Hendrix Alumni Blogazine

Becky Revoal ’07 takes 10-month ‘orientation trip’ with AmeriCorps

By RAE HAMAKER '10

Becky Revoal ’07 has chosen to dedicate the past ten months to national, team-based service work, through AmeriCorps National Civilian Community Corps (NCCC).

“When I graduated I felt sort of like the wind had been knocked out of me,” Revoal explains. “Hendrix had been all of life for me for quite a while, and I wasn't really sure what my next step would be like. I was sad to leave the classroom/out of classroom/Pecan Grove discussions, and experiences like orientation.”

The program gives members the opportunity to gain skills in many different areas including construction, education, unmet human needs, environmental work, leadership, and supervision.

“I joined Americorps NCCC without really knowing what to expect and what I got was one long, ridiculous, and wonderful orientation trip,” Revoal says.

During her time at Hendrix, Revoal was already interested in humanitarian problems. As a junior, she received Odyssey funding for a semester-long trip to Australia to learn more about disappearing Aboriginal culture. When asked about her future plans, the music major then said, “A big chunk of me is a performer, so a part of me just wants to do that all the time. A big part of me is also an activist. I wish I could be there, with Aboriginal people or whoever the downtrodden folk are, just learning and soaking in their culture.” It’s no surprise at Hendrix that her interest in helping others has shaped her plans after graduation.

Revoal’s team completed a total of four projects. On their first project, the team acted as supervisors of volunteers with the St. Bernard Project assisting with the rebuilding of homes in the lower 9^th Ward of New Orleans. They then traveled to North Hollywood, Calif., where they served alongside teachers at Larchmont Charter School. The team’s third project was in Mobile, Ala., where they assisted Habitat for Humanity and focused on Hurricanes Katrina and Irvine relief efforts.

“It has been the most gratifying experience of my life,” says Revoal. “My view and outlook on life and the world in which I live are a direct reflection of the service I have completed.”

The team’s most recent project took place in Pass Christian, Miss., where they rebuilt homes with The Grey Hut, a non-profit organization that connects homeowners who are working to rebuild after the hurricane with volunteers who can provide skilled labor at no charge. Pass Christian was one of the areas hit the hardest by Hurricane Katrina.

“My Hendrix experience has helped me to survive the tough times and appreciate the good. I am currently in training for another 10 months as a Team Leader managing 12 individuals as we journey toward making the country and ourselves better,” Revoal says.

A photographic journey through German concentration camps, an internship with a “Bollywood” movie production company in India, a mission to equip Mexican orphanages with computers, and the continued development of the “Hendrix Community Garden” in Conway – Hendrix College awarded grants for 55 such engaged-learning experiences to its students and faculty in April, totaling more than $197,000 through the college’s Odyssey Program.

The grant awards were the largest awarded in Odyssey Program’s thee-year history. In total, Hendrix has awarded more than $1 million to support student and faculty projects since the Odyssey Program was launched in 2005.

The Hendrix Odyssey Program requires Hendrix students to complete three Odyssey experiences during their undergraduate career in areas selected from six categories: Artistic creativity, global awareness, professional and leadership development, service to the world, undergraduate research and special projects. Students and faculty define what course of study they’d like to experience, and award decisions are ultimately made by the college’s Committee on Experiential Learning.

This summer, Hendrix students Lauren Bartshe and Julie Champlin will travel to Germany and Poland to visit concentration camps primarily used to house and kill prisoners during World War II. At each site, they will record the camp’s current state and eventually pair each image with writings by Holocaust survivors, American soldiers and prison guards. The images and writings will be used in a book they will design and produce.

Hendrix student Aditya Oza will travel to India where he will experience the country’s filmmaking industry behind the scenes as an assistant to the production crew for a movie scheduled to begin filming in June. The popular film industry based in Mumbai, India – often referred to as “Bollywood” – produces approximately 40 percent more films each year than its American counterpart and grosses more than $100 million a year at the U.S. box office alone.

