Stop the painful craving for food

We all get spam messages. My favorite spam is the one I regularly receive from someone trying to sell me cheap Viagra pills (do they know something I don’t?). These messages usually end up in the trash, but the other day I received a spam message at work that set me to thinking.

The subject of the message read: "Stop the painful craving for food." As a natural reflex I was just about to hit the delete button but since I’m living in Africa and working for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP), the largest provider of food aid to the world’s hungriest people, I thought it might be worth a read.

At first I thought it might be some clever new anti-hunger slogan from one of our very creative public relations folk. Turns out, it’s about some miracle pill that helps people shed unwanted pounds.

Sign me up! I kind of like the idea of a magic pill that makes all those nasty little cravings for things like processed Velveeta cheese and pork rinds go away. Just before dialing in my pill order, it occurred to me that the state of the world’s food situation has become extreme.

On one end, obesity, which is caused by overeating, is dramatically increasing. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 1.5 billion adults and 43 million children under 5 are overweight. By 2015, the number is expected to increase to 2.3 billion posing serious health and economic implications.

On the other end of the spectrum, are the almost 1 billion people who do not have enough to eat. Most of these 1 billion "food insecure" people live in developing countries. They are hungry and it’s the kind of "hungry" that stunts a child’s growth because their bodies lack nutrients needed for proper development.

With these extremes, and the expected population growth from 7 to 9 billion people in the next 40 years, we need to get smart about food production and food access, and take a critical look at the entire global food supply system. We need a frank discussion about not only the kinds of food we eat and how to expand access to the right kinds of food, but also how to create a sustainable food supply to meet rising demand for future generations, who stand to inherit a much hungrier planet.

Recently, some big names in the agriculture and food production industries came together at the World Economic Forum to launch a new vision for global agriculture. The roadmap titled "Realizing a New Vision for Agriculture: A roadmap for stakeholders" challenges the reader to think about food as our collective responsibility. It’s worth a read. The document asks the reader to think of what we can do to ensure a safe, nutritious, abundant, accessible and sustainable food supply for the coming generations. It doesn’t offer a magic pill to stop our craving for food; it calls us to have an honest global dialogue about everyone’s right to this most basic human need and how best to create a sustainable food supply. With global food prices on the rise again, this roadmap has come just at the right time.

Jonathan Rhodes ’98 has worked for WFP for five years, first in its Rome, Italy, headquarters and now in Sudan, Africa, where WFP fed 9 million people in 2010 alone. Prior to joining WFP, he served on U.S. Senator Blanche Lincoln’s Washington staff for more than seven years, including as her aide for hunger issues. Jonathan is from Cherokee Village, Ark.

For more information about WFP or the "Realizing A New Vision for Agriculture"
report go to: www.wfp.org or
www.weforum.org/agriculture

By Charles Chappell ’64,
Professor Emeritus of English

Jean-Paul Sartre would not eat crabs and lobsters because they reminded him of insects.

Galileo Galilei engaged in an egg fight with a Jesuit priest.

Flannery O’Connor received a letter from a reader who complained that one of O’Connor’s books "left a bad taste in my mouth." O’Connor’s reply: "You weren’t supposed to eat it."

Georgia O’Keefe read cookbooks in bed at night before she went to sleep.

Maria Callas, in preparation for an operatic role, lost weight by ingesting a tapeworm.

Henry Ford regularly ate a lunch featuring weed sandwiches.

Former and current Hendrix students of philosophy, physics, literature, art, music, and business will find these morsels of unusual information featured in the 2010 book What the Great Ate, written by alumnus Mark Jacob ’76, and his brother Matthew Jacob. Readers devoted to all of the other traditional liberal arts disciplines, as well as people who maintain a keen interest in popular culture or in the art and science of cuisine, will encounter in this delightful volume a treasure trove of facts concerning the food choices and dining habits of hundreds of famous or infamous men and women representing many diverse cultures and different eras.

On May 21, 2011, Mark Jacob will lead a discussion of this book at the annual Alumni Odyssey College to be held on campus.

Recently, Mark cheerfully agreed to answers questions concerning his career as a journalist and author and about the evolution of What the Great Ate.

Q. After your graduation from Hendrix in 1976 as an English major, did you directly enter the field of journalism? Please summarize your occupational history during the past 35 years.

A. After Hendrix, I had two job offers: Become a sportswriter at the Pine Bluff Commercial newspaper or manage a Taco Bell in Little Rock. The Taco Bell job paid $10 a week more, but I opted for the newspaper job. After a year, I moved to Boulder, Colo., where I washed dishes and processed magazine subscription letters for a year. Then back to Arkansas, where I was a copy editor for the Arkansas Democrat for six months and the Arkansas Gazette for five years. Then I moved to Chicago to work at the Chicago Sun-Times as a copy editor. I eventually was promoted to executive news editor and then Sunday editor. After 14 years at the Sun-Times, I jumped to the Chicago Tribune as a news editor. I was promoted to foreign/national news editor and then to deputy metro editor, the position I now hold.

Q. By what process and over how long a period of time did you and Matthew decide to undertake the project that resulted in the publication of What the Great Ate?

A. I had already co-authored three books when I persuaded my younger brother Matthew to collaborate on a book that would be his first. We spent at least six months brainstorming dozens of ideas before we settled on gathering stories about the dining habits of history’s most famous people. Matt and I both like history, and he’s a foodie. So it made sense. I was trying to get a literary agent to help me sell a novel I’d written, and the agent asked if I had any non-fiction projects. I told him about our idea and that I had come up with the title "What the Great Ate." He said he wanted to represent us. I had already been collecting historical trivia for many years (I co-write a history feature for the Chicago Tribune called "10 Things You Might Not Know"), so that gave us a start. Then Matt and I spent about two years or so working on the book.

Q. At the end of the book you include a "Selected Bibliography" that covers 19 pages. What methods of research did you and Matthew employ to be able to conduct this massive gathering of facts?

A. We are speed-readers. We drafted a list of hundreds of "greats" and then checked out books about them and searched for articles online. One weekend, I speed-read about 2,000 pages from four different histories of Richard Wagner. He was a detestable guy, and I’m not just saying that because he consumed my weekend. Here’s another trick: We would go to Google Books on the web and type in search terms such as "Eisenhower" and "breakfast," or "Amelia Earhart" and "meat." Sounds time-consuming, and it was, but we found fun stories that way. We also read many, many histories of food. One of my favorites was a history of bread. Did you know that the Eucharist that Catholics take at mass used to be the size and shape of a wreath and feed an entire congregation? Another important aspect of the research was debunking stories that were too good to be true. For example, we got a nutritionist to help us disprove the story that Elvis Presley’s daily calorie intake was equivalent to that of an Asian elephant. Elvis ate a lot, but not that much.

Q. You organize the book into chapters based on the principle of the professional endeavors or life statuses of groups of individuals: Rulers; Writers; Prophets and Philosophers; nine more chapters. How did you decide upon this structure and upon the sequence, with (in this era of obsession with celebrities) stage and screen stars coming sixth and musicians ninth?

A. We tried to find categories that would cover most of humanity and were of interest to readers. We probably could have organized it in any of a dozen ways, but this way seemed to work. The book is intended to be both amusing and informative, so we knew we had to include movie stars and musicians. But we didn’t want the book to seem too frivolous, so we put the chapters about world leaders and religious figures at the front.

Q. Did you and Matthew consider devoting an entire chapter to Elvis?

A. We certainly had enough material to do that, but it would have broken the format. Besides, we wanted to touch on as many "greats" as possible. There’s an excellent book devoted to Elvis’ diet – The Life and Cuisine of Elvis Presley by David Adler. That book was helpful to us. But in general, we found our anecdotes about famous people by sifting through long biographies in order to sift out the one funny story that might be on Page 342. And believe me, food anecdotes are not flagged in any indexes. You simply have to read the whole book. Food must have been unimportant to the architect Le Corbusier, because I didn’t find a single food story in his entire biography. It’s a wonder he didn’t starve to death.

Q. Please talk about the website and the blog that you and your brother have created in connection with your book.

A. We created whatthegreatate.org to promote the book, and we continue to post interesting facts several days per week. Since the book came out last summer, we have encountered a lot of new food facts. For example, Tina Fey said that "the recurring dream of my childhood is to be in a room up to my neck in McDonald’s French fries and I’ve got to eat my way out." She said that after we had finished our book. Maybe we’ll put that story in a sequel someday.

Q. Please describe the three books that you have published before this one.

A. The Game That Was: The George Brace Baseball Photo Collection (Contemporary Books, 1996), co-authored with Richard Cahan. This collection of black-and-white photos, the vast majority never before published, was praised by the New York Times Book Review.

Wrigley Field: A Celebration of the Friendly Confines (Contemporary Books, 2002), co-authored with Stephen Green. Photos by Green, the Cubs’ official photographer, were combined with my text. I got terrific access to the ballpark, including spending a game inside the scoreboard with the guys who manually change the scores. I also got to interview Ernie Banks and ghost-write his foreword.

Chicago Under Glass: Early Photographs from the Chicago Daily News (University of Chicago Press, 2007). co-authored with Richard Cahan, sponsored by the Chicago History Museum. This was an examination of the glass-plate negatives produced by the Daily News from 1900 to 1930, with captions that provided historical insight into that era.

I also write fiction. An unfulfilled goal is to get a novel published, but my short stories have appeared in the literary magazines Other Voices, Pikestaff Forum, Samsara and Minnesota Review. My non-fiction articles have been published in Library Quarterly, Chicago magazine and Chicago History magazine.

Q. Heartiest congratulations on your winning of the Pulitzer Prize. As you may know, two other alumni – Mary Ann
Gwinn ’73 and Doug Blackmon ’86 – join you in having won this highly prestigious award. Please summarize the work that you did resulting in this honor.

A. I was part of a team of journalists who won the 2001 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory journalism. But it was a staff award, with dozens of Tribune employees involved and no one cited by name. Frankly, there were others on the staff that did much more than I did. It was an excellent series. Called "Gateway to Gridlock," it explained why O’Hare Airport is such a disaster for travelers. We revealed chronic overbooking that guarantees that planes are late, plus preferential treatment for some passengers at the expense of others.

Q. What are your most vivid memories of your experiences working as a member of The Profile staff?

A. When I was a freshman and worked on The Profile, the editor was Larry Jegley ’74, who is now the prosecuting attorney for central Arkansas. We would go down to the Log Cabin Democrat every two weeks, where our news stories had been set into print and were waiting for us. We’d use X-acto knives to slice the copy into strips and put melted wax on the back. Finally we would "paste up" the newspaper pages by hand. The process was barbaric—just a little more sophisticated than chipping words into rocks.

