Small College America Karen Petersen - President Hendrix College

Kent Barnds: So we'll kick off the questions with a fairly straightforward question, President Peterson. I would imagine that some of our listeners are not familiar with Hendrick. So we would love to invite you. to give us an overview and some background on Hendrix. And also just if you're comfortable and willing, telling us a little bit about Hendrix's mission, culture, and history and what captures its identity today.

Dr. Peteresen: Hendricks College is a residential liberal arts college. It's the only national nationally ranked liberal arts college in Arkansas, in fact, the only liberal arts college in Arkansas. But we draw students from around the country. We have a small number of international students. Most of our students are regional and almost all of them live on campus. We truly are a residential liberal arts college and a very traditional. And I'm including instructional delivery. So when I arrived in 2023, there were no online classes here, It's actually the classroom experience that I think is terrific here. We 're known regionally for our strength in STEM education in particular. preparing students for careers in medicine and in medical research. And we're also known of course for our strong commitment to the liberal arts. It's a terrific community. And I know everyone, well every president will say that because you know, what else would you say as president? But it's one of the things I think that distinguishes Hendrix.

[ 00:04:29 ]from a lot of places where I've been is that there is this commitment, this sort of core commitment on the part of the faculty and staff here to the residential liberal arts to the sort of high quality, excellent educational experience for students who really We probably would not get that experience if we didn't exist. is important to me. And we've been doing this for 149 years. So we will celebrate our sesquicentennial next year. And we've been in Conway since 1890, I think was the year we moved to Conway, which is was essentially organized around Hendricks College and became the city of colleges recruited two more higher education institutions here after we arrived, established a public utility to support its higher education institutions and really is just a terrific location for the college. So the location and the community and all of these things, I think make it special. And if you asked me to describe Hendricks College to someone who knows higher education enough to know what a residential liberal arts college is. What would what I would say that makes it distinct is that this is a really scrappy college, like punches above its weight in a way that is just remarkable, like who starts a college in the middle of in all this Arkansas originally, which is even very remote.

[ 00:05:46 ]And then how does a college like this actually become a nationally ranked liberal arts college in a location like this? It's because we really punch above our weight. Well, I love that oftentimes the term agility is a centerpiece of conversation for small colleges. I like Scrappy a lot better. And with a great description. And not only that, just kind of a presence. So I appreciate that very much. So Dean, I'll turn you.

Dean Hoke: Well, when you joined in 2023. your first time president. I imagine, I mean, in some ways that can always be quite overwhelming. But I'm very curious about what your early priorities were when you stepped onto the campus and how those initial priorities evolved during these first two years.

Karen Petersen: Yeah, I mean, it is my first presidency. I served as dean in two different institutions. At Middle Tennessee State, the college I ran was... significantly larger than Hendricks College. So, you know, that part of it, that transition was not as difficult. The Speaker President is a unique experience. And really my focus early on was I just need to get to know these people. I mean, the reason I came here. was because of the people I met. met in that air view process.

[ 00:06:59 ]I could not have said no to those people. By the time we finished that process, there was no other answer that was coming out of my mouth other than absolutely I will join you in this place. But that was a small segment, right? I didn't know that wasn't the whole community. It was really representative, but it wasn't everyone. So getting to know the campus, getting to know Conway. And then really thinking about, you know, how does a liberal arts college, a residential liberal arts college, create a value proposition? when it's tuition dependent and we're facing this demographic. in essence, I mean, I had two years roughly to get ready for. demographic cliff. And so that you're shoring up the fiscal health to make sure that there are alternate revenue streams that there are all these things that are going to help the college be healthy. And then really thinking about strategic planning and the value proposition. Those were all the things I knew I would have to do coming in. which was already a really long list. and then October 7th happened. and higher education just was. thrown in a turmoil. adjusting to that as a brand new president. wasn't it, was a little challenging, but I already had a...

