There are so many inspirational Hendrix alumni whose lives and careers are
closely connected to the arts. We found no shortage of subjects to feature in
this issue of Hendrix Magazine, which celebrates the arts. We could just as
easily have covered longtime Heights Gallery owner Mitch Jansonius '71 or many
other alumni art gallery owners and operators like John Bell '79 (Sweet Home),
Jon Mourot '76 (Boswell Mourot Fine Art), Mac Murphy '98 (M2 Gallery), or Cindy
Scott-Huisman '88 (Cantrell Gallery). But we ran out of space long before we ran
out of talented Hendrix alumni worth writing — and reading — about.
Artistic
Creativity is one of the six project categories in Your Hendrix Odyssey:
Engaging in Active Learning. Through Odyssey, students and faculty have
undertaken amazing hands-on learning experiences in the arts. Hendrix has also
strengthened its resources in the arts with new faculty members in creative
writing, theatre arts and dance, and studio art, including art professor Melissa
Gill, who is featured in this issue.
Hendrix celebrates alumni achievements
in the arts by awarding an Odyssey Medal for Artistic Creativity. Among the past
recipients of this honor are Mary Steenburgen '75, Susan Dunn '76, James R.
Hayes '88, Natalie Canerday '85, Sheri Bylander '85, Randy Goodrum '69, Bill
Ragsdale '83, and Robyn Horn '73, who is featured in this issue. We look forward
to awarding the 2012 Odyssey Medals at Founders Day 2012 on Oct. 25. We invite
you to join us for this special convocation and to consider nominating other
outstanding alumni for next year's Odyssey Medals. The nomination deadline is
Dec. 31, and you can find the nomination form easily at
www.hendrix.edu/odysseymedal.
Last spring, we received more than 650 magazine
survey responses. Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and story
ideas with us. Your feedback helped us plan this issue and will help us identify
subjects for future issues. We are so pleased to see that many of you liked the
changes we have made after our 2009 survey. In particular, we noticed that the
percentage of you who rated the magazine's quality as "excellent" increased from
18% in 2009 to 33% in 2012. We are happy with that increase, but we will
continue working to make Hendrix Magazine even better. And, we hope that you
will continue responding to our surveys, submitting your news for Alumnotes and
sending us suggestions for great Hendrix stories. You are welcome to send your
suggestions and comments to me at plotkin@hendrix.edu or to Managing Editor Rob
O'Connor '95 at oconnor@hendrix.edu.
One last thing, for those of you who
have iPads: expect the iBooks version of the fall edition to be available for
download by the middle of October. We are excited to be presenting Hendrix
Magazine in this new format and would appreciate hearing your thoughts about it.