The next year I was co-editor with Junius Cross ’75. We went hunting for controversy, which is what newspapers are supposed to do. In an interview with the chief officials of the Hendrix administration, we learned that these leaders believed our students to be satisfied with the strict dormitory visitation policy then in effect. When we published the interview, the resulting uproar led to a reform of the policy. We also caused trouble when Congressman Wilbur Mills got into a scandal in Washington with a stripper named Fannie Fox, also known as the Argentine Firecracker. The new social science center on campus had just been named for Mills, and we demanded a name change. I know now that we were wrong about that stance. Mills was actually a responsible lawmaker with a temporary drinking problem, and later he reformed himself nobly. It’s easy for 19-year-olds to be overly judgmental.

Q. Do you have any particular recollections relating to food while you were attending Hendrix?

A. I ate at Hulen Hall, since my parents paid for it and I was quite poor in college. I liked the food quite a lot. I recall mixing red Jell-O and vanilla ice cream for dessert every night. (I think of the Hendrix cafeteria whenever I tell the story of Maya Lin, the designer of the Vietnam War memorial on the mall in Washington. Lin was a student at Yale when she created the winning design, and her brainstorm occurred in the school cafeteria. She created the original model out of mashed potatoes. And then she ate her design.)

I lived in Couch Hall and Martin Hall, where we ordered pizza deliveries a lot (my roommate got a monthly Social Security check, and spent it on pizza for himself and his friends). We drank Tang during the day and Pabst Blue Ribbon at night.

In the student union, we used to order "grichburgers," which were cheeseburgers cooked like grilled-cheese sandwiches.

Late at night, we would go to an all-night diner down the road. I’m not sure what it was really called, but we always referred to it as the Glittering Jesus Truck Stop, or GJ’s, because there were religious icons inside. We were served by an old waitress we called the skull lady.

Mark Jacobs will discuss What the Great Ate at Alumni Odyssey College May 21-22.
www.hendrix.edu/odysseycollege

By Werner Trieschmann ’86

The restaurant industry never sits still.

There are always new movements, new ways to make a plate into an adventure and turn a night out into an evening of surprise and delight.

Not surprisingly, Hendrix alumni are at the forefront of satisfying Arkansas’ ever-changing appetite, giving customers a singular dining experience, whether that be pizza from an Italian built wood-fired oven, authentic French crepes from a mobile truck or a smorgasboard of local food grown within miles of the table where it is served.

John Beechboard ’01 majored in history but was lured away during his last year with classes in the business department.

"It kind of piqued my interest," says Beechboard. "The rest of my senior year I took all business and finance courses."

While Beechboard, a co-owner of ZAZA Fine Salad and Wood Oven Pizza Co. with Scott McGehee, enjoyed cooking back in his Hendrix days, he says, "I never thought it would be my profession."

But business was on his mind, even in high school, where he started his own record label. After college, he worked for a time for McGehee at his Boulevard Bread Company in Little Rock’s Heights neighborhood.

"I just started out in front retail," says Beechboard. "Then I started cooking and became a sous chef. The way that it all started was that Scott and I both like to sit around and come up with restaurant concepts that would never see the light of day. These were outlandish ideas. ZAZA was one of those concepts."

Outlandish idea or not, ZAZA has been nothing short of a hit in Little Rock. Raves came almost immediately in the form of long lines. While the frenzy has died down a bit, ZAZA is consistently earning first-place accolades in readers’ polls taken in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Arkansas Times.

Beechboard admits that at the start he and McGehee were passionate about different aspects of ZAZA’s yet-to-be formulated menu.

"We almost didn’t do it," Beechboard says of his restaurant. "He thought I was insane for wanting to do salads the way we do them. I thought making gelato from scratch was too laborious. It was just one of those things. I had to take him to New York to this one salad place I liked. He took me to a place in Brooklyn that made gelato. Everything started making sense."

Today Beechboard is overseeing the ZAZA that opened in the Hendrix Village in October. He is quite high on the location and is especially proud of the wood-burning pizza oven in the Conway restaurant.

"One of the things that the Little Rock restaurant can’t touch is that we have this absolutely incredible oven over here," says Beechboard. "It was shipped over from Italy piece by piece. It is amazing."

Beechboard likes the fact that his restaurant doesn’t just attract one type of customer. He noticed this on a recent night after coming back from a catering event.

"There were different age groups all over the place. This was nine at night. You had thirtysomethings. There were grandparents with kids and college students. I just looked around and there were all these elements that had come together. Wow, this is really awesome."

Jack Sundell ’00 won’t likely open his Little Rock restaurant, The Root Cafe, until May but a website (www.therootcafe.com) is up and running and anticipation is building.

The Root Cafe, which is taking over an old burger and ice cream place on Main Street, aims, as the website notes, "to build community through local food."

The website also touts a quote from Michael Pollan’s In Defense of Food.

"Food consists not just in piles of chemicals; it also comprises a set of social and ecological relationships, reaching back to the land and outward to other people."

Sundell graduated from Hendrix in 2000 and majored in International Relations and Global Studies. He worked for while in a restaurant in New York City before eventually joining the Peace Corps. It was while he was with the Peace Corps in Morocco that he started to see food in a different way.

"It was where I got interested in food systems and animals," says Sundell. "It seemed like the people doing this kind of work were doing something productive. There in Morocco having a cow and chickens in the backyard was a normal part of life."

When Sundell came back to Arkansas, he went to work for Heifer International and had an internship in livestock. He made connections with area farmers during his internship. Those connections have come in handy as he and his wife Corri prepare for opening day at the restaurant.

"I had always had this idea that I would like to someday own a cafe," says Sundell. "I guess a lot of people have this idea. Just by happenstance the local food movement had become a big thing around the country and it was something I wanted to participate in."

Root Cafe will have fans at the ready because Sundell and his wife have spent the last two years as caterers and holding workshops on canning and other food-related topics. Sundell says the part about opening a restaurant that he had not anticipated was the depth of government regulations.

"We met with the health department and had inspections from the city," says Sundell. "I had to meet with the fire marshall the other day."

But the Root Cafe is slowly coming into view. Sundell notes that those interested can keep current thanks to the blog on Root Cafe’s website.

"We’ll have breakfast and lunch," says Sundell. "We are striving to have all our meat from local suppliers. When you come, you’ll have an experience unlike anywhere else. We want the food to be delicious and want you to be totally satisfied whether you care about local food or not."

For Sundell, his restaurant and the local food movement are small parts of a larger idea.

"Food is a good entry point in a conversation about local as a lifestyle. The dollars stay in Arkansas and increase the tax revenues we have here and make the place better."

In her post-Hendrix life Paula Jo Chitty Henry ’88 has worked as an actress in Key West and in France, where she filmed a scene in a cab with Omar Sharif.

But today she can be seen working cast iron skillets while making French crepes for Crepes Paulette, the mobile trailer restaurant that’s currently parked in downtown Bentontville.

Crepes Paulette is a partnership Henry shares with her husband, Frederic, who is a native of Brittney, France. The couple wanted to open a sit-down restaurant but went another direction when they looked at the numbers.

"We worked a couple years trying to get a brick and mortar place," says Henry. "We didn’t feel like taking on that much debt. This is a way to step back from that and see if it works."

Crepes Paulette, which opened alongside the Bentonville Farmers’ Market, has been a draw from the first day. Henry says that it wasn’t necessarily part of the plan that she do the cooking.

"We didn’t have any idea what we were doing," says Henry with a laugh. "I had made 10 crepes in my life. Fred started taking the orders and he would take all comers. We had people waiting for an hour for their crepes. Now we only take five orders at a time."

They are still working out issues with what hours they are going to be open — the winter weather has played havoc with Crepes Paulette’s schedule — but they try to serve crepes at least two days a week. Henry is trying to keep fans notified by e-mail and through Facebook.

Crepes Paulette serves authentic French sweet and savory crepes filled with various fruits and meats. For the winter, French soup was added to the menu.

"We don’t do any plate service," says Henry. "We have tables near the trailer."

Henry’s restaurant fits right in with a growing downtown Bentonville that will get an even bigger boost when the highly-anticipated Crystal Bridges Museum opens in November 2011. Henry is quite happy to have Crepes Paulette be part of the scene.

"We enjoy the idea of people strolling around with the crepes and being casual about it."

Hendrix alumnus Werner Trieschmann is a freelance writer, playwright and instructor. He lives in Little Rock with his wife and two sons.

By Amy Meredith Forbus ’96 

Growing up in Little Rock, Emily English ’02 had no experience with gardening. She hopes her current work leads to fewer Arkansas children being able to make that claim.

As Program Manager of the Delta Garden Study for the Arkansas Children’s Hospital Research Institute, English works on a USDA-funded research project bringing fruit and vegetable gardens to 10 middle schools across the state.

"As far as we can tell, it’s the largest school garden research study that’s ever been conducted," English says, adding that school gardens can help students make valuable connections, both to where their food comes from and to other aspects of having a healthful life.

Focus on sustainability

She’s a city dweller who loves farming. How did that happen?

"There’s farming in my roots, but nothing I remember, per se," she said. "I’ve always been very connected with the environment and being outside, even as a small child.

"It turned into sustainable agriculture when I started to focus."

English’s time at Hendrix helped her hone in on her interests to the point that she was able to create her own degree program. Working with an advisory team of four professors, she chose Sustainability, Culture and Environment as her major, which included studies in science, sociology, politics, and anthropology. She also earned a minor in religion.

As she designed her major, English’s advisory team encouraged her to think carefully about her word choice.

"We talked about using the word ‘sustainability,’ and the dangers of it being a buzzword," she said. "They had me keep that in mind ... [but] I wanted to understand this idea of sustainability as something that could be applied to every area of your life. It’s so exciting that now I think we can safely say that it is no longer considered a buzzword."

One of the experiences that led her to that particular word choice came during her sophomore year. She enrolled in religion professor Dr. Jay McDaniel’s State of the World course, which required logging five hours of service learning per week. McDaniel recommended Heifer Ranch in Perryville, as a service learning option.

Owned and operated by Heifer International, Heifer Ranch includes a community-supported agriculture (CSA) farm. English’s service learning hours at the farm soon extended beyond her course requirements. She even used the farm as a case study for her senior thesis.

"I just really fell in love with the magic of growing food," she said, "and had a hard time walking away from it. I connected growing fresh produce with the sustainability of individuals, communities and relationships."

