CONWAY, Ark. (June 9, 2014) – Hendrix religious studies professor Dr. Jay McDaniel recently returned from a two-week eight-city tour of China, where he gave five lectures and consulted on a “Whiteheadian International Kindergarten” that will open July
5 in Beijing. McDaniel’s past lectures in China provided some of the ideas for the kindergarten.
McDaniel was joined by peer institution colleagues Dr. Annie Ingram (Davidson College), Dr. Stephen Field (Trinity University) and Dr. Paul Bube (Lyon College) on the tour of China, which was sponsored by the Institute for Postmodern Development of China.
The first lecture was at a conference on Whole Person Education in an Ecological Age, co-sponsored by the Associated Colleges of the South, at United International College
(UIC)in Zhuhai, one of the few liberal arts colleges in China. UIC now has a program in whole person education similar to the Hendrix Odyssey Program, McDaniel said.
“Our focus was on the emerging idea of ‘ecological civilization,’ which we believe can be relevant to liberal arts education in the West too,” McDaniel said. “My own work with the ACS has been to try to develop an organization called Ecological Civilization
International: Globally Networked Learning for an Ecological Age. One of my agendas was to look at sites to which students might go or which we might profile in courses we teach, with help from a website.”
McDaniel’s website,
www.jesusjazzbuddhism.org, includes short articles written by Professors Ingram and Bube. Ingram’s article on China’s attempt to reclaim its cultural treasures and a sense of respect for nature is available
here.Dr. Bube’s article on creative localization in rural China can be read
here.
“These two articles tell the overall story much better than I can tell it,” McDaniel said.
Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the sixth 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 latest edition of Colleges
That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Think about Colleges, as well as the 2014 Princeton Review’s The Best 378 Colleges, Forbes
magazine's list of America's Top Colleges, and the 2014 Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix
has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit
www.hendrix.edu.