leaning student body. His college days were smack dab in the middle of the Reagan Era, and he recalls that the student mock vote on campus went heavily for Reagan in the 1984 election. He and his fellow Mondale Young Democrats were clearly outnumbered, he said.

In November 2008, Obama won Hendrix’s on-campus voting precinct with 83 percent of the vote. But more than the margin, it was the energy on campus that most impressed Barth. Hendrix College was not immune to the passionate political firestorm from new and young voters, he noted. More than 600 people turned out to the college’s election-night watch party, and on-campus pre-election forums were standing-room-only in The Burrow.

“I think 2008 should be celebrated as the revitalization of democracy because people genuinely supported the person who they felt closest to,” Barth said. “I’ve never seen students as engaged as they were in this election. You always have the Young Democrat-types involved, but this went much further. The type of student who normally doesn’t feel a calling to get involved in the political process really did this year. ”

Hendrix attracts largest incoming class in its history
Enrollment climbs above 1,300

By JAMIE FOTIOO
Enrollment Communications Manager

Hendrix College was full of energy and excitement as it welcomed a record-breaking 447 new students to its campus this August.

“You are making history today, as you are the largest class to enroll at Hendrix in the history of the College,” Karen Foust, vice president for enrollment, said during the opening convocation for new students on Aug. 19. “The Hendrix community is excited to welcome you to this wonderful place that you will call home for the next four years.”

The class of 2012, consisting of 433 first-year students and 14 transfer students, also represents one of the most geographically diverse classes to join the Hendrix community. Making the relatively short drive to Conway on Move-In Day were 178 Arkansas students. The rest of their new classmates traveled farther distances from 32 different states—from Maine to Washington—and eight countries, including Bangladesh, China, Kenya, Mexico, Nepal, Rwanda, Uzbekistan and Vietnam. In all, 60 percent of Hendrix’s new students arrived from places other than Arkansas.

Hendrix’s newest class brought with it an outstanding academic profile. More than 75 percent of new students scored 26 or higher on the ACT, with more than a third scoring 30 or higher. In addition to Hendrix, members of the new class were accepted to other nationally ranked institutions such as Carleton College in Northfield, Minn.; Dartmouth College in Hanover, N.H.; Grinnell College in Grinnell, Iowa; Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif.; and Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn.

When choosing among colleges and universities each with an equally impressive list of academic and post-graduate statistics, many students selected Hendrix based on factors unique to the College.

“I spent a lot of time debating between Swarthmore College [in Swarthmore, Pa.], Johns Hopkins University [in Baltimore], University of Chicago and Millsaps College [in Jackson, Miss.], each a renowned institution and full of qualified students and teachers,” said Sarah Thompson, a freshman from Picayune, Miss. “In the end, I found a spirit and honest excitement on the Hendrix campus that couldn’t be encapsulated by ACT/SAT scores or graduate-school acceptance rates. Teachers and students were sincerely friendly, the opportunities available through the Odyssey program floored me, and the financial aid was phenomenal.”

In high school, Thompson founded Girls Excelling in Mathematics and Science (G.E.M.S.), a program that engages fifth- and sixth-grade girls in monthly experiments that aim to prevent the erosion of interest in mathematics and science that girls often experience during this transitional period in their lives. Currently trying to organize a G.E.M.S. chapter in Conway, she ultimately hopes to secure Odyssey funding to help establish chapters throughout Arkansas and her home state of Mississippi.

Expanding G.E.M.S. is only one of numerous projects Thompson plans to complete during her Hendrix Odyssey. A pre-med student who’s interested in studying chemical physics and bioethics, she also aspires to study abroad at the Regenerative Medicine Institute and the Centre of Bioethical Research and Analysis at the National University of Ireland in Galway.

“It is rare to find a college that not only encourages participation, but provides enormous financial support for these kinds of [Odyssey] experiences,” Thompson said. “And the opportunities available aren’t simply limited to a handful of prescribed programs—any passion can be explored and expanded.”

Freshman Adam Stewart of San Diego, Calif., was also impressed by Hendrix’s Odyssey program.

“The Odyssey program was one of the biggest factors that led me to choose Hendrix,” he said. “It provides so many opportunities for cultural immersion and academic growth, and Hendrix makes it unbelievably easy to participate in these opportunities.”

Interested in African aid and awareness activities, Stewart led the Invisible Children club at his high school. Invisible Children is a San Diego-based non-profit organization with the mission to improve the quality of life for the war-affected children of Uganda by providing access to quality education, enhanced learning environments, and innovative economic opportunities for the African community.

Stewart, who plans to create his own African Development major, intends to further pursue his passions through the Odyssey program. He hopes to study abroad at the University of Ghana, conducting in-field research on rural development, and is currently working on obtaining a summer internship at Justice Africa in London. A talented double bass player, Stewart is also already an active member of the Hendrix Chamber Orchestra and Hendrix Quartet.

“It amazes me that I have the ability to design my own major, study abroad in Africa, travel with the Hendrix Orchestra, and conduct my own research, all at the undergraduate level,” he said. “I cannot imagine doing all of this at any other college.”

The class of 2012 joins three returning classes to create the largest enrollment in the College’s history, with 1,342 undergraduate students enrolled.