Hendrix Alumni Blogazine

By HELEN PLOTKIN, Editor

The Hendrix faculty is experiencing a changing of the guard. A cohort of faculty who came to Hendrix in 1970s is beginning to retire at the same time that the College is hiring additional faculty to meet the demands of growing enrollment. The Hendrix Board of Trustees has set an enrollment goal of 1,300 by 2013 and mandated that the College maintain a 12-to-1 student-faculty ratio.

To meet those goals and ensure that Hendrix can continue to boast of having a faculty that is among the nation’s best, Dr. Robert L. Entzminger, provost and dean of the College, invests a great deal of time and effort in recruiting faculty.

Over the last two years, Dr. Entzminger has overseen the hiring of 35 new faculty members. Eighteen new faculty joined the Hendrix ranks during the 2007-08 academic year, including eight in tenure-track positions. So far, the College has hired 17 new faculty for the 2008-09 year, eight of them in tenure-track positions.

Faculty are the heart of a liberal arts college dedicated to undergraduate education. As the College’s chief academic officer identifying top scholars who are right for Hendrix is a top priority for Provost Entzminger.

“I need to be confident that the person understands the kind of institution that Hendrix is and is willing to make a commitment to high-quality liberal arts education,” Dr. Entzminger said. “More than that, I want to find people who will bring something else to the table -- an interest in interdisciplinary work or a talent or specialty that will allow us to develop a new area of study that will bring real value for our students.”

The right faculty member for Hendrix is also someone who loves teaching and who puts students first.

“The faculty at Hendrix are unusually dedicated to their students,” Dr. Entzminger said.

Finding that right person involves faculty, staff and students from across campus. The search committee usually involves faculty members from inside and outside the hiring department. The Committee on Faculty, the provost and associate provosts, and the president are also part of the process. It is a time-consuming process, but a vital one, Dr. Entzminger said.

“The search process has helped us get great candidates,” he said. “In a tenure-track search, we just don’t let anybody settle. If it’s not the right person, we won’t offer them the position. Sometimes that means we have to close a search and then start it all over again until we can find someone who is right for Hendrix.”

Sometimes the right person can be found close to home

“Over the last two years, we have added four alumni to the faculty,” Dr. Entzminger said. “That speaks well of the education they received at Hendrix and of the esteem in which they hold this institution. They ‘get’ what we do here and are eager to return and help sustain that tradition.”

The new professors joining the Hendrix faculty in tenure-track positions this fall, include 2000 Hendrix graduate Courtney Mashburn Hatch as assistant professor of chemistry and 2002 graduate Megan Leonard as assistant professor of economics and business, Ph.D. from Texas A&M University

Other new tenure-track faculty for the 2008-09 year include:

• William Hacker, assistant professor of English, Ph.D. from Cornell University
• Brett Hill, assistant professor of sociology/anthropology, Ph.D. from Arizona State University.
• Kristi McKim, assistant professor of English/film studies, Ph.D. from Emory University.
• Aleksandra Pfau, assistant professor of history, A.B.D., University of Michigan.
• Andrew Scott, assistant professor of foreign languages, A.B.D., Rutgers University.
• Bobby Williamson, assistant professor of religion, A.B.D., Emory University. 

If the College continues to hire alumni as faculty members, there should be ample choices. Recently available data shows that about 10.6 percent of students graduating from Hendrix between 1995 and 1999 had earned a Ph.D. degree by 2006. Of the 1,469 colleges and universities surveyed, Hendrix ranked 28^th in the percentage of its graduates earning a doctorate within six years of graduation.

Examining the data by discipline, put Hendrix in the No. 1 position of percentage of graduates earning a Ph.D. in psychology - above Wellesley, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore and Vassar. The College was eighth in chemistry; ninth in education, and 24^th in English and literature.

Analysis of the study showed that liberal arts colleges, overall, graduate a high percentage of students who earn doctoral degrees.

Learn more about recent Hendrix graduates, Dr. Lindsey C. Smith ’98 and Dr. Karen L. Steelman ’98, who earned Ph.D. degrees and returned to the classroom to teach others in our other blog entries.

Q. Is is time to say farewell?
A. Sadly, yes.

Five long-time Hendrix faculty who are either retiring at the end of the spring semester or are currently in phased retirement recently took the time to answer a set of probing questions asked by student writer Katie Rice ’10. Here are their answers to her questions and your opportunity to add your comments and memories about these Hendrix faculty legends.

Dr. Keith Berry
Dr. A. Bland Crowder
Dr. Garrett McAinsh
Dr. Richard Rolleigh
Dr. Warfield Teague 

Dr. Karen Steelman ’98 is an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Central Arkansas. She remembers discovering her passion for archaeological chemistry at Hendrix. The liberal arts’ emphasis on broad-based education at Hendrix revealed an area of interest she didn’t know that she had.

“I started out as a history major.  I have always been passionate about history and archaeology, but I love science as well.  The faculty at Hendrix encouraged me to find areas of study that encompassed all of these interests,” Steelman said.  “One day Dr. Liz Gron handed me a book that she had ordered for the library.  It contained research papers on different aspects of archaeological chemistry.  I read the whole thing and was hooked.”

Her newly discovered interest also led to Steelman’s successful application for a Watson Fellowship. Winning the national award gave her the opportunity to travel the world for a year after graduation, studying “Conservation & Museum Display” in Great Britian, Australia and Costa Rica.

Steelman connects her later success in graduate studies to the variety of skills that a liberal arts education at Hendrix gave her.

“At Hendrix, I learned the value of life-long learning.  And, because of my liberal arts education, I was much more well-rounded than other students entering graduate school in chemistry,” she said. “Hendrix gave me a solid grounding in science, but also taught me how to be a better writer and researcher -- skills that are very important in a scientific career.”

Karen Steelman is a perfect example of the importance of interdisciplinary studies and the role a liberal arts institution like Hendrix can play in students’ lives. She now has a job that allows her to pursue all of her interests. “My favorite part of archaeological chemistry research is being able to explain chemistry to archaeologists and explain archaeology to chemists,” Steelman said.

Dr. Lindsey C. Smith ’98 has been an assistant professor of English at Oklahoma State University since earning a doctorate in English from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill in 2006.

She credits the academic atmosphere at Hendrix with helping her prepare for her career in academe.  

“The arc of my career has been rigorous, challenging, pressure-filled, though not overly competitive. That’s the way Hendrix was – and I think getting started early really helps,” she said.

Smith took the Hendrix idea of a supportive community and an open exchange of ideas with her into her graduate studies and professional career.

“I remember studying a lot – talking with my friends about ideas, working on papers together. My friends took ideas seriously,” she said. “We had a community of ideas and that’s the way it should be among faculty in a department. You need that fluid, rejuvenating community to nurture ideas and keep learning.”

Along with the Hendrix idea of community, Smith also took along the memories of the professors who served as role models for her.

“The professors here are rigorous and we – my fellow students and I – wanted to impress them and to be like them,” Smith said. “The experiences I had at Hendrix helped me see what a difference it made to approach teaching with professionalism – to present myself as a professional. That put me ahead of others in graduate school.”

Most of all, after completing her undergraduate studies at Hendrix, Smith had the confidence that she could succeed in her field.

“You do have to have confidence in yourself to go after a doctorate. The attention from professors in a small department helps give you that confidence. I feel like they actually care about what I’m doing,” Smith said.