CONWAY, Ark. (June 24, 2013) – Hendrix alumna Hannah McGrew
says the past year has had enough action to fill about five normal years.
Recently obtaining a job at Miguel Torres, a vineyard in Viña
del Mar, Chile, that produces mainly fair trade and organic wines, McGrew
credits her ability in landing the job to the Hendrix Odyssey program.
An anthropology sociology major from Albuquerque, N.M., McGrew
completed nine Odyssey projects (three times the requirement for graduation),
including four trips ranging from 10 days to six months abroad, before her
graduation in 2012.
Before Chile, she worked as a research assistant for the
public health department at the University of New Mexico. McGrew worked on
writing National Institutes of Health (NIH) and Native American Research
Centers for Heath (NARCH) grant proposals, Community Based Participatory
Research (CBPR) workshops and worked at a preschool as a part –time bilingual
teacher.
Fluent in Spanish and Portugese, McGrew is currently an
apprentice to the sommelier, a wine steward. Her work is mainly composed of assisting
with wine tasting and wine education, as well as hosting foreign visitors and
winery investors.
While she doesn’t plan on working at the winery long-term, she
loves her job and believes it has fit well with her public heath trajectory,
she said.
“I know it's hard to make the connection, but anthropology,
and I think a liberal art education as well, teaches us to see the tendrils of
interconnectedness in the things that we have done and learned,” said McGrew.
“When you look at
public health, I think it’s easy to associate the field with science and
medicine and clinics. Of course that's a huge component, but public health is
also about mentally and culturally healthy, cohesive communities,” said McGrew.
“It has to do with the environment we live in, the food we eat and how it's
produced; it has to do with the government and economy and who ultimately
receives benefits from the two systems.”
While McGrew notes the inherent interest in wine, she is
also interested in the “impact of wine and pisco production on Chilean culture,
both good and bad,” said McGrew.
For her next project, McGrew hopes to conduct research that
would benefit the company by augmenting their image as a socially responsible
company within the international market and ultimately bring some preventive
health education programs to surrounding communities, she said.
Founded in
1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences
education. For the fifth consecutive year, Hendrix was named one of the
country’s “Up and Coming” liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report. Hendrix is featured in the 2012 edition
of the Princeton Review as one of the country’s best 377 colleges, the latest
edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change
the Way You Think about Colleges, Forbes
magazine's annual list of America's Top 650 Colleges, and the 2013 edition of the Fiske Guide
to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist
Church since 1884. For
more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.