Hendrix Alumni Blogazine

Ten years ago, Mrs. Jeanette Gregg of Fort Smith established a Charitable Gift Annuity Trust to benefit Hendrix College in memory of her husband and Hendrix alumnus, Raymond Gregg, who died Dec. 1, 1986. After graduating from Hendrix in 1927, he attended medical school in Arkansas and, later, Northwestern University.

Mrs. Gregg funded the charitable gift annuity trust with $100,000 and received monthly income from the trust for the remainder of her life. The gift allowed her to gain immediate tax benefit, provide a guaranteed life income for herself and establish a gift to her husband’s alma mater. She directed that the proceeds of the charitable gift annuity trust be used to establish an endowed scholarship in her late husband’s name at the time of her death.

In addition, Mrs. Gregg made provision in her will for Hendrix to receive $50,000 as an unrestricted gift at the time of her death.

When Mrs. Gregg passed away on Jan. 25, 2006, Hendrix received her unrestricted gift of $50,000, which will be used to support the priorities of the current capital campaign. And when her estate is settled, the college will receive the proceeds of her charitable gift annuity trust to establish the scholarship.

Life income gifts like a charitable gift annuity or a charitable remainder trust continue to be an increasingly popular means of institutional giving among Hendrix supporters who are looking to maximize value, minimize costs and establish a meaningful legacy for future students.

These gift instruments are particularly appealing to individuals who would like to establish an endowed scholarship or other endowed program at Hendrix but also wish to preserve a certain level of personal income for the remainder of their lives.

In the case of the charitable gift annuity, the donor receives immediate income tax benefit and is guaranteed a secured stream of income for the remainder of his or her life. Additionally, there is potential for removing a highly appreciated asset from the estate — and thereby reducing exposure to capital gains taxes.

Most importantly, a significant gift will pass to Hendrix at the end of the donor’s life, allowing the donor to establish a permanent legacy with the College.

While we were all saddened to learn of the passing of Jeanette Gregg, we can celebrate the trust she and her husband placed in Hendrix.

An interest in Zen recently took three Hendrix students on a life-changing Odyssey experience to Japan where they spent time meditating alongside Buddhist monks, exploring historic temples and experiencing the city of Kyoto.

Sam Henry, Ryan Norman and Nick Pippins spent two weeks of their Christmas break immersed in Japanese culture and the Zen religion. While there, they were able to participate in traditional cultural activities and more closely experience the Zen lifestyle.

“Having the privilege to see and do what this trip allowed the three of us to do is more than I could have ever dreamed of,” said Henry, a freshman from Conway. “It was really a dream of mine to get to go to Japan, and for it to happen this early in my life has been truly amazing.”

Kyoto, with a population of 1.5 million, is located on the mid-western section of Honshu, the largest island of Japan. Formerly the imperial city of Japan, Kyoto is considered the cultural center of the country, with more than 1,600 Buddhist temples and an abundance of pre-war architecture.

The three students stayed in Zen temples and started every morning with an hour of meditation, which involved a sitting meditation, a walking meditation, a chanting of the Heart Sutra and an occasional blow from the “stick of compassion.”

“The rest of the time we spent attending lectures from Zen scholars and Zen priests, visiting temples and gardens, and just digging the city,” said Norman, a sophomore from Fayetteville.

The students also participated in educational demonstrations and lectures at Hanazono University that included participating in a traditional tea service and practicing Zen archery.

The students felt a warm welcome from the priests at the temples and the citizens of Kyoto. “The people I met in Kyoto are some of the most genuinely nice and hospitable people I have ever met,” said Henry.

Norman agreed: “There was lots of sporadic kindness from strangers.”

The students were asked to keep a daily journal in order to reflect on their experience and meditate on the insights they had gained. Norman shared a passage from his journal: “I breakfasted on tangerines and biked down to the Zendo to start off the morning with an hour of zazen. The priest beat the wooden block with his mallet, and if you wanted to break the rules and peek, you'd see that a massive hole was bored into the block from centuries of mallet beating from stubble-headed priests. It was so loud that it felt like he was knocking on the inside of my skull. Sit, walk, bow to receive the stick of compassion across my shoulders, wince, bow and sit again. And then comes the chanting of the Heart Sutra, a long and clean monotone melody of hard syllables sung in deep growling voices. But I don't know Japanese so I just listen.”

