CONWAY, Ark. (February
4, 2020) — Nine Hendrix College faculty members have received Odyssey
Professorships to pursue specific projects over the next three years. Each
Odyssey Professorship carries an endowment to support faculty endeavors that
offer students new opportunities for engaged learning, such as internships,
travel, and undergraduate research.
“The Hendrix community
looks forward to even more innovative and exciting engaged learning
opportunities from these professors,” said Dr. Peter Gess, the College’s
associate provost for engaged learning and a politics and environmental studies
professor. “And the Odyssey Professorship is such a visible and important symbol
of the distinctive Hendrix experiential education.”
Individual
faculty members or small groups of faculty may apply for the professorships on
a competitive basis. The Committee on Faculty reviews and recommends the
proposals, which are approved by the President. The following Hendrix College
Odyssey Professorships have been awarded for 2020-2023.
The Dr. Brad P.
Baltz and Rev. William B. Smith Odyssey Professorship to Dr. Brett Hill for “Geospatial Data Management for Collaboration
and Justice”:
Dr. Hill will
engage Hendrix students and faculty in the development of a Geographic
Information System (GIS) database for use in Anthropology and Environmental
Studies research. The project will make spatial data analysis more accessible
to Hendrix students and faculty; encourage more collaborative and interdisciplinary
research at Hendrix; and focus attention and tools on the greatest challenge
facing humanity today, environmental change. This project will improve
accessibility to geospatial data analysis, enhance collaborative,
interdisciplinary research at Hendrix and with community partners, and include
diverse data and training for students and faculty in the
Sociology/Anthropology Department, the Data Analytics minor, and the six
departments involved in the Environmental Studies Program. Finally, Dr. Hill
will focus on environmental justice as a new course and as a unifying theme for
interdisciplinary collaboration.
The Bill and
Connie Bowen Odyssey Professorship to Dr.
Daniel Whelan for “Global Engagement”:
This
Professorship covers a rich array of activities mostly focused on student
development, but also includes elements of faculty development and alumni
outreach. The largest component of the project will support Hendrix’s
enormously successful Model United Nations program. Second are a number of
activities to cultivate student and faculty awareness of and interest in the
Fulbright Student Program, which will lead to greater numbers of successful
applications for Fulbright awards. Professor Whelan will undertake
course-related research and professional development at the UN Human Rights
Council in Geneva. Through this Professorship, he will fund student-developed
Odyssey projects related to global engagement. Finally, Dr. Whelan will
continue his research in the area of human rights and development. Between 110
and 130 students will directly benefit from the activities supported by this
Professorship.
The Thomas E.
Goodwin Odyssey Professorship for Undergraduate Research in Chemistry to Dr. Peter Kett for “Life at the
Nanoscale”:
Nanoscience and
nanotechnology, the study and design of nanomaterials, are rapidly developing
and groundbreaking fields that impact our daily lives as nanomaterials are
increasingly used in consumer products, and medical research. This Odyssey
Professorship, which includes the development of a nanoscience course for
non-science majors, research opportunities for students on- and off-campus, a
speaker series, and engagement with students at local schools, will bring
nanoscience and nanotechnology to the Hendrix College campus. This Odyssey
Professorship aims to educate the Hendrix community on the benefits of
nanoscience and nanotechnology, but also on the importance of considering the
impact of nanomaterials on our health and environment.
The Morris and Ann
Henry Odyssey Professorship to Dr. J.D.
Gantz for “Investigating the Ecology and Natural History of Alaska”:
The goals of this
Professorship, which will support research and immersive learning experiences
in Alaska, are to: 1) survey insects associated with Alaskan peony fields; 2)
establish a field research station at a peony farm outside Fairbanks; 3)
monitor the distributions and abundance of Alaskan flora and fauna; 4)
implement a public education and outreach initiative; and 5) develop a summer
course about the ecology and natural history of Alaska. The Professorship will
support up to 23 students in travel to Alaska for Odyssey credit and provide
resources for the development of a summer course that will take another 12-15
students to Alaska as well.
The Margaret
Berry Hutton Odyssey Professorship to Dr.