Closer to home, Hendrix students Ben Samuelson, James Depper and Emily Nichols will continue the development of the Hendrix Community Garden, a produce garden adjacent to campus that was originally created as an Odyssey project in 2005. The garden has seen several harvests of significant amounts of produce, and the new phase will create additional plots and enrich soil with mulch and fertilizer.

“Our society is structured in a way that demands instant gratification, but gardening is a patient activity in which steady working and waiting make results more deeply satisfying,” Samuelson said.

In all, students will travel to numerous countries around the globe this summer -- from Little Rock to Kansas to Australia to the Republic of Georgia.

For more information about this summer’s Odyssey Projects and other projects funded since 2005, visit www.hendrix.edu/Odyssey.

Hendrix College has filled its first five (of a projected 12) Odyssey Professorships, all beginning in the 2008-2009 academic year. Odyssey professorships are held for limited periods, usually one to three years, and support faculty development and faculty-student collaborative projects.  The five inaugural Odyssey professors are:

Professor of Chemistry Tom Goodwin has been named to the Julia Mobley Odyssey Professorship.  Goodwin, the 2003 Carnegie U. S. Professor of the Year for Baccalaureate Institutions, will involve Hendrix students, as well as local high school students and science faculty, in pursuing research on chemical communication among mammals.

Professor Joyce Hardin, Associate Professor Matt Moran, and Assistant Professor George Harper, all of the Biology Department, will jointly hold the Judy and Randy Wilbourn Odyssey Professorship, developing research and internship opportunities for Hendrix students in partnership with the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation and the Nature Conservancy.

Professor of Politics and International Relations Ian King is the recipient of the Morriss and Ann Henry Odyssey Professorship.  He will pursue his research interest in Latin American politics, culminating in a study trip to Latin America with several Hendrix students.

Professor of Religion Jay McDaniel has been named to the Nancy and Craig Wood Odyssey Professorship, combining his interest in sustainability with research, service, and internship opportunities for students in partnership with Heifer International.

Professor of Economics Tom Stanley has been named to the Bill and Connie Bowen Odyssey Professorship.  Stanley’s project will involve students in international research projects in economics, will fund their participation in international conferences, and will allow them to be involved in the hosting of an international colloquium at Hendrix in 2010.

Each Odyssey Professorship is backed by a $500,000 endowment. A $3 million challenge grant from R. Madison and Suzanne Nodini Murphy, both ’80, and the Murphy Foundation was the catalyst that ignited the Odyssey Professorship program. Their grant matches gifts of $250,000 dollar for dollar to establish the first 12 professorships.

Over the past two years, the Willard and Pat Walker Charitable Foundation has awarded
$300,000 in grants to Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning.

This spring, the Walker Foundation awarded a $2 million challenge grant to support the College’s efforts to endow the Hendrix Odyssey Program in perpetuity.

Recent funds created in response to the Walker Odyssey Challenge include:

• The Carol Downs Sharp and Bob Sharp Endowed Scholarship Fund established by the couple for students with demonstrated academic ability and financial need.

• The Oran J. Vaughan Endowed Scholarship Fund established by James W. Bost in memory Oran J. Vaughan for students with an interest or major in history.

• The G.L. Bahner Odyssey Endowment established by LeRoy and Frances Hendricks with matching funds from IBM in honor of Mr. Gustavus L. Bahner and the Hendricks family.

• The Dr. Darren and Julia McGuire Odyssey Endowment for students with an interest in the medical or health sciences.

• The Telos Endowed Scholarship Fund established with a gift from the Arkansas Community Foundation, Inc. for seniors graduating from high school in Arkansas.

• The Al and Beverlyn Eckert Odyssey Endowment to benefit students’ experiential opportunities to enhance their understanding of environmental studies.

To find out more about how you can help meet the Walker Challenge, contact the Office of Advancement at 501-450-1223.