The Japan trip was funded by a grant from the Odyssey Program, a new curricular initiative at Hendrix that coordinates all experiential learning for Hendrix students. Henry, Norman and Pippins wrote a proposal for the Japanese project.

Norman credits his interest in Zen with having three “geniuses” for teachers, including Jay McDaniel, Hendrix professor of religion.

“I was really impressed with the way that they (the professors) lived their lives and the quality of their character, and so when I learned that they each had practiced meditation, I made sure to find out all that I could from them and then went on to explore it on my own,” Norman said.

Pippins, a sophomore from Austin, Texas, described the Kyoto experience as “the culmination of years of interest and education in my life.” He credits his family with giving him a rich background in different religious practices.

Henry’s attraction to Japan began in elementary school when she was interested in anime, a Japanese style of animation, and later she became fascinated with the country’s history.

“It really wasn’t until the past couple of years that I began to look at Zen from a more anthropological perspective,” she said.

The trip has had lasting effects on Norman’s outlook and future plans. “I feel much more focused and directed,” he said. “I’ve decided that it’s important to make good use of all the resources that I have right now — the people that I know, the classes that I’m taking, the work that I can do here.”

Henry, who had previously never traveled alone, now plans to spend her junior year studying abroad in Japan.

“This trip has let me kind of step out on my own and prove to myself and everyone else that I can hold my own in the world,” she said.

On returning, the students shared their experiences with Dr. McDaniel, who is a United Methodist. When asked about the relationship of learning from Zen to education at Hendrix, McDaniel explained: “Students like Ryan, Nick, and Samantha embody the best of liberal arts education: a willingness to learn from others and be transformed in the process.”

He added, “It might seem odd, given the relation Hendrix has with the United Methodist Church, that Hendrix would help students go to Japan and learn about another religion and about a culture with Shinto, Confucian, and Buddhist backgrounds. But the Methodist tradition is ecumenical in outlook. We Methodists trust that the divine spirit has been present throughout the world in wisdom-revealing ways, and that the calling of the Christian is to be open to truth wherever it is found, trustful that it is of God and from God, however named. To learn from other traditions is to extend the healing hand of friendship and help bring about the very peace that the world sorely needs.

“Ryan, Nick, and Sam say that they learned a lot about themselves. I think that, in their small way, they were vessels of peace through friendship. Their odyssey was an example of global awareness and also, still more deeply, service to the world. That’s what Odyssey is all about.”

Read more about the new Odyssey grants.

While most Hendrix faculty staff members were enjoying the last few days of Christmas break, Leigh Lassiter-Counts ’01 boarded a plane for Quesada, Costa Rica, to participate in a mission trip sponsored by the Hendrix-Lilly Vocations Initiative.

As associate director of Alumni Relations, Lassiter-Counts undertook the trip not only because of her personal interest, but also so that she could better interpret for alumni the impact of the programming offered through the Hendrix- Lilly program.

Dr. Peg Falls-Corbitt, Hendrix professor of philosophy and director of the Vocations Initiative, describes the program’s goal as seeking to identify and nurture a new generation of religiously committed leaders, particularly those who will pursue careers in the ministry or other faith-related fields or who seek to integrate their faith commitments in whatever career they chose.

“The Hendrix motto, ‘Unto the whole person,’ is one that commits us to helping students integrate what academic study so often fragments: knowledge and practice, self-fulfillment and service, secular duties and faith commitments,” Falls-Corbitt said. “These fragments are woven together when we think of life as a call to live for high and  meaningful purposes. The Hendrix-Lilly Vocation Initiative aims to enhance cocurricular activities and develop academic opportunities to help students do exactly that.”