Some of her core classes came from outside of Hendrix. In the fall of English’s junior year, she studied abroad through the University of New Hampshire in a four-month learning community-designed program. "It examined the study of sustainability in the context of community, ecology, and spirituality," she said.

The study included time in Vermont and France, then an extended amount of time in India, where the students lived for two months with "a sustainable spiritual community, who through the study of their spirituality had developed a lot of sustainable practices around living and growing and being together," she said.

English appreciated the support of her advisory team in pursuing the study abroad option. "They understood that this could form the core of my major," she said, "and that they could continue to support and enhance it during the rest of my time at Hendrix.

"It was amazing, and very life-changing."

Discovering a calling

As her 2002 commencement approached, English became convinced that she needed to spend time as a full-time farmer. "So I went to Heifer and I farmed," she said. After graduation, she secured a job at Heifer Ranch, working on the CSA farm during 2002 and 2003.

"I worked for a $200 a month volunteer stipend," she said. "I didn’t really know if I would be a farmer the rest of my life, but I knew that somehow or another, my destiny was to be involved in this movement toward fresh, local produce, and helping people reconnect to where their food comes from.

"I decided that no matter what, I needed to know how to grow, and I loved it. I loved farming," she said. "I loved being outside, I loved the magic of putting a seed in the ground and taking care of it, and watching it grow, and then feeding people. That was the best part of all of it, sharing that harvest."

Weekly deliveries to Conway and Little Rock gave her the opportunity to take food harvested from the eight-acre plot of land and put it directly into the hands of the people who would eat it.

It was during those deliveries that she first saw a child get excited about a vegetable.

"Kids loved our fresh tomatoes," English said. "It was amazing having kids come up and eat and be covered in tomato juice ... knowing that they could pick them up and eat them right there. They were freshly plucked, chemical-free, sweet, tasty tomatoes. Nutrition at its finest!"

In 2004, English returned to Little Rock and took a job at Boulevard Bread Company. Boulevard’s then-owner, Scott McGehee, knew her background and asked her to help him start Boulevard Organics, a small farming enterprise that served the bread company and sold at the Little Rock Farmers Market.

It was during the Boulevard Organics year that English realized how much she valued the educational aspects of growing produce.

"At Heifer, there were kids who came and did service learning, and there were all kinds of educational experiences for people, and I missed that part of it," she said. "And I think it was that moment of farming just for business that I realized how important the service of education was to me.

"I definitely believe you can combine the two, but I’m not a business person, I’m a service person."

A broader context

English then held a couple of other jobs in other states—some related to farming, others not. For the 2006 growing season, she returned to Heifer Ranch as a co-manager of the CSA farm. Returning to that work helped her conclude that it was time for another adventure in learning.

"It was in that year that I realized again, ‘It’s time to go back to school. It’s time to figure out how I can apply this to a larger picture,’" she said. "What’s the bigger picture? How can I take my skills and my interest level and apply it in a way that really moves the movement?"

She saw two options: Learning more about health education and nutrition, or more about how to serve the world. She considered applying either to the UAMS College of Public Health or to the Clinton School of Public Service.

While researching her options, English discovered that the two schools were starting a program together. The timing was perfect, and the partnership matched her interests. She earned concurrent masters degrees in public health and public service, graduating from both schools in December 2009.

During her time at the Clinton School and UAMS, she joined the board of Arkansas Urban Gardening Education Resources, Inc. (AUGER), the non-profit organization that works with Dunbar Garden, the community garden situated between Little Rock’s Gibbs Elementary and Dunbar Middle Schools.

Her work with AUGER led to her work on the planning committee for a farm-to-school conference for Arkansas.

"‘Farm-to-school’ is a national movement to get fresh produce into school cafeterias," English said. "My capstone project for both of my degrees was to help plan Arkansas’ first statewide farm-to-school conference, sponsored by Heifer in November of 2009."

Around the same time, the Children’s Hospital Research Institute approached AUGER for help in gardening expertise. The Institute was preparing a grant proposal to the USDA that would fund research examining the impact of school gardens on childhood obesity.

The convergence led to English’s dream job.

The Institute needed to know how to build a school garden. They also needed to know what the school garden movement looked like, what its larger implications were, and what was already going on.

"I had just finished my master’s, so my work experience and education lined me up to be exactly what they needed," English said. "And so when they got funded and the position of program manager opened up, I applied."

The Delta Garden Study team spent the first year of the four-year study designing the program: curriculum, garden plans and building relationships with the schools. One test garden is already in progress, and in the fall of 2011, four more will launch. The remaining five schools will launch their gardens in the 2012-2013 school year.

The study will monitor students’ fruit and vegetable intake, physical activity levels, academic achievement and a concept known as school bonding.

"School bonding is a child’s attachment to his or her teachers, peers, and to the school in general," she said. Literature shows that children with those types of strong connections may have lower rates of absenteeism, fighting and other social risk behaviors.

"Each of our ten intervention schools, those with gardens, will be demographically pair-matched with a control school," English says. "Both will be measured exactly the same, and hopefully allow us to draw conclusions about the impact of gardens on these identified childhood obesity risk factors."

Each of the intervention schools receives its full-time Garden Program Specialist in June. That person then spends the summer developing a small section of the garden to serve as a model for what the students will do.

"When the kids come to school, they’re inspired, and they’re excited, and they get to taste something right away," English says. "And then they spend the duration of the school year expanding, using that initial garden as motivation."

Mabelvale Middle School has served as the test site, and English reports that the experiment is going well.

"So far, the kids are enjoying it," she says. "They’ve seen and tasted new vegetables, they’ve prepared recipes from garden-fresh produce, they’ve learned how to use shovels and hoes and raise worms.

"We want [kids] to take responsibility for what they eat. When they’re at the grocery store, we hope they will be able to recognize what all those different vegetables are, and to be able to ask for them from their parents or at a restaurant or wherever life takes them. We also want them to know that it can taste good, too—it can be healthy and taste good."

English also hopes to see at least a few students develop the same excitement she has for growing food.

"Even if out of the whole study we get just a couple of kids interested in growing, then we’re contributing to the number of farmers in our state and in our country, we’re increasing the ability for other people to have access to fresh produce," she says.

She is especially glad that she has had the experience of working in the fields, dealing with pests, bad weather, drought and more.

"I never thought I would be in research at all," English says. But it doesn’t just feel like research to her. "It feels like grassroots community development around school gardens and our local food system. But, it’s the research component that gives us an opportunity to gather much-needed data that will hopefully be the evidence we need to ask for systematic change."

It’s a path she may not have expected to follow, but one she truly enjoys.

"I don’t think coming out of Hendrix I knew exactly where I would be in 10 years, but this is quite a fantastic place," she says. "And I’m really glad that I’m in Arkansas, and that I’ve been a part of and witnessed the growth of Arkansas’ local food system and sustainable agriculture movement.

"I am so glad to see this movement grow in Arkansas. There are amazing people out there working to make these changes reality for our state. It pleases me to be part of it all, and I’m incredibly excited to see what our future holds."

Amy Meredith Forbus ’96 is editor of the Arkansas United Methodist, the newspaper of the Arkansas Conference of the United Methodist Church. She lives in Little Rock with her husband John. 

By Rob O’Connor ’95
Associate Editor

Despite his physics degree from Hendrix and leadership of two successful start-up businesses, Cody Hopkins may have dashed the dreams of his father and grandfather.

"They were brick masons, and they didn’t want me to have to work with my hands," he said, laughing at the irony.

When he graduated from Hendrix in 2001, the Van Buren native became the first member of his immediate family to graduate from college. And soon after, he became a farmer.

In 2007, Cody formed Falling Sky Farm near Marshall, Ark., with his partner Andrea Todt, a Searcy County native and alumna of Earlham College in Indiana. In addition to raising grass-fed livestock, they have a newborn son, Samuel Hopkins, who was born in November 2010.

Like the food he grows on the farm, Cody’s interest in farming and food culture grew organically.

"One of the side effects of going to a liberal arts college is that you get interested in so many things," he said.

During college, Cody spent two summers working in a restaurant in Providence, R.I., where he first became interested in food.

When he graduated from Hendrix, he moved to Providence and spent two years teaching math and physics at an all-boys Catholic high school.

"I enjoyed teaching, but not in a classroom per se," he said. "And I missed the South and missed my family."

He followed his interest in food back to the South, first to Lafayette, La., where he lived for a year baking bread, before he moved back to Arkansas to manage Serenity Farm, a bakery in Leslie beloved by locals and travelers.

Living in rural Arkansas quickly left an impression on the recent college graduate.

"Searcy County is an economically-challenged environment," he said. "It’s hard to find a job. Most people go off to find work."

Inspired by reading Michael Pollan and Joel Salatin, he began to get interested in economic development. He initially considered getting a master’s degree but decided instead for a more hands-on look at the local food movement and its impact on rural economics.

"I thought ‘Wouldn’t that be awesome if some of these farmers marketed their products this way’," he said. "The idea at the time was there was no way in hell."

So he resolved to start "a demonstration farm" to show that organic farming can be a viable agri-business model that’s better for the farmer, consumers, animals, and the land, he said.

Somewhat fortified with capital thanks to a grant from Wild Gift, an Idaho-based nonprofit that supports young entrepreneurs, the couple started raising meat chickens, turkey, ducks, beef, and pork on 40 acres they leased for free from a family friend of Andrea’s.

They stayed there for three years before they outgrew the space and moved to a 160-acre parcel, where they now live in a newly acquired Airstream trailer.

"We don’t have a lot of money, but we’re committed to showing it can be done," he said.

Most customers will immediately notice the improved flavor of 100 percent grass-based livestock. More importantly, Hopkins noted, is the meat is healthier because of the conditions it’s raised in.

"It’s not just what you eat but what you eat eats," he said.

The couple realized really quickly that the infrastructure for their type of farming doesn’t exist anymore.

"A hundred years ago, 80 percent of the population lived on a farm, today it’s less than one percent," he said, adding as an example that there are no more than three USDA-certified facilities in the state where small scale farmers can get a cow butchered.

To sell their products, Cody began establishing relationships with central Arkansas farmers. He joined the Certified Arkansas Farmers Market, a group of central Arkansas area farmers, and now serves on its board. They began selling crops to restaurants and looking for a venue in Conway.

Hopkins soon met Eric Wagoner, an Athens, Ga.-based farmer, at a conference in Kentucky. Wagoner had created Locally Grown, a web-based farmer’s market program.

Cody quickly adapted the turn-key program and, in 2008, Conway Locally Grown, his second venture, was born.

