Hendrix Alumni Blogazine

Sheri Bylander ’85 directed Homestretch, a documentary that premiered April 13, 2007, at the Sonoma Valley Film Festival. Homestretch tells the story of the power of horses to help heal the hearts of prison inmates.

“Our society warehouses convicts, often in subhuman living conditions. On a parallel track, the world of thoroughbred racing routinely sends over-the-hill horses to the slaughterhouse,” Sheri says.

The film pairs inmates with end-of-career horses and records the changes the inmates experience as a result of this relationship.

Pat Lile ’60, president and CEO of the Arkansas Community Foundation (ARCF), announced her retirement, and the board of directors named ARCF executive vice president Heather Larkin Eason ’93, JD, CPA as incoming President and CEO. The Arkansas Community Foundation is an independent philanthropic organization serving donors, the nonprofit sector and the communities of Arkansas.  ARCF has made grants totaling almost $42 million during its 30-year history.

Lile said her decision to retire ties to recent milestones reached by the Foundation – surpassing $100 million in assets in its 30th anniversary year, moving to office space in the train station with room for future growth and the achievement of significant sustainability and credibility.

 “It is a great feeling to go out at the top of my game,” she said.  “Also, I’m turning 70 next year and I want to spend more time with my husband, children and grandchildren.” A native of Hope, she and her husband, John ’59, a Little Rock attorney, have four children and five grandchildren.

A native of Charleston, Eason graduated from Hendrix College with distinction in Economics and Business. She uses her law and accounting background to work with donors, professional advisors and affiliate community foundations to build philanthropic funds for the benefit of Arkansas. In 2001, she was named a Hull Fellow and attended the Hull Leadership Program, a program to nurture and inspire the Southeast’s next generation of philanthropic leaders. In 2005, she was selected as one of five Americans to be a Transatlantic Community Foundation Fellow.  

John Patterson ’75 was named president of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association (ATLA) for the 2007-2008 fiscal year. He is the first sitting president to be elected to a second term in the 44-year history of the organization. Patterson was handed the symbolic gavel from past president John Belew ’68 during the awards luncheon at the organization’s annual convention.

Patterson is currently the president of Ring 308 of the International Brotherhood of Magicians where he performs a free annual Holiday of Lights magic show for White County residents. In his acceptance speech, he used the ATLA president’s gavel as a magic wand to levitate a glass of water as he spoke of the magic of ATLA before toasting the members.

Patterson has many years of experience as a leader of the Arkansas Trial Lawyers Association. He has served on the board of governors since 2000 and has been a member of the executive committee since 2004, serving as secretary-treasurer and then vice president in 2005.

Patterson is also a member of the American Association for Justice, the Arkansas Bar Association, and is a past president of the White County Bar Association. Patterson has led numerous legal education seminars around the state instructing other lawyers on how to represent injured clients.

A former Arkansas State Golf Champion, Patterson was elected to the Sports Hall of Honor at Hendrix College in 2002. He is married to Cara Walker Patterson '77 and has two daughters, Anna Patterson Strong '04, an analyst with Acxiom Corporation in Conway, and Amy W. Patterson, the director of weekday child ministries at St. James United Methodist Church in Little Rock. His son-in-law, Aaron C. Strong ’03, is a third-year medical student at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Checking the charts and noting progress

Hendrix is charting progress. We’re moving ahead quickly. We’re looking back to note how far we’ve come. We’re looking forward, scanning the horizon and turning our sextant toward the stars to make sure we stay on course.

So, what is the result of all this reconnaissance? How are we doing?

Great! Your college is making progress on every front. The progress we have made so far is impressive and inspiring. Some examples:

• By the time you read this message, I am confident we will have met our original $70 million campaign goal more than a year ahead of schedule. We stand at $69 million today, with more gifts and pledges expected to arrive before the end of the year.
• We have raised our campaign goal to $100 million and extended the end date to 2010.
• We have received two challenge grants that, when met, will generate $12 million in endowed funds to support the Odyssey program and embed it in the Hendrix culture.
• We have built an endowment of more than $10 million to support scholarships and financial aid.
• We opened a new $23 million Wellness and Athletics Center with a dinner and a convocation attended by more than 700 people where former U.S. Senator Bill Bradley was the featured speaker.
• We have awarded close to $1 million in grants to support 1,747 Odyssey projects involving Hendrix students and faculty on campus, throughout the United States and on six continents. Odyssey projects have life-changing impact on students like Lynn Christenson ’09 whose work feeding children at an orphanage in Tanzania helped her discover how she can make a difference in the world.
• We have selected Hendrix alumni to receive honors, among them the 2007-08 Odyssey Medals, which will be presented on Thursday, Feb. 7.
• We have seen close friends of the College honored. On Nov. 14, Lucile Shivley ’32, a long-time supporter of Hendrix, was named 2007 Outstanding Philanthropist of the Year by the Arkansas chapter of the Association of Fundraising Professionals (AFP). Hendrix nominated Lucile for the well-deserved honor. Her youthful joy in giving is an inspiration to all of us.