Tyrone Jaeger and Professor Maxine
Payne for “Audiovisual Arkansas: Citizen Storytellers”:
The objective of
AV Arkansas is to produce multimedia stories about Arkansans, with a focus on
work, play, and place. Using a combination of audio and text interviews,
photographs, moving images, and illustrations, photographer Maxine Payne,
writer Tyrone Jaeger, and selected students will collaboratively produce
multi-media art projects, including, but not limited to, photographic essays,
podcasts, and short films. These works will be presented to the public via a
website hosted by Hendrix College and in an exhibition featuring the
collaborative work. Working under the supervision of Professors Payne and
Jaeger, students will learn to engage with local communities, to search for
stories in Arkansas, to produce engaging artworks that foreground story, and to
use a wide range of
audio and visual editing tools; ultimately building new communities through
artistic collaboration. As students learn how to responsibly and artfully tell
the stories of others, they will also learn how to tell their own stories. In
short, students will develop fluency in multimedia storytelling as they engage
with the people and places that make Arkansas.
The Julia Mobley
Odyssey Professorship to Dr. Mark
Goadrich for “Disco Tray Studios: Founding a Community-Focused Software
Development Initiative”:
Dr. Goadrich will
create a community-focused software development initiative at Hendrix called
Disco Tray Studios. This project is an outgrowth of his current efforts to
empower students in developing interactive educational games and web
applications for social good. Disco Tray Studios will provide opportunities for
students to execute and complete longer-term software development projects that
support the technological needs of their local community. Through partnering
and communicating with local nonprofit and educational organizations, students
will also build professional leadership skills and gain sought-after career
competencies. Leading projects at Disco Tray Studios will allow Dr. Goadrich to
immerse in current practices for software engineering, deployment, maintenance,
and project management. This real-world experience will inform and improve the
course content and learning outcomes of three upper-level computer science
courses.
The Charles S.
and Lucile Esmon Shivley Odyssey Professorship to Dr. Leslie Templeton ’91 for “The Hendrix Community of Educators
Project”:
This project will
provide opportunities for faculty to engage in pedagogy-oriented faculty
development programming within a community of colleagues. Faculty will participate
in pedagogy-oriented book discussions with colleagues that will allow them to
learn about pedagogical techniques and why they’re effective, choose which
techniques to implement in their own courses, design a study to assess the
impact of those techniques on their students, and present the resulting
pedagogical research at a professional meeting. A more intensive semester-long
Teaching Cohort will allow faculty participants to redesign elements of a selected
course around a particular theme, and then assess the impact of those redesigns
on their students’ learning and experience of the course. Faculty-student book
discussions will allow students to participate in a community of colleagues at
the invitation of faculty members.
The Nancy and
Craig Wood Odyssey Professorship to Dr. Gretchen
Renshaw James for “Diverse Voices in Music”:
This project
focuses on increasing diversity in the world of classical music, particularly
in the areas of wind band and brass instrument performance. Dr. Renshaw will
join the effort to invite more diverse voices into this arena by working with
the Hendrix College Wind Ensemble to program and commission works by a diverse
range of composers. Inviting diverse composers, soloists, and conductors to
campus will provide opportunities for students to serve in professional development
and leadership roles organizing and managing these complex events. In addition,
the Professorship will support Dr. Renshaw’s ongoing professional development
as a tuba artist working to expand diversity in the field of brass performance.
She will commission new works for solo tuba from composers of diverse
backgrounds and record those pieces, along with existing works by diverse
composers.
The Odyssey Professorships
are an extension of the College’s nationally recognized engaged learning
initiative, the Hendrix Odyssey Program. Since 2005, the Hendrix Odyssey
Program has required students to complete at least three hands-on learning
experiences before they graduate. Students and faculty can apply for funding to
support a proposed Odyssey project. The College has awarded more than $4
million in Odyssey grants since the program’s inception.
To learn more about previous Odyssey Professorships and related Odyssey Program student experiences, listen to Odcast, now available on all major podcast platforms.
About Hendrix College
A private liberal
arts college in Conway, Arkansas, Hendrix College consistently earns
recognition as one of the country’s leading liberal arts institutions, and is
featured in Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change
the Way You Think About Colleges.
Its academic quality and rigor, innovation, and value have established Hendrix
as a fixture in numerous college guides, lists, and rankings. Founded in 1876,
Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. To
learn more, visit www.hendrix.edu.