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[ 00:08:04 ]strong history of the Chicago principles kind of person. So I was grounded in that people here knew that I didn't have to make any adjustments in the way I think about leadership in that respect, but it wasn't easy. It's not easy to be a leader in this moment. We've done all those, we were doing all those other things and those priorities didn't change, but you have to be nimble enough to adjust to the environment around you as well. And then we'll be unveiling in our sesquicentennial, force for the college going into its next 150 years and kicking off a campaign. So yeah, we've been a little busy.

Dean Hoke: Well, that's good. I wonder things though that. as you were talking about this, first time president. larger schools. Et cetera. At the same time. Did you have a mentor? Did you have somebody you could turn to? particularly going into that situation.

Karen Petersen: Yeah, I've had some good mentors in the past, and then I've kind of won the mentor lottery. that's the I arrived in Conway in February of 2023, you know, sort of moved in and got to know the community a little.

[ 00:09:07 ]And I think in May, Rock Jones moved in across the street and rock Ohio Wesleyan for a long time and he's an Hendricks alum. And... You know, I did not even let him. retire before I pulled him in. because it took one meeting with him for me to figure out this is a really terrific individual who's smart and who can be an asset and who is not threatening at all. I'm not threatened by having a former president hanging around. So he's been working with me almost since day one. And his role is special assistant to the president. So we do all kinds of projects together, but he's the person who's had the job before. He's the person I could go to and say, is this really happening? This is normal. It's terrific. And I'm fortunate to have that. I recognize that most presidents do not. get lucky like that. No, not too many of them get rocked Jones either. across this literally across the street. It had right been the... Chaplin at Hendricks before he went to Ohio Wesleyne? Chaplain, VP for student of. student enrollment, VP for enrollment, VP for advancement. Like he's done all kinds of jobs here.

[ 00:10:14 ] Kent Barnds: Yeah, you really did hit the lottery. I did. That is fantastic. We'd love to explore because Traditions are important to small colleges, and Hendrix has some special traditions, and we'd love for our listeners to hear a little bit about that. some distinctive traditions like shirt tails and campus kitty. Can you tell us a little bit about them and as a relatively new? president, how did you embrace or how did those traditions embrace you? And what do they tell others about the values of the headless?

Karen Petersen: I think short tales in particular, but even Campus Kitty and some of the other things on the campus arise from a culture where there's no Greek life. And so all of life has been organized around your dorm. And historically, when I meet alums, for example, the first thing they will tell me is which dorm. And sometimes I can tell just from their personality. And then we talk about faculty, but and so that is where Shirt Tales comes from. It's a dance competition for freshmen among the different dorms. and traditions are a funny thing. or they change. And every graduate you meet from a college thinks the college should exist exactly in the state in which they found it. and that it changed their life and it should never change.

[ 00:11:33 ]And every student should have exactly the same experience they had even if it was 40 years ago. But students today, they don't necessarily want the same tradition. So we still have short tails, but students are a little less comfortable with that. potential embarrassment because they've curated their lives on social media and they you know, they worry a little bit about that. So I see shirt tail shifting a little over the years. And hopefully our students will create some new traditions. Yeah, especially with generation. Alpha coming in. Campus Kitties, I think, is a really good reflection of the culture. beyond just the sort of lack of Greek life and that it is for, it's fundraising for our community. So it's outreach from the campus to our community. And we have not been great about that in the last decade or so, but we have a long history of being a really important partner. in our community and campus kiddie reflects that. And there are all kinds of other, there's a great tradition of throwing people in the fountain on their birthday, which Roy Schilling as the last president and they put a stop to it for the president.

[ 00:12:32 ]But that's, you know, there are some great traditions, maybe will prevail in the long run, but I'm not sure what will happen with some of the others. I appreciate the fact that you said you hope. that today's students will create new traditions. That's not oftentimes a common theme on campuses that well we can't start a new tradition. I love that openness. It respects students, right? I mean, I don't expect that today's students students 20 years ago, 30 years ago, and 60 years ago. So that's a refreshing perspective from my vantage point. There are a lot of traditions I've heard about from the 1980s that I am. So glad do not exist anymore under my watch. So yeah, traditions change and sometimes for the better.