We have accomplished much and we have many reasons to celebrate. Yet Hendrix’s odyssey toward national leadership in engaged liberal arts education is just beginning. There is so much more ahead – so many more moments of triumph to savor, so many more challenges to overcome – before this journey ends.

The first challenges on our horizon are housing a growing student population, endowing the Odyssey Program to ensure that this vital component of the College’s curriculum remains a part of our culture and building a new Student Life and Technology Center to meet the needs of Hendrix students now and in the future.

We are addressing the need for housing by beginning construction on townhouses at the intersection of Mills and Front streets (adjacent to the Art buildings) that will provide space for 70 students in the fall of 2008. We are also, with guidance from the campus master plan, evaluating sites for new on-campus housing, and are considering several options for student housing in The Village at Hendrix, the retail and residential neighborhood being developed east of Harkrider.

Keeping Hendrix at the forefront of American higher education is the unifying goal of The Campaign for Hendrix and is at the center of our discussions about the College’s future. To establish and maintain Hendrix as a national leader in engaged liberal arts is the reason we are raising $100 million by 2010. When we reach this goal, we should have the funds to support the Odyssey Program in perpetuity and to construct the kind of Student Life and Technology Center that will meet the needs of Hendrix students in the 21^st century.

We can’t reach our goal without your continued support. I encourage you to become involved with Hendrix and discover how your support can make a difference in the lives of today’s students. I believe we really are changing the lives of those who can change the world.

When it comes to service through education, several Hendrix professors have focused on partnerships with public schools in Arkansas in attempt to raise the achievement of elementary and secondary students.

H.E.L.P.

Hendrix College’s Early Literacy Program – a partnership between Hendrix College and Sallie Cone Elementary School in Conway – was created in 2004 by Dr. Susan Perry as an intervention program at the elementary school, allowing Hendrix students to work with children who need extra help reading or writing. The program began in grades K-2 but quickly expanded into third and forth grades soon after it was first implemented.

The program has continued and remains an interactive learning tool for education students enrolled at Hendrix College. Through HELP, Hendrix students begin working with small groups of children on a weekly basis throughout the spring semester of their sophomore year when they enroll in a course titled “Children's Literature.” During the experience, Hendrix students are expected to incorporate children's literature into all of their weekly lessons which include a variety of instructional techniques, including readers' theatre, interactive reading aloud, storytelling, puppetry, and other innovative lessons. Students continue working in the program during their junior years as they enroll in the upper-level education courses at Hendrix.

As Hendrix students work with their small groups of children, they are coached by the instructor of the course. Lessons are video-taped and critiqued by classmates and instructors on a weekly basis so Hendrix students can improve their teaching techniques, skills, and strategies. Hendrix students guide all of their instruction using a variety of assessments they administer to their children at the beginning and middle of the semester. All assessment information is shared with each child's teacher. 

The program has been so successful it is used as a model by other institution and recently received the Innovation in Teacher Education Award from the Southeastern Regional Association of Teacher Educators (SRATE). 

Above the Line

The Above the Line Project, funded by Hendrix College Odyssey program and designed by Dr. James Jennings, an associate professor of education and history at Hendrix, studied 22 third graders in the Forrest City School District 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.

The Above the Line Project also aims to use strategies to improve parental attitudes toward education and involvement by providing parental support skills, as measured by pre- and post-attitudinal surveys and periodic implementation surveys. All 20 parents surveyed as a part of the recent Above the Line Project at Forrest City answered “Yes” when asked “If the Above the Line Project could be offered as an after-school program at your school, would you be interested in enrolling your child?”, while only one of the parents said they would not be interested in attending a special monthly class for parents designed to provide parenting skills associated with learning at home.

Feedback from the Forrest City parents was wholly positive.

“During this project it allowed me to really evaluate myself as a parent,” one parent wrote on the anonymous survey. “I thought I was active with my child because I was present with him. But I can see that if I slack off of him any he will slack off also. So it’s my responsibility to make sure that he’s performing at a level where he needs to be by any means necessary.”

Ridin’ Dirty with Science

Science was made fun this past summer for a group of public school students in Conway. A team of Hendrix College students, led by Hendrix associate chemistry professor Dr. Liz Gron, hosted “Ridin’ Dirty with Science,” a free two-day camp for students in grades 4-7. The Hendrix students teamed with the Faulkner County Boys and Girls Club for the project in attempt to foster an interest in science in elementary and middle school students.

The camp included three main lab experiments. The first was “The Invisible: What grows on water fountains, doorknobs, and telephones?” The second experiment was “Caught Dirty Handed: Are your hands clean after washing them?” The final experiment was “Cleaning with Oranges: How to make cleaning products from orange peels and dry ice.”

Faulkner County Boys and Girls Club program director, Marie Abrams, believes this is a great opportunity for the kids to learn. “Most of the children now want to be scientists after ‘Ridin’ Dirty with Science.’”

Camp participants aren’t the only ones who learned from this project. “The Hendrix students organizing this activity learned about translating science to other students, how to organize and manage a large project and how to network with the larger Conway community,” said Gron.