It has grown rapidly – from five farmers, 15 customers and less than $30,000 in total sales in 2008 to 40 farmers, 300 members, to more than $150,000 in gross sales in 2010.

"That’s pretty fast growth," he said. "It’s going to be really interesting to see how the growth trend continues."

"We’ve grown really fast, but I still feel like we’re in the start-up phase of this business," he said, adding that the money they have made so far has gone back into the farm.

Their goal is to make the farm financially viable and to serve as a model for rural economic development.

The couple has clearly piqued the interest of the local community, which voted them Searcy County Farm Family of the Year.

"It was surprising because we’re kind of oddballs," he said. "We didn’t have any experience, which was sort of a good thing … Young people trying to start a business in this community are unheard of."

Though he didn’t exactly meet his family’s goal of not working with his hands, Cody calls his journey "stressful but exciting," and no one is more surprised than he.

"Out of all the things I’m doing, the thing that surprises me most is being an entrepreneur," he said. "I wish I would have taken more accounting classes in college."

Farming, he said, is an education unto itself.

"Farming is a lot like going to a liberal arts college," he said, citing the accounting, marketing, product development, and research that go into farming. "There’s lots and lots of problem solving, which hopefully you get better at in college … I know I did."

For Hendrix seniors Lydia Nash and Jayce Hafner, the answer to the age-old question is simple. The chickens came first … about a dozen hens from a commercial hatchery in Iowa, to be precise.

They – the chickens – are Rhode Island Reds ("a hearty, all-American breed"), Barred Plymouth Rocks (another strong, American "Puritanical" breed), and a Chilean breed called "Easter Eggers" for their ability to lay pink, green, and light blue eggs.

The chickens are the subject of Fowl Play: The Hendrix Chicken Project, an Odyssey project designed by Nash, a mathematical economics major from Fremont, Calif., and Hafner, an international relations and sustainable communities major from Edinburg, Va.

They – Nash and Hafner – anticipate an approximate weekly yield of 70 eggs, demonstrating the viability of small-scale, self-sufficient agricultural production. They also plan to donate a share of eggs to a food bank in the local community.

The project comes at a time when a number of families in rural, suburban and urban areas are initiating back yard chicken projects of their own, Hafner said.

"The chicken movement is taking off across the U.S. as well as the U.K., and will likely continue to expand," she said. "While I was studying abroad in the Findhorn eco-village in Scotland last semester, watching that particular community rally around the initiation of their own chicken project was especially inspiring, and I expect that we will see similar results here at Hendrix."

"While a few other schools such as Pomona and Earlham have initiated similar small-scale chicken operations, Hendrix is a pioneer institution in this movement," she said. "It’s incredibly exciting that the administration supported us in being a leader in chicken/livestock raising."

The timing of the project has been serendipitous for student interest in food and sustainability.

"Student interest in food is growing … People were really eager for it," said Nash, who was president of the Hendrix Student Senate during her senior year. Prior to the chicken project, Nash studied organic gardening in Ireland. She spent the past summer as an intern for former U.S. Sen. Blanche Lincoln observing up close the workings of the Senate Agricultural Committee.

"Students have really claimed it for their own," agreed Hafner, adding that students work in shifts and keep logs and journals on the chickens. The birds are tame enough to be taken for walks on campus, even bike rides.

An e-mail list for the project goes to about 80 students, 25 of whom actively care for the chickens, she said.

The birds live in a small portable pen that is easily transported around the yard behind Physical Plant, which the administration agreed to supply for the project. Chicken manure is also used to fertilize a community garden, yet another student Odyssey project.

One unforeseen advantage of the location has been the input and support the project has received from Physical Plant staff.

"They really love the chickens," Nash said. "They have actually set up chairs around the pen to watch the chickens during their lunch break!"

A number of staff have raised chickens before and have been very helpful, offering advice on how to care for the chickens and other tips, she added.

The chicken project has brought people with varying interests (e.g. student athletes, student body leaders, artists, activists, etc.) together around a common interest, Hafner said.

"I’ve met so many people through this that I never would have met. That’s really exciting," she said. "Chickens seem to have an almost universal appeal on campus.

Hafner said the project is "never truly ending" and hopes it will pass down to other students.

After graduation, Nash plans to pursue a Ph.D. in agricultural economics.

This semester, she is interning with Hendrix alumna Emily English ’02 in the Delta Garden Study (Story, Page 32).

Hafner, who grew up on livestock farm in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, hopes to have a farm of her own one day.

"It’s always been in my life," she said.

A former Heifer International intern, she hopes to combine her interest and experience in sustainable agriculture with a career in diplomacy.

"This project is an effort to begin that journey."

By Rob O’Connor ’95
Associate Editor

Hendrix students have a healthy appetite for more than simply eating. They want to know where it comes from, how it was grown, and how it can improve their health and their world.

In this issue of Hendrix Magazine, we highlight just a small sample of students who are engaged in food-related projects through Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning, along with some examples of Hendrix alumni and their food-focused Odysseys.

As a senior capstone project for an interdisciplinary studies major she designed in sustainable development, Katherine Roehm ’11 from Austin, Texas, developed "Hendrix Edible Forest Garden and Arkansas Heritage Vegetables."

With the help of an Odyssey project grant, she and a group of five students spent three weeks before the beginning of the fall semester creating a garden of multifunctional, perennial fruits and vegetables, on a College-owned plot of land across from campus between Washington Avenue and Clifton Street and adjacent to a community garden operated by a student garden club.

Students tilled and tested the soil, which they enriched with organic manure they received from Cody Hopkins ’01 of Falling Sky Farm (Read more about Cody on page 30). They planted 22 species of edible perennial fruits and vegetables, including 15 edible species native to North America. The Edible Forest uses the principles of permaculture, incorporating a layered landscape of trees, shrubs, vines, and groundcovers. Roehm studied permaculture in a previous Odyssey experience that took her to Sirius Ecovillage in Massachusetts.

Ultimately, the Edible Forest will feature a forest-like structure of stacked perennial plants and vegetables that is self-sustaining or at least low-maintenance.

In a special section in the garden, students planted heritage vegetables – beans, peppers, cabbage, cucumbers, and mustard greens – grown from seeds from the Ozark Mountain Bioregion. They enjoyed a bumper crop of Big Potato Cucumbers, which they made into pickles and presented to students during a presentation on their Odyssey project. They also spoke about the Edible Forest Garden project in classes, including Dr. Stella Capek’s Food, Culture, and Nature course, Dr. Joyce Hardin’s Introduction to Environmental Studies, and Dr. Ann Willyard’s Plants and People.

In addition to the Edible Forest Garden, Roehm served as a co-chair of the Environmental Concerns Committee during her sophomore year. She helped start several new campus sustainability initiatives, including the Green Team, which collects cardboard and other recyclable material from students during move-in day, and Trash to Treasure, a similar concept for collecting material when students move out. She also participated in a sustainable development study abroad program through the School of Field Studies in Costa Rica and served on a campus sustainability committee appointed by the President. After graduation this spring, she plans to participate in an organic farming program in South America operated by the World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms and ultimately pursue a master’s degree in ecology or landscape architecture.

Opportunities like these are why Roehm chose Hendrix.

"The Odyssey Program is a big part of it," she said. "For self-starters who are motivated, there is support. I definitely would not have been able to do this without the help of Odyssey."

"You can really get involved with what you are passionate about," she said. "I think Hendrix is a really great place for that."

In 2009, Dr. James M. Jennings, Professor of Education and History, was awarded the Cynthia Cook Sandefur Odyssey Professorship.

The Odyssey Professorship has enabled Jennings to build upon work he and students had begun during two previously funded Odyssey projects called "Above the Line," which studied 22 third graders in the Forrest City School District in 2007 who previously scored "below" or "below basic" on the Arkansas Benchmark Exam, a state-sponsored testing program designed to grade the educational aptitude of public school students.

Following three weeks of intensive remedial studies utilizing the Above the Line Project curriculum, a majority of students improved their test scores in a number of subject areas.

"Our findings can be a roadmap for improving test scores in struggling school districts," Jennings said following the success of his program. "Specifically, providing intensive educational attention to these students, while arming their parents with proven techniques to continue the learning process at home, could drastically change the lives of these students and the educational footing of school districts fighting to meet minimum standards."

Through his Odyssey Professorship, Jennings expanded the project to examine a full grade level for a full school year at Junction City Elementary School and Retta Brown Elementary School in El Dorado. In the project, Hendrix students conduct research, surveying teachers and principals each quarter, and collect the data.

Jennings and the students work with Sheri Shirley, principal of Oakland Heights Elementary in Russellville, who serves as a third party evaluator of the student-collected data. Shirley was featured in Karin Chenoweth’s It’s Being Done: Academic Success in Unexpected Schools, which Jennings called "a leading book on turnaround schools."

Jennings is also teaching a course called Closing the Achievement Gap to six Hendrix students interested in local and state policy needed for turnaround school success. In the course, Jennings and students examine education policy in Arkansas, Mississippi, and Louisiana and, based on their analysis, will make policy recommendations related to turnaround schools.

"Hendrix students are very concerned with statistics that I’ve shared about what’s going on in the Delta," said Jennings. "They know that for students who are not succeeding in the third grade, there are long-term implications for high school success, and college and career choice."

"They realize they have a responsibility to address social problems," he said. "I was really surprised at how much students are really interested and concerned about what needs to be done to make these schools and these students successful. That’s a social justice project."

Your Hendrix Odyssey and the Odyssey Professorships Program have changed the academic environment at Hendrix, Jennings said.

"We’re creating possible solutions, as opposed to just memorizing information for a test," he said.

"Students come here with that interest," he said. "They want to be involved in decisions that shape their world before they step into it officially."

Your Hendrix Odyssey has also changed the way students and faculty members collaborate, Jennings said.

"We sit down as a group. It’s not just a case of the professor instructing them," he said. "We were solving it together, and it’s important to have that experience in liberal arts education."

Jennings, who joined the Hendrix faculty in 1992, has seen firsthand a renaissance of faculty and student research thanks to Your Hendrix Odyssey.

"Now there is an emphasis on and support for research, but we think of the student connection to research and how we can involve students in a meaningful way … and learn from them too. Odyssey did that."

Hendrix faculty members have been closely connected to students’ engaged learning experiences since the launch of Your Hendrix Odyssey. Each Odyssey project includes a faculty mentor. Many Odyssey experiences are collaborative projects between faculty and students.

Your Hendrix Odyssey has also provided a source of financial support for activities that allow faculty to continue to grow as teachers and scholars.

