Hendrix College: An Arkansas gem

#HendrixCollege. One of the real treats of this work is the academically serious client with a less-than perfect record, comfortable enough in their own skin to say “I don’t care about admit rates, I just want a good college”. And if that client is a northeasterner saying “get me out of here”, then it really gets fun. Instead of the same old fifteen schools in New England, we start talking about College of Wooster (Ohio), Rhodes College (Memphis), Earlham (IN), Chapman (CA), Colorado State etc. You can add to that mix of truly wonderful colleges Hendrix College in central Arkansas. Wait, Arkansas? On my visit to Hendrix, my host, an LGBTQ-identifying native Californian, assured me that central Arkansas isn’t what you might think it to be. “The chill part of Arkansas”, he told me, is ringed by the state capital of Little Rock with the new agey Hot Springs.This is live and let live country and though it is certainly not the hipster-haven Asheville or music mecca Nashville, and even taking into account Arkansas’ swift move from the last Democratic southern state to a Republican-dominated state, Hendrix has held on to its reputation as one of the most liberal colleges in the south. After my visit I am reassured that the reputation is accurate. 

 

The friendliness of the campus was in-your-face. As we walked around campus with our map, we were stopped by a chemist who cheerily asked us “can I help you?” She had taught at Hendrix for over two decades, was a Massachusetts native, and offered a simple take on the college: “I love this place”. The campus sits on both sides of a state highway with most of the athletic facilities on one side with academic and residential buildings on the other. A pedestrian bridge makes the passage between the two uneventful. And the campus is flat out gorgeous, filled with classic (very well-maintained) collegiate-looking buildings, at least two of which were undergoing major rahab jobs. The spanking new arts complex is magnificant. Given the Arkansas heat I assume, someone planted a lot of trees a hundred years ago and current students should thank them. The campus is filled with large, sprawling hardwoods, providing ubiquitous shade and making the campus feel like a park.

 

Conway center is a short walk from campus and is filled with what you’d expect in a college town with 10,000 students (Central Arkansas University also calls Conway home): cafes, cheap restaurants, and shops. Speaking of CAU, not only do Hendrix and CAU students intermingle, Black students at Hendrix can gain membership in the Black Greek system at the much larger university, mitigating the isolation many Black students feel at small liberal arts colleges.

 

Hendrix has long been known as the honors college of Arkansas, giving the enrollment a heavy Arkansas contingent, composed of some of the smartest students in the state. But they are in the beginning stages of a national recruitment push that will bring new geographic diversity to the campus. But even before that effort gains traction, it’s easy to recommend present-day Hendrix to any student in the country. With a high-bar academic culture set by its elite in-state reputation, the impressive facilities, the happy vibe we saw everywhere, Hendrix is an absolute gem of a college.