A surprise for the teacher

Dr. Richard Rolleigh ’67 reacts to the news that Dr. R. Edward Hendrick ’68 has given a generous gift to establish the Richard Rolleigh Odyssey Endowment Fund for Undergraduate Research at Hendrix. Dr. Rolleigh, who is retiring after teaching physics at Hendrix for 34 years, has just concluded his Last Lecture during Alumni Weekend. The drawing in the background is part of his illustration of the theory of relativity.

Ten students from Hendrix are forging new territory while on a study tour this summer in East Asia.This is the first time Hendrix has sponsored a student tour to East Asia, and it is the first time American students have studied at Heilongjiang University in Harbin, an industrial city that has historical ties to former Eastern Bloc nations.

The entourage left Little Rock July 3 for a 15-day tour known as "The China Odyssey." Hendrix Professor Jay McDaniel is leading the tour, which begins in Beijing. For their first four days, students will tour the Great Wall and visit the Forbidden City, a Taoist temple and a Buddhist monastery.  They will also meet with students from Beijing Normal University, which is a teaching college. 

From Beijing, they will take an overnight train ride to Harbin where they will stay in apartments provided by Heilongjiang University.  Hendrix and Chinese students will participate in a four-day morning course, "Process Thought and Chinese Thought in an Age of Globalization," which Dr. McDaniel will teach at the university.  In class, students will study and discuss process thought, higher education and globalization.  Dr. McDaniel expects 200 Chinese students to participate in the class, which will use four common texts, each of which is in English and Chinese.

During the rest of their 10-day stay in Harbin, students will visit with religious and cultural leaders, learn about sports and music in China, meet with local entrepreneurs, and take a two-day tour of Inner Mongolia. Their Harbin hosts will be Professor Li, a faculty member at Heilongjian and editor of the well-known journal Qui Shi (Seeking Truth), and Guo Sheng Tie, one of Li's assistants.

The trip is sponsored by the Steel Center for the Study of Religion and Philosophy and the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Hendrix.

Student participants include three Arkansans, Zach Beal of Conway, Emily Morgan of Cabot, and Josh Wilson of El Dorado; four Texans, Mitchell Boone of Rockwall, Ingrid Geisler of Dallas, Katie Howard of Denton and Laura McKain of Pleasanton; Robin Bischol of Bloomfield, Mo.; Dana DeMilt of Bartlett, Tenn.; and Elise Stangle of Athens, Ga.

The China Odyssey is the brainchild of McDaniel, who has taught world religions for the past 20 years at Hendrix and is a process theologian. Last year, he was invited to Harbin to participate in a conference on Process Thought and Cultural Thought in China. McDaniel gave a public lecture on ecology and process thought and met the president of the Heilongjan University. The seed was planted for the summer tour.

The China Odyssey title refers to the fact that China, the oldest living civilization, is on a journey or odyssey into the future, which now involves an intensive dialogue with the West. It also refers to the journey the students are taking.

McDaniel said the study tour is an important experience for Hendrix students because China is becoming a key player in world history and in world economy.

"Increasingly we realize that China, the world's oldest and most enduring civilization, is ascending to the position of a world power. The 21^st century will be, in many ways, the China century," he said. "I am taking students from Hendrix to see the future."

Still, the primary purpose for the trip involves friendships, the professor said. "Our aim is to make friends and meet people," he said. "Most importantly, we want to take students to meet other students, to see how they think, and to return with possibilities for continued interchange vis-à-vis discussions that transpire with help from the Internet.  Meanwhile, each student also has much to learn in terms of personal interests."

Ingrid Geisler, a Hendrix biology major who plans to become a veterinarian, said she hopes to explore traditional Chinese medicine while on the trip, along with learning about the culture and religion.

"I am particularly interested in Taoism and Taoist healing," she said. "Continuing my study of the Chinese language will also be an important part of being in China."

Hendrix senior Emily Morgan said she is interested in learning about what it's like to be a college student in China and how that is different from America. "And I would love to visit a zoo!" she said.

Hendrix students have created a Web site for The China Odyssey www.chinaodyssey.org with more details about the tour, including a full course description, a profile of each student, a page published in Chinese for Chinese-speaking friends in China and other parts of the world and a forum for discussion.