In 2007, Hendrix introduced the Odyssey Professorships program to acknowledge the vital role that faculty members play in the success of Your Hendrix Odyssey, its effect on academic life at the College, and the impact of engaged learning experiences on students.

Hendrix received a challenge grant from the Murphy Foundation to endow 12 Odyssey Professorships that provide resources for faculty development and encourage faculty members to develop courses and co-curricular projects that create additional engaged learning opportunities for Hendrix students.

"The Odyssey Program and the Odyssey Professorships have had a profound impact on the academic culture at Hendrix," said Dr. Robert L. Entzminger, Provost, Dean of the College, and Professor of English. "They have provided the means to weave together formal classroom teaching with out-of-classroom learning opportunities in a way that is unique in higher education. In so doing, they have shifted the relationship between faculty and student to something closer to a partnership."

"The Odyssey Professorships carry sufficient funding for a large number of students to be involved, and they are sustained over a three-year period, so projects that require a longer period for gestation can be pursued," added Entzminger. "They also allow for faculty professional development."

While Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning has only existed formally for five years, decades of Hendrix alumni have exemplified the value of engaged liberal arts education.

When Your Hendrix Odyssey was announced at the inaugural Founders Day Convocation in 2004, Hendrix began a new tradition of awarding Odyssey Medals to alumni in recognition of their personal and professional accomplishments in the six categories of the Odyssey Program, including Artistic Creativity, Global Awareness, Professional and Leadership Development, Service to the World, Special Projects, and Undergraduate Research.

Odyssey Medals are awarded yearly by the Board of Trustees. Students who have completed Odyssey projects that are closely connected with the Odyssey Medal recipients and their experiences after Hendrix are chosen to introduce the alumni at Founders Day Convocation each fall. Odyssey Medal recipients are also invited to speak to students in class. The interaction between alumni and students at Founders Day allows students to see firsthand how their Hendrix experience can change the world.

With funding from Your Hendrix Odyssey, students have traveled to nearly 50 foreign countries across nearly every continent, completing engaged learning experiences across all categories of the Odyssey Program.

From Belize to Bosnia, China to Chile, Ghana to Greenland, Malawi to Mexico, The Netherlands to New Zealand, Peru to Portugal, Romania to Rwanda, Singapore to Slovenia, Tanzania to Turkey.

The impact of these international Odysseys is an institution whose alumni have engaged with the world before they enter it as college graduates and professionals. The support of Your Hendrix Odyssey doesn’t simply take students to countries all over the world. It ensures that students bring what they learn back to campus and connect those experiences to the classroom, share their encounters with peers and place their newfound knowledge in new contexts, creating effective and entrepreneurial solutions to new challenges that impact their campus and their local and global communities.

How has Your Hendrix Odyssey internationalized the Hendrix campus?

"The easy response is that the Global Awareness category helped codify study-abroad and other international experiences that students were already having," said Dr. Peter Gess, Director of International Programs and Associate Professor of Politics. "But Odyssey brings intentionality to the experience, requiring students to reflect on the cross-cultural experience."

The breadth of Odyssey categories has contributed to a diverse body of international experiences for students, said Gess.

For example, theatre students performing at the Fringe Festival in Scotland earned Artistic Creativity credit; and students have earned Undergraduate Research credit by studying traditional medicine in China and comparative health care policy in Europe.

"We have moved far beyond the traditional model of study abroad," said Gess. "Students are engaging foreign cultures and ideas through faculty-led endeavors and through self-designed activities. This type of engaged learning can both supplement traditional study abroad and complement it by offering new avenues for the experience."

"We really want to see how a student is changed by the experience, how this contributes to creating the ‘citizen of the world,’ how it teaches students to apply what they learn in the classroom, how they become ‘the whole person,’" said Gess.

For some, the word Odyssey will conjure images of the epic Greek poem by Homer about Odysseus and his return to Ithaca after the fall of Troy. For others, Odyssey might simply mean an intellectual or spiritual journey or quest.

At Hendrix, Odyssey is the way in which students challenge what they learn in the classroom with what they encounter in the world through hands-on learning. It is how they discover their gifts, talents and passions. It means a liberal arts education is the beginning of a life’s journey, not the end of four years of studying and student life.

During A Commitment to National Leadership, alumni, friends and philanthropic organizations invested more than $5 million in gifts to endow this landmark initiative and provide the financial resources for students to fulfill their Odyssey. Since Your Hendrix Odyssey was introduced, the College’s Committee on Engaged Learning has considered nearly 800 funding requests for a total of $3,442,464.66 and has funded more than $1.7 million in project grants, supporting 526 projects involving more than 1,200 students.

Through the support of Odyssey grants, students have hiked the Appalachian Trail and chronicled Aboriginal culture. They have examined the face of Islam in Europe and Tibetan Buddhist monks exiled in India. They have studied social psychology, Southern poverty, and solar power.

With the excitement among prospective students created by Your Hendrix Odyssey, the student body grew from 1,000 students to a record enrollment this year of 1,468 students, representing 43 states and 14 countries. Not only are there more students. Because Hendrix is committed to a 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio, there are more professors teaching more courses. There are more majors and minors for students to explore. There are more mentors creating more engaged learning opportunities for students.

Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning earned national attention for Hendrix with hearty endorsements from Loren Pope’s Colleges that Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think About College and U.S. News and World Report, which listed Hendrix as the nation’s #1 "Up and Coming" liberal arts two years in a row.

Through Odyssey, Hendrix College became a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education.

Through A Commitment to National Leadership, Hendrix revolutionized its academic program into a national model of innovation in higher education. As a result, the College experienced a record enrollment of students from Arkansas, across the country, and around the world.

With the support of $45 million in capital gifts and pledges from alumni, friends, and philanthropic organizations during this campaign, the Hendrix campus too was transformed with more than 200,000 square feet of new facilities completed during this campaign.

In 2004, a three-building Art Center was completed with studio space for ceramics, drawing, painting, photography, printmaking, sculpture, along with welding and wood shops and an auditorium for art history.

In 2007, the College completed a new Wellness and Athletics Center, which includes space for aquatics, intercollegiate basketball and volleyball, intramural and recreational sports, personal health and wellness, and classrooms for kinesiology. The Wellness and Athletics Center also serves as the gateway to a new athletics complex featuring an eight-lane track with artificial surface infield for men’s lacrosse and women’s field hockey, and new lighted fields for baseball, soccer, and softball.

In 2010, Hendrix opened a $26 million Student Life and Technology Center, the largest capital project in the history of the College. Among its many amenities, the SLTC is the home of Your Hendrix Odyssey; the Oathout Technology Center; the Hendrix-Miller Center for Vocation, Ethics, and Calling; the Crain-Maling Center of Jewish Culture; and offices for Academic Support Services, International Programs, Student Affairs, and Student Activities. The SLTC also includes a beautiful main dining hall. The SLTC was certified LEED-Gold by the Green Building Certification Institute, making Hendrix the first college in Arkansas to receive this environmentally-friendly distinction, according to the Arkansas chapter of the U.S. Green Building Council.

Marshall Oathout ’65 and his wife Edie provided a significant gift to the SLTC through his estate. The Oathouts estate gift was used to support a state-of-the-art environment for students and faculty to work collaboratively using the most advanced academic and social technology available.

"Our careers focused on science, technology, and education, so we felt that the SLTC and the Technology Center would be a good fit for us," Oathout said.

To honor their commitment, Hendrix was pleased to name the Oathout Technology Center in their honor.

Garth Martin ’52 and his wife, Joann ’55, supported the construction of the Wellness and Athletics Center through a charitable gift annuity.

New buildings are much more than bricks and mortar, Martin said.

"The new Wellness and Athletics Center is such a great improvement over what was there when I was a student," he said. "I’m just delighted to see the College upgrade their facilities, and I count it a privilege to help them continue to develop."

After attending a large high school in Dallas, Texas, Bonnie Garrigan ’07 wanted to find a small, private college with a close sense of community that offered a more personal learning environment. She wanted to go to Hendrix.

But Bonnie’s family did not qualify for federal financial assistance, and her father, a computer consultant, had been out of work for three years when it was time for her to go to college.

In 2003, Hendrix received a $3.9 million challenge grant from the Robert and Ruby Priddy Trust of Wichita Falls, Texas, to establish a new endowed scholarship program for middle-income families. Alumni and friends responded enthusiastically to the Priddy Challenge with more than $6 million in gifts to help Hendrix establish a $10 million endowment for this vitally important scholarship program.

With the support of a Priddy Scholarship, Bonnie came to Hendrix. During her four years, she was an active student leader. She helped start an Ecology House for students who desired an environmentally-conscious lifestyle, and she co-founded a bee-keeping society. She also served on the campus’ Environmental Concerns Committee. She graduated in 2007 with an economics degree. Bonnie would not have been able to attend Hendrix without the financial assistance that she received from Hendrix and the Priddy Trust.

"The scholarship made a huge difference in my decision to come to Hendrix," Bonnie said.

Through its support of Hendrix during A Commitment to National Leadership, the Robert and Ruby Priddy Charitable Trust positioned Hendrix to meet its goal of providing greater access to higher education for hundreds of talented and deserving students.

The result of the Priddy Challenge – 1,079 student scholarship awards totaling $4.16 million have provided transformational educational opportunities and access to a world of unlimited possibilities.

Annual gifts are the most important means of support that Hendrix receives from alumni and friends. By providing competitive scholarships and financial aid, the Annual Fund enables Hendrix to recruit and retain the best and brightest students. The Annual Fund also underwrites many academic, co-curricular, and campus life projects that tuition alone cannot cover.

During A Commitment of National Leadership, the Hendrix Annual Fund received $29 in gifts from alumni, friends, parents, and other supporters. While the campaign is complete, the College continues to rely strongly on annual gifts to ensure current students have the kind of unique experience that Hendrix alumni enjoyed as students and appreciate today.

As a student, Shawn Johnson ’98 received grants and financial aid to help offset the cost of attending Hendrix. A double major in politics and history, Johnson was involved in Student Senate, Social Committee, Student Congress, Hardin Hall Council, the Hendrix Choir, Young Democrats, and worked in the Registrar’s Office. As an alumnus and member of the Alumni Board of Governors, Shawn supports the Hendrix Annual Fund.

"Hendrix taught me to think critically and to consider diverse views while forming and expressing my opinions," said Johnson, Assistant Attorney General in the Arkansas Attorney General’s Office. "The Annual Fund ensures that other high school graduates like I was in 1994 will have the opportunity to afford the expenses at Hendrix and thus have the benefit of the Hendrix experience."