For Lassiter-Counts, a week helping others in Costa Rica was a life-affirming experience — an emotional, as well as a physical journey. She describes the last day of her  trip: “It’s Jan. 13 ... and it’s 95 degrees ... Toto, we’re definitely not in Arkansas anymore! We’re in Pital, Costa Rica, to be exact, and this past week 10 Hendrix students, two other faculty/staff members and I have: hung gutters, taught 50 children Bible verses and songs (in Spanish and English, I might add), scaled a ridiculously scary ladder to scrape rust off the church roof, and painted and wallpapered six Sunday School rooms ... yet I am not tired, I’m exuberant. I remember how this church looked when we got here six days ago, and I see how it looks now because of the sweat and muscle of this extraordinary group of Hendrix folks.

“This is the last night of our mission trip and when we returned tonight to the small Methodist church we’ve been working on all week, the enthusiastic squeals of the village children greeted us announcing our arrival to those who had gathered. The entire congregation came to the church tonight and as we stepped off the bus, we were hugged and kissed and blessed by almost everyone there. I’ve never had such a feeling (or greeting) in my entire life. This greeting has made the cold showers and sleeping on the floor worth it in so many ways.”

“To explore vocation through a personal sense of calling is the main tenet of the Hendrix-Lilly program, and its primary reason for sponsoring mission trips such as ours. While each member of our trip will discover his or her own vocations in life, we all now have planted in us the seeds of the calling to serve.

“Our week in Costa Rica has given us a new perspective on the world. What we’ve learned is, I believe, monumental. We have learned that we are all cosmically linked, that one good deed returns another, and that one group must scrape the rust off of the roof in order for the next to paint it.”

Susan Perry, an assistant professor of education at Hendrix, has found a way to give Hendrix students real-life teaching experience that is making a difference in the lives of children in Conway.

Last year, Perry created the Hendrix Early Literacy Program (HELP) as a way to provide her students with experience in early childhood education, while at the same time giving elementary students some much-needed extra classroom time. Funded by the Hendrix- Murphy Foundation and the Hendrix Odyssey Program, HELP is a model of experiential learning. The HELP program is a good fit for Hendrix’s curricular Odyssey Program designed to give students practical yet purposeful experience that will help shape their future after college.

Perry’s students are responsible for teaching three lessons a week to small groups of children at Sallie Cone Elementary School in Conway.

“College students should be active in what they’re learning,” Perry said. “They should be working with children.”

Perry said her college students have been overwhelmingly positive about the teaching experience they are receiving. Though most of them already have demanding work loads, the majority of her education majors voted to add an all-teaching class to next year’s schedule.

“This is interesting because the students themselves are the ones requesting more work,” Perry said.

The generous grants Perry received from the Hendrix-Murphy Foundation and the Odyssey Office, specifically with the help of Hendrix Associate Provost David Sutherland, have been used to assemble the supplies needed to start the HELP program.

Perry purchased Guided Reading books, a type of book that classifies books based on their reading level. This system allows teachers to assess where their students are reading and to help them reach the next level. Studies show that Guided Reading really works, but the books are expensive, she said.

HELP is not only beneficial for elementary school students; it has also helped college students. One of Perry’s students, Hendrix senior Ashleigh McGee of Gulf Shores, Ala., spent last summer helping Perry analyze the hundreds of books that needed to be catalogued in order to start HELP. Perry said McGee now has the skills to easily assess a child’s reading level and find the book appropriate to that level. Because of her experiences in the program, McGee has already been offered a teaching position in Little Rock after she graduates.

The only stumbling block to the success of HELP is lack of funding, according to Perry, who said most of the money she received has gone directly to purchasing books.

“People don’t realize how expensive books are, but once we have them we can use them forever,” she said.

Sallie Cone has already requested that Hendrix offer another program at the school, expanding from K-1 to K-4. Perry is hoping to get her students into the elementary schools as much as possible, so the expanded program is mutually beneficial.

“I can honestly say I have never been this busy,” Perry said, “but I believe that we really need to hit the early childhood population because they are so young and ready to soak up the information.”

Photo by Anthony Reyes, courtesy of Log Cabin Democrat