Here are just a few ways donor support has helped enrich the engaged learning experience of Hendrix students through Odyssey Professorships.
The generosity of the Judy and Randy Wilbourn Odyssey
Professorship has supported the professional development of Professor of
Biology Dr. Maureen McClung and provided resources and experiences for many of
her students’ Odyssey projects. Every Hendrix student who has participated in
McClung’s research dating back to summer 2019 has been supported in some way by
the Wilbourn Professorship.
In 2024 alone, the professorship supported the following:
- Dr.
McClung took 11 students to the Arkansas Chapter of The Wildlife Society
meeting at Mount Magazine in March. There, students networked with other
students (undergraduates and graduates), professional wildlife biologists
and conservationists, and were able to get resumes reviewed, watch
scientific talks, “and even play in the student quiz bowl competition,
which the Hendrix team won! Against grad students!” McClung said.
- In
April, six students presented the results of their individual research
projects based on data from the Central Arkansas Urban Wildlife Project at
the Arkansas Academy of Sciences Conference in Fort Smith:
- In the
summer, McClung took on four new students to help with two ongoing
research projects, Central Arkansas Urban Wildlife Project (CAUWP) and
Monitoring Avian Productivity and Survivorship (MAPS).
“I couldn’t have achieved nearly as many of my goals without
their support…. The Wilbourn professorship is having BIG impacts on students
then and now, and on me always. I am so grateful.”
Maureen R. McClung ’01, Ph.D.
Judy & Randy Wilbourn Odyssey Professor of Biology
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