"In my professional life as a lawyer, I have found that Hendrix alumni are everywhere - in business, the arts, and sciences. Despite variations in their careers, they embody the same respect for differences in culture and life experience that I came to appreciate from my Hendrix experience," said Johnson. "Now more than ever, these values in our society are immensely important, and one of the ways to help them grow into wider acceptance is through support of our alma mater."

Parents of current Hendrix students are important Annual Fund supporters through their gifts to the Parent Fund. Cindy and Rick Maley of Mountain Home are the parents of Dana Maley ’13 and proud Parent Fund supporters.

"Our gift is a form of unconditional giving. It is an example we, as parents, feel obligated to set," said Cindy. "The opportunities presented to her encourage us to support Hendrix so that others needing any kind of financial supplement can benefit as she does. We are committed to supporting such programs, hoping our children will perpetuate the same principles and ideals."

"As parents, we feel inspired and obligated to recognize and promote the program that benefits our daughter and affords her unique opportunities," she said. "She’s evolved into a more focused and driven person. It’s opened her eyes to new opportunities and her own budding potential."

Hendrix is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. That was the goal set by the Board of Trustees in 2003 and accomplished through A Commitment to National Leadership.

"This campaign gave us the momentum to enhance the Hendrix experience by increasing scholarships, supporting faculty and student Odysseys, and building critical new buildings on campus," said R. Madison Murphy ’80, Chairman of the Board of Trustees.

Murphy and his wife, Suzanne Nodini Murphy ’80, co-chaired the campaign with Board of Trustee member Dan Peregrin ’80 and his wife, Jennifer Jacuzzi Peregrin ’81.

"We are deeply grateful to the many alumni and friends of who have made this success possible," the Peregrins said. "The campaign has brought national attention to Hendrix for its focus on offering unique learning opportunities to students."

The institutional goal of national leadership would not be possible without the individual leadership exemplified throughout the campaign by Hendrix faculty, staff and the Board of Trustees, said President J. Timothy Cloyd.

Cloyd praised Murphy’s leadership of the Board of Trustees.

"The Murphy family’s generosity has historically been very instrumental in the progress of Hendrix," Cloyd said. "And Madison’s leadership, commitment and vision have been critical to our continued success and the success of our campaign."

Murphy is likewise appreciative of the role of Dr. Cloyd, who became the tenth President of Hendrix in 2001 after serving as Vice President for College Relations and Development.

"He rose to the challenge boldly, creatively, and entrepreneurially," Murphy said. "In addition to seeking the funding to complete the campaign, he found more work to be done."

"Through his persistence, we have the Hendrix Miller Center for Vocation, Ethics, and Calling, which furthers the College’s foundation as a United Methodist Church institution and places faith exploration and life calling as a central part of a liberal arts education; The Crain-Maling Center of Jewish Culture, which celebrates the growing diversity of the student body; The Village at Hendrix, a walk-able New Urbanist neighborhood that echoes institutional values with regard to sustainable community development; a new student and faculty exchange program in Harbin, China, and other international alliances that prepare students to be leaders in a global society; the Rwanda Presidential Scholars Program, which recognizes the role we can play in helping other nations recover from events we cannot imagine," said Murphy. "To me, Hendrix would not be the institution it is today without him."

In politics, campaigns help elect leaders. In higher education, campaigns help institutions become leaders. Through A Commitment to National Leadership, the largest campaign in the history of the College, alumni, friends, faculty, staff, the United Methodist Church, and philanthropic foundations invested $101.3 million in a bold vision for Hendrix established by the Board of Trustees in 2003: To become a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education.

The first step in this journey was both remarkable and reflective. Faculty members were challenged to create an innovative academic program that distinguished Hendrix among the country’s leading liberal arts colleges. To do this, they examined essential elements that have consistently defined the Hendrix experience for generations of students – namely the opportunity for students to work closely with faculty who are dedicated to teaching undergraduate students in the classroom and mentoring students in research, internships, international study, and other hands-on learning activities.

The Hendrix faculty answered this challenge. They identified something that makes Hendrix unique in the landscape of liberal arts education – an atmosphere that encourages active learning or engaged liberal arts. And they gave it a name. Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning was announced in 2004 and formally launched in 2005.

Through Odyssey, faculty broadened the horizon of what has historically made Hendrix an incredible institution. Encouraging undergraduate research and other hands-on activities has long been a hallmark of the Hendrix experience and is increasingly more common on the campuses of national liberal arts colleges. What made Odyssey distinct was that it was universal, not elective. Through Your Hendrix Odyssey, students were now required to complete – not simply encouraged to pursue – a minimum of three engaged learning experiences. They could choose these experiences from six broad categories, including Artistic Creativity, Global Awareness, Professional and Leadership Development, Service to the World, Special Projects, and Undergraduate Research.

Not only was Your Hendrix Odyssey to be universal for all students, it was to be embedded – not ancillary – to the academic program. Students graduating from Hendrix would not only receive a transcript noting their performance in academic courses but also an Odyssey transcript detailing their engaged learning experiences. The Odyssey transcript would show not just what or how well they had learned but what they could do.

To encourage students to undertake the most ambitious engaged learning experiences, Hendrix needed substantial resources to endow the program and create a means for students to apply – on a competitive grants basis – for project support.

So with the introduction of Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning, the College announced the campaign to fund Odyssey and other critical needs that would make Hendrix a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education.

It wasn’t enough for Hendrix to simply excite students with the unique opportunities inherent in Odyssey and the enterprise of engaged liberal arts. The reality of a fiercely competitive marketplace, even more acute in the wake of post-9/11 economic uncertainty, meant that Hendrix would have to commit substantial resources to access and affordability just as it had committed to making sweeping curricular change.

Just as the inception of Your Hendrix Odyssey required a dual focus – affirming tradition and imagining the future – Hendrix had to look honestly at its position in the marketplace of leading liberal arts colleges. Research showed that the current generation of college-bound students was more sensitive to the level of institutional financial assistance (both merit- and need-based awards) offered than they were to the price of tuition they saw printed in the viewbooks they received from college admissions offices. Surveys of students who had considered but did not ultimately select Hendrix showed that – based on the printed cost of tuition – students did not perceive Hendrix to be as competitive with its peers.

To address this curious perception, Hendrix adjusted its tuition structure, concurrently raising the printed cost but increasing the level of institutional financial assistance. The latter required an added emphasis in the campaign on raising annual and endowed gifts to support student aid. Following the precedent established by Your Hendrix Odyssey, the College devised the Odyssey Distinction Awards, a new program to award institutional financial assistance based on the students’ gifts, talents, and passions.

Along with an entrepreneurial re-imagining of the academic program and price positioning, the Board of Trustees addressed the critical need for new facilities on campus. A decade earlier, Hendrix had completed a major campaign that revitalized the teaching and undergraduate research infrastructure for the sciences. The result was a quantum leap forward in the College’s capacity to deliver on its historic strength of preparing future leaders in health, medicine and science. A similar leap forward was now needed for Hendrix to fulfill its promise as a national leader. So in preparation for A Commitment to National Leadership, the Board of Trustees identified the need for two new facilities, one to include recreational health and wellness and intercollegiate athletic programs and another to offer enhanced student life opportunities and weave the most advanced academic and social technology into the fabric of campus life. Through A Commitment to National Leadership, the College would seek philanthropic support to complete a new Wellness and Athletics Center and new Student Life and Technology Center.

The precincts are closed. The votes are counted. Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. Through A Commitment to National Leadership, Hendrix significantly increased the level of financial assistance and scholarships offered to students, providing access and affordability for all qualified students. Our faculty collaborated to create innovative programs that blend intellectual inquiry and hands-on learning, programs that have quickly become national models and are now being emulated at other institutions. State-of-the-art facilities that enrich academic and student life every day now stand on campus as a monument to a courageous course chartered by the College at the beginning of this campaign.

By Natalie Atkins
Assistant Editor

"Flag This!," Leigh’s sophomore intramural flag football team, didn’t quite tear up the competition on the field, though they "could have won the intramural championship in laughing," she says. The team may not have won a championship, but not many teams choreographed their own halftime show.

A decade later, Leigh, who by this time was working for the College’s Advancement Division, watched as Grove Gymnasium was torn down and replaced by a new Wellness and Athletics Center.

One of the strangest things she recalls as a staff member is the gym floor being carved into pieces for alumni during the "Goodbye Grove" celebrations.

"You think about all the games that have been played, all the stories that gym had seen, the blood, sweat and tears left out there by a generation of Warriors ... and there it was, sitting in six-inch square pieces in my office."

Grove gave way to a great new facility for current students, but as a former student athlete, she is "completely jealous" of the Wellness and Athletics Center.

Along with being a four-year letterman in intercollegiate tennis and championship intramural laugher and choreographer, Leigh was active in Campus Kitty, Social Committee, Student Athlete Advisory Council, Orientation, and the Volunteer Action Committee.

A Monticello native, Leigh graduated from Hendrix in 2001 with an interdisciplinary major she designed called "The History of Medicine." She was also awarded the President’s Medal, given to the student who best exemplifies the values of Hendrix.

After Hendrix, she earned a master’s degree in Higher Education Administration from the University of Arkansas. She worked as a fundraiser at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas, before returning to Hendrix in 2005, where she has served as Major Gifts Officer, Associate Alumni Director, and Director of Annual Giving.

In her current role as Associate Director of Career Services and Internship Coordinator, Leigh works with current students looking for internships or post-graduate employment, coordinates employer site visits and identifies professionals for students to shadow in their career field of interest. She also runs the Friday Alumni Connection Time (F.A.C.T.) program, which invites alumni from different career areas to come to campus each Friday to meet one-on-one with students.

"This job is a perfect mix for me – combining my passion for helping students with my relationships and friendships built through my five years in the development and alumni offices," says Leigh. "[The students’] imagination, energy and ideas make every day an adventure."

Outside of work, Leigh recently ran a half-marathon. She enjoys her book club and attending Hendrix sporting events with her husband, Richard Counts ’01 and their daughter, Eliza Clare Counts, born on April 11, 2009.

Having spent nearly a decade of her life on campus, Leigh says Hendrix "has always felt like ‘home’ to me both as a student and now as a professional. [The college] is still holding true to the values that made me love it as a student – the faces and buildings may have changed, but the "feeling" of Hendrix is still the same."

Fred Ablondi, Morriss and Ann Henry Odyssey Associate Professor of Philosophy, published "Absolute Beginners: Learning Philosophy by Learning Descartes and Berkeley" in Metascience, Vol. 19.

Jay Barth, M.E. and Ima Graves Peace Professor of Politics, co-published "Educating Citizens or Defying Federal Authority? A Comparative Study of In-State Tuition for Undocumented Students" in The Policy Studies Journal.

Chris Camfield, assistant professor of mathematics, received a $2,500 grant from the Academy of Inquiry Based Learning.

Stella Capek, professor of sociology, published "Foregrounding Nature: An Invitation to Think About Shifting Nature/City Boundaries" in City & Community,
Vol. 9.

Jenn Dearolf, associate professor of biology, received a grant from the National Institutes of Health, IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence ($641,840 for 2010-2015) for her research "Effects of prenatal steroids on the fatigue properties of breathing muscles."

Robert Entzminger, Provost and Dean of the College and Professor of English, reviewed "Spiritual Architecture and ‘Paradise Regained’: Milton’s Literary Ecclesiology" by Ken Simpson in Milton Quarterly.

Gabe Ferrer, associate professor of computer science, served as the Regional Board Chair for the Consortium for Computing Sciences in Colleges in the Mid-South Region.

Tom Goodwin, Elbert L. Fausett Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, received $274,374 from the National Science Foundation for the acquisition of a 400 MHz NMR spectrometer to enhance faculty and undergraduate research (with co-PIs Andres Caro and Christopher Marvin).

Joyce Hardin, professor of biology, received $120,000 from the Associated Colleges of the South. The grant will fund a post-doctoral fellowship in environmental studies.

J. Brett Hill, assistant professor of anthropology, reviewed The Neighbors Of Casas Grandes: Excavating Medio Period Communities Of Northwest Chihuahua, by Michael Whalen and Paul Minnis, in the Journal of Archaeological Science.

James Jennings, Cynthia Cook Sandefur Odyssey Professor of Education and History, was a guest commentator on four episodes of African Americans in the Military for the Arkansas History DVD series by the Arkansas Educational Television Network.

Lisa Leitz, assistant professor of sociology, served as a reviewer for European Political Science Review and The Social Service Review.

Kim Maslin-Wicks, associate professor of politics, published "Public Displays of Emotion (PDE): Some Preliminary Advice for Leaders" in Public Leadership.

Maxine Payne, Judy and Randy Wilbourn Odyssey Associate Professor of Art, presented a solo exhibition titled "Making Pictures: Three for a Dime" at the Arkansas Studies Institute, Concordia Hall.

Aleksandra Pfau, assistant professor of history, published "Crimes of Passion: Emotion and Madness in French Remission Letters" in Madness in Medieval Law and Custom.

John Sanders, professor of religious studies, published "The Eternal Now and Theological Suicide: A Reply to Laurence Wood" in Wesleyan Theological Journal Vol. 45.

Lawrence K. Schmidt, professor of philosophy, published "Critique: The Heart of Philosophical Hermeneutics" in Consequences of Hermeneutics: Fifty Years After Gadamer’s ‘Truth and Method’.

J. Aaron Simmons, assistant professor of philosophy, served as Humanities Advisory Editor for CultureFrame.

Tom Stanley, professor of economics and business, served as Associate Editor for Journal of Economic Survey. He also served as Senior Visiting Fellow at London School of Economics.

Alex Vernon, James and Emily Bost Odyssey Associate Professor of English and Humanities Area Chair, published Approaches to Teaching the Works of Tim O’Brien. He also presented "Revisiting Hemingway’s Spanish Civil War Dispatches" at the 14^th Ernest Hemingway International Biennial Conference in Lausanne, Switzerland.

José Ramón Vilahomat, associate professor of Spanish, published "Sátira menipea en trayecto: La literatura latinoamericana actual vuelve a los orígenes" in Pterodáctilo: Revista de Arte, Literatura y Lingüística.

Ann Willyard, assistant professor of biology, served as a reviewer for the American Journal of Botany, International Journal of Plant Sciences, and Annals of Botany.

Leslie Zorwick, assistant professor of psychology, co-published "Urban debate and prejudice reduction: The contact hypothesis in action" in Contemporary Argumentation and Debate, Vol. 30.

By Rob O’Connor ’95
Associate Editor

Chemistry Professor Dr. Liz U. Gron was selected as the 2010 Arkansas Professor of the Year by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and the Council for the Advancement and Support of Education.

In an interview with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Gron, who grew up in a blue-collar community outside of Boston, Mass., gave her Danish immigrant parents – the late Poul and AnnMarie Gron – credit for shaping her career.

“It’s not uncommon in immigrant families that education was the key to success,” she said.

Gron graduated from Colgate University in Hamilton, N.Y., and earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of Wisconsin. She later worked as a chemical engineer at the University of Delaware. She joined the teaching faculty at Hendrix in 1994.

“We knew we were fortunate to get Liz here, but the ensuing 16 years have shown that we had no idea how lucky we were,” said Gron’s colleague and friend Dr. Tom Goodwin, Professor of Chemistry, who is no stranger to the kind of dedication to teaching exemplified by Professor of the Year honorees. Dr. Goodwin received the national Carnegie/CASE Professor of the Year award in 2003.

“Liz excels at teaching, mentoring, advising, counseling, research, publications, presentations, proposal writing, organizing meetings and workshops, curricular and laboratory innovation, lab and classroom assessment strategies, and community service, as well as increasingly displaying leadership on a national stage,” Goodwin said. “She is just a whirlwind of activity, a blast of fresh air, an encouraging and compassionate teacher and friend, and an inspirational dynamo.”

Dr. Eva Hurst ’98, a private practice dermatologist and Assistant Professor of Medicine at Washington University, was a student of Gron’s. She praised Gron’s passion for teaching and tireless devotion to student success.

“I took several courses with Dr. Gron and was always impressed by her teaching skills, but more importantly, by the care and dedication she exhibited for her students,” Hurst said. “She is an amazing combination of honesty, kindness, passion, brilliance, and enthusiasm.”

In addition to her teaching and research, Gron is very active in the local community. Most visibly, she has organized Ridin’ Dirty with Science, an outreach program for Hendrix students to teach science skills and concepts to local students at the Boys and Girls Club of Faulkner County. In addition to Ridin’ Dirty, Gron is known at the Boys and Girls Club as the “Cookie Lady,” a reference to the cookies she uses as an incentive to motivate young children to read.

Gron organized a holiday outreach project providing Thanksgiving dinners for people in need. In the past year, she raised more than $7,000, involved more than 100 high school students and 30 adults, and fed more than 1,500 people.

Dr. Robert L. Entzminger, Provost and Dean of the College, called Gron’s community leadership a “natural extension” of her work on the Hendrix campus and in the national community of chemistry scholars.”

“In an institution, and in a department, that takes justifiable pride in the quality of its faculty, Dr. Gron nonetheless stands out as exceptional,” Provost Entzminger said. “The excitement for her subject that she exudes is infectious, and her commitment to the success of all her students is legendary.”

Gron has two sons, Erik Urban ’13 and Bryan Urban, a senior at Conway High School. Five years ago, Gron married Dr. John Krebs, Professor of Music at Hendrix. The couple lives in Conway.

Ralph McKenna

By Bruce Haggard

Dr. Ralph McKenna drove his family to Hendrix in the heat of the summer of 1976. Some of his future colleagues distracted him while one of them jumped into his overloaded U-Haul truck and raced it down the nearby hill, and then slammed on the brakes in order to shift the load of everything he owned forward enough to free the rear door so it could be opened. Fortunately most of the belongings survived. The faculty ‘moving crew’ couldn’t resist laughing at the sight of his toboggan when the door was opened.

Who knew that this Connecticut Yankee, his wife Linda and their five children (Colleen, Tim, Kevin, Daniel, and Connor, who was yet to be born), would play such a vital role at Hendrix and in the Conway community.

Ralph and I co-founded the Hendrix Faculty Colloquium Series that gives faculty an opportunity to present their experiences or discuss their research with their colleagues once a month throughout the academic year. Ralph was very active in the Hendrix AAUP faculty organization that played a significant role in helping form a sense of community and in dealing with multiple Hendrix faculty concerns over the years. He is a community activist, working to implement bike trails throughout Conway, and has a real passion for organic gardening.

Ralph plays a mean sax and had his own swing band starting in junior high. He drove his used 28 hp Volkswagen to local gigs, making the three-hour trip from Connecticut to gigs in New York to earn his way through college. He was a music education major and taught secondary school music before going to the University of Connecticut to obtain a Ph.D. in Social Psychology. He still loves to jam and can usually name the song, the singer, and give you the rest of the lyrics upon hearing a single key phrase from any 1950-70s rock and roll song. He used his knowledge of music as a DJ on KHDX and for the development of some unique courses such as "American Roots Music and Southern Culture" as well as "Psychology, Music, and American Culture."

Ralph was co-founder (1985) of the Arkansas Symposium for Psychology Students. He has been recognized for the quality of his teaching on multiple occasions (including Teacher of the Year) and clearly enjoys mentoring student research, as well as conducting research and presenting papers of his own at the annual Southwestern Psychological Association meetings. He is teaching three courses this spring, though he officially ended his phased retirement last year. He thoroughly enjoyed leading the Hendrix-in-London Semester in the spring of 2005. Not so much his roles as Chair of the Department of Psychology for the 10 years between 1980 and 1990, followed by his ‘sentence’ as Chair of the Social Science Area from 1990 to 1994.

Alumni who wish to contact Ralph should email him at mckennarj@hendrix.edu. I am sure he would appreciate hearing from you. Ralph has helped lots of alumni to achieve their goals.

Bruce Haggard

By Ralph McKenna

"You’ll really love the Haggards – they’re into organic gardening and have goats – just like you all do! They have kids around the age of your oldest two, and recently moved to a house on a lake with three acres of land.
And … his wife Pat is a potter!"

So went my introduction to the Haggard family when I interviewed for a position at Hendrix. One of my first memories of Bruce is holding up one end of a monster 8,000 pound player piano that Linda and I had brought from our Pennsylvania farmhouse. Bruce and Jon Arms, holding up the other end, were stuck going down a flight of stairs, as the rest of us debated where the piano should best be placed for aesthetic prominence. Both have keen memories of that day whenever their backs go out.

Bruce and Pat, Tina ’87 and Kelly ’88 preceded the McKennas to Hendrix by four years, coming straight from Indiana University and some world-class graduate work in genetics. An unabashed Hoosier in the land of the Razorback, Bruce brought his love of sport to Conway. I remember his tree-like presence as center for our faculty intramural basketball team, and his rifle arm as center fielder for the faculty city-league softball team, where I had the brief chance to play right field. Many alumni will recall Bruce’s 10 years keeping the scoreboard for the Cliff Garrison- and Jim Holland-coached Warriors, working alongside Bob Meriwether (announcer) and Larry Graddy (statistician).

After 39 years at Hendrix, Bruce is retiring from his position as Virginia McCormick Pittman Professor of Biology at the end of this academic year. For years, Bruce was the "kid" member of a legendary department in biology, teaching nine courses per year alongside Art Johnson, Tom Clark, and Albert Raymond. This biology lineup had a statewide reputation for its highly successfully pre-med program. Over these years, Bruce has taught well over 400 students who have gone on to become physicians.

Arkansas summers were never complete without the Haggards’ Fourth of July celebration, which brought together colleagues, kids, friends, mimosas in bloom, a keg or two, kids lighting fireworks, and some folk music singing from the newest biology kid, Joe Lombardi, on guitar.

Though a confirmed biologist in his training, Bruce’s thinking and behavior began to be permeated by the liberal arts. In 1974, he was chosen as one of nine faculty members to spend six weeks at Columbia University studying ways to best implement a new liberal arts curriculum at Hendrix. Six years later, Bruce was asked to help establish the Arkansas Governor’s School, legislated into existence by then Governor Bill Clinton. Bruce was director of the program from 1983-2000 and fended off considerable controversy over teaching methods and content, especially when Clinton ran for President.

Bruce was also central to the formation of a Hendrix chapter of the American Association for University Professors, the closest thing we have to a union, dedicated to protecting and promoting faculty rights. An avid canoeist, Bruce fought to save the Cadron Creek watershed from damming; a decade later he was immersed in the Arkansas Creation Science controversy. He was even elected a Faulkner County Justice of the Peace.

Hendrix was a different institution in the 1970s. When hired, Bruce was instructed not to do research or serve alcohol at parties (even parties attended only by faculty friends and spouses). Rumor has it that he nearly ran down our president of that time, Roy Shilling, zooming away from Buhler on his Honda 250 motorcycle in the winter’s darkness. In many ways, Bruce Haggard’s Hendrix career symbolizes a time of intellectual commitment, innocence, social camaraderie, family bonding, and community activism in the history of our college. It’s been fun, too.

Eric Binnie

By Werner Trieschmann ’86

The impending retirement of Dr. Eric Binnie will leave – just on the auditory level – the Hendrix College campus bereft one distinct Scottish accent. For Binnie’s collegues in the Theatre Arts and Dance department and for former and current students, the loss is greater than his warm vocal burr.

"Over the last twenty years I have shared books — novels, plays, memoirs — films and good stories of travel and coffee, both good and bad, with Eric," says Ann Muse, chair of the Theatre Arts and Dance department. "His enthusiasm for what is good in life is a source of joy for me."

"Dr. Binnie’s attendance at student performances and presentations is legendary," says theatre professor Danny Grace. "I can remember only a handful of departmental performances he might have missed. He knows as many great places to eat in the world as anybody I have ever met. And he is happy to share that information with you. Like so many of our retiring faculty, Eric cannot be replaced."

Binnie was born and raised in Kilsyth, a small mining town in central Scotland. He was hired by Hendrix in 1989 and was working at Northeast Missouri State (now Truman State) before coming to Conway. Did he have any hesitation in relocating?

"I enjoyed the faculty and students I met then," recalls Binnie. "If you had ever seen Kirksville, Missouri, you would not ask this question — anyone would be glad to get out of there. But I was surprised here by the striking natural beauty of the surroundings here, particularly Little Rock, of which old black and white film images from TV had burned themselves into my mind — so a very pleasant revelation, indeed."

In his time at the Theatre Arts and Dance department, Binnie worked as a director and taught classes in theatre history, voice and acting. It is clear that, over the years, Binnie became known for his classes on stage movement and the Alexander Technique.

"About ten years ago when Dr. Carole Herrick and myself began teaching the Alexander Technique on campus, one young student in particular was very resistant, and frequently challenged our claims for the demonstrable efficacy and relief involved in use of the Technique," says Binnie. "We could both see that she had changed during the length of the course, yet she was unwilling to admit this. She graduated at the end of that semester and, the next day, the local newspaper had a wonderful photograph of this particular student smiling to those around her, and clearly demonstrating what, in the Alexander community, is called ‘good use.’ At last I had the proof she needed, so I mailed a copy to her the next day."

In Binnie, students found a mind that wasn’t narrowed or preoccupied with one aspect of the theatre.

"I found the culture of Hendrix reflected in many of his personal characteristics — intelligent, curious, warm and multi-talented," says James Mainard O’Connell, who graduated in 2003 and is working in theatre in New Jersey "In a world that increasingly values specialization, I was inspired by the variety of subjects that he taught within the general discipline of theatre. Each class that I took from him inspired a love of the subject in me. His advanced acting class, which focused on Shakespeare, so inspired a love of Shakespeare in me that I went on to earn an M.F.A. in the subject."

For his days after Hendrix, Binnie sees time to go to the gym, fix up his house and act when the occasion arises.

"I’ll be staying in the area, at least for a while, and I hope to continue to be of service to Hendrix College and to the community whenever possible, probably give more private Alexander Technique lessons than I’ve had time for till now."

So the good news is that Binnie’s talent, mind and — yes, his voice — won’t be completely absent from Hendrix for long.

Ian King

By Jay Barth ’87

I just didn’t understand Ian King when I met him midway through my undergraduate career at Hendrix — literally. My provincial ear just couldn’t get a handle on his British accent. But, it was also figurative. I didn’t understand his allusions to Monty Python sketches, his references to soccer and cricket, or his mentions of the politics in parts of the world that I had difficulty locating on a map.

It’s safe to say that I wasn’t alone. Hendrix—then a fairly provincial place with almost all of its students coming from Arkansas—didn’t fully get Ian King when he first arrived on campus in the fall of 1985. Wearing his trademark t-shirts, he didn’t look like a professor. His classroom style differed from the lecture style practiced by most of his older colleagues. His political views were challenging to a place that liked to describe itself as "liberal" but was very mainstream politically. And, his wife didn’t share his last name, a fact fairly disruptive to the norms of the Hendrix Dames (the already archaic faculty "wives" club that disbanded soon after his and Cindy’s arrival on campus).

My first engagement with Ian came during his first year on campus as we served together on a task force developed by President Joe Hatcher to study the College’s investments in companies doing business in apartheid-era South Africa. The following year I was a student in the first offering of "Politics and the Creative Arts," a course that became one of Ian’s most popular across time. In my two years of interacting with Ian King inside and outside the classroom, I slowly came to "get" him and to admire him personally and intellectually.

That admiration has grown exponentially across our 17 years as colleagues. Since 1994, I have watched his work as a faculty advocate, as a builder of the sense of community at Hendrix, as a model of life-long interdisciplinary learning, as a masterful classroom teacher and out-of-class mentor, and as a force for globalized thinking on the Hendrix campus. While his hard-headedness has occasionally frustrated me, Ian has been an irreplaceable colleague.

I had seen Ian’s willingness to challenge the Administration on the divestment task force because of principle. The willingness to confront those in charge has earned him the respect and appreciation of his colleagues across campus. It’s not accidental that Ian has likely served more terms as an elected faculty member on the Academic and Professional Concerns Committee than any other faculty member across his time on campus.

That sense of community building goes beyond Ian’s work on campus committees. It shows itself in his playing basketball or Wallyball with fellow faculty weekly, his showing up for the sporting events and theatre performances of his students, and his encouragement of the research of his colleagues.

Ian has also constantly strived to better himself intellectually with an eye to bringing that growth back to the classroom. Participation in seminars around the globe has taken his summers but enhanced his teaching about those parts of the world. Moreover, Ian’s teaching and research links to the natural sciences and humanities showing his students how the disciplines intersect. Ian is the model of a life-long, interdisciplinary learner that we strive to create in our students at Hendrix. That breadth and depth of knowledge combine with a sense of humor that deprecates himself and others to make him an extraordinary classroom teacher. His patience makes him just as good as an out-of-class mentor.

The ultimate role that Ian has played at Hendrix is in internationalizing the provincial liberal arts community that he entered in 1985. Year in and year out, Ian has worked to enhance the opportunities for students to spend time abroad and to enlarge the academic offerings related to global issues. Much has happened across the last quarter-century to make it clear that Hendrix College is part of a global community. But, it is Ian King that has ensured that we embrace that reality rather than resist it. As a result, hundreds of students (including this one) are more prepared to understand and shape that world.

Hendrix College passed an important milestone on Dec. 31, 2010. A Commitment to National Leadership: The Hendrix Campaign came to a successful close. With the support of alumni, parents, friends, foundations and the United Methodist Church we surpassed our campaign goals. We raised more than $101.3 million and fulfilled the Trustees’ priority to position Hendrix as a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education.

This campaign financed a variety of new facilities that have raised the level of experience for all Hendrix students including the Art Buildings, the Wellness and Athletics Center, and the Student Life and Technology Center. But, the construction projects are only the most visible result of our fund-raising efforts. The Hendrix Campaign was about more than bricks and mortar. It was about programmatic changes and curricular and co-curricular changes that were entrepreneurial and innovative.

Many of the goals of the campaign are embodied in Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning. Odyssey was created by taking things that are organic to us and that represent what we value about the nature of our liberal arts and sciences education and making them real for all our students.

Your Hendrix Odyssey has lengthened the shadow of the institution and has created a national buzz. We’ve created that buzz by putting a name to what we believe and putting the dollars behind it to make it happen. We created things like the Odyssey Endowment that funds student grants, Odyssey Distinction Awards that recognize students for their gifts, talents and passions, and Odyssey Professorships that provide grants to fuel faculty creativity and innovation.

Through the course of this campaign, one new idea has led to another idea: together we have built the momentum necessary to move Hendrix forward. With the campaign complete, it is our task to build on our current momentum and keep Hendrix moving forward. To that end, we have already begun the process that will lead to another set of Board Priorities like the 2003 version that served as the impetus for this campaign.

The next strategic initiative will be focused on how we secure ourselves as an institution that is prestigious, has broad market appeal and is firmly positioned as the leader in hands-on liberal arts and sciences education. Over the next year or so, in conversation with the Trustees, the faculty, students, alumni and friends of the College, we will outline a new vision for the future of Hendrix – a vision for 2022 that will help launch students on their life’s odyssey. Our vision will be bold and our goals ambitious. A bold vision and ambitious goals will inspire us to continue our journey and see what new wonders we can discover together on our Hendrix Odyssey.

J. Timothy Cloyd, Ph.D.
President