Dean Hoke: One of the things I would like to talk a little bit. further about and it's something I investigated I think when I did a little profile piece on you about a year ago. with you and Conway itself. You have a very long. institution in Conway, you mentioned that a little bit earlier. How do you view the college's role in the community today? You may be the classic ideal town and gown in many ways, I think how some people may look at it. But how do you view your role in the community economically and culturally, civically? and what new opportunities are there to strengthen that engagement.

Karen Peteresen: Yeah, I think this is certainly the best town gown relationship I've ever seen. And it's just different. It's different because this is the city of colleges. and Conway was a brand new, I wouldn't call it a city, it was a brand new river town full of a bunch of riverboat captains who liked to drink too much, basically, in a railroad. and when they recruited Hendrix, you know, that the... the cost for getting the college here in addition to the financial cost was you have to get to clean up this town because we 're not coming to a town like that but we'll come if you clean it up. So we actually live in a dry county believe it or not and we do get blamed for that rightly so. But it's a terrific story because the city did, the city beat out Little Rock, all these other towns around Arkansas and the Bid Forge. Hendricks College, which was Central Collegiate Institute at and did that because they had political and sort of economic leaders at the time who were willing to do bold and innovative things.

[ 00:14:51 ]in a town like this, which, I mean, back then, that was amazing. You fast forward a couple of decades and the college is struggling to get established and they established a public utility to fund. that's what the city does. And then recruited two more colleges and so there are three of us now. And there's just this great relationship between the colleges. So we, you know, we are all very different institutions. We serve different audiences and that helps. between the city leadership and the colleges and then we have this robust chamber of commerce, which was also established to support higher education. And so those three things, the chamber, the city government, and the higher education institutions, work together well. and we're fortunate. because it's just that the geography is in our favor. We 're on interstate 40. We are close to the state capitol. I mean, 30 minutes to the state capitol. We're close to Dallas and Memphis and Tulsa and Nashville and all these other areas where people are moving to. And so for us, we have a...

[ 00:15:53 ]So what I'm doing in the city, what I've been doing in the city, other than getting engaged in the chamber at some of these other events, is I'm doing a lot of work. areas is really talking to city leaders and industry and business in particular to prepare them for the demographic lift. because they're only a couple of years behind. So as businesses struggle. to attract talent because there are fewer. college graduates. and then communities struggle to retain businesses because they can't attract talent because the community is not engaging. It's a vicious cycle that can destroy a town like Conway. which is right now robust and growing and thriving. It wouldn't take much. You turn off the tap of talent, of young people coming into town, and all of a sudden you have a very different story. And so I've been spending most of my time and energy really trying to focus leaders on what's happening. to the demographics of the country and why that should concern them. And that's really, I think, probably the best contribution I can make in the city at the moment. and then helping it grow and be dynamic. Yeah, I'd like to go down there just a little bit further. The particularly...

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[ 00:16:57 ]a lot of schools and particularly in small privates and particularly in. small towns, medium sized town. while they have a quote unquote good relationship with them, maybe what's going on in our world. at times. You haven't taken that position. You decided you're going to engage them. are you getting from those community leaders? What are they saying to you when you tell them? We do have this cliff and it probably is going to have some effect on us. How do they react? What kind of feedback do you get from them? Well, I think the first thing I noticed is this light bulb moment. Yeah, because there are a lot of. people in business who are somewhat aware of this phenomenon of demographic decline now, but they haven't been thinking about it for 20 years. We've been thinking about it for 20 years. And so just it's not I don't even frame it around. Well, it's harmful to Hendrix. to bringing young people into your city and keeping them here. And so I try to frame it in their, so it's in their interest because it is in their interest as businesses and as a city to thrive. You know, what can you do? to help us attract that talent.

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[ 00:18:02 ]Because if we can get those young people here to Hendricks or to one of the other institutions. What can you do to help us keep them here or get them to return after their... graduate education. And then how can we create that cycle so that we're all thriving because when Hendrix thrives Conway thrives and when Conway thrives Hendrix thrives, there's like there's just no way for one of us separately to thrive and the other not, it won't work. And so the real, the real challenge People have been receptive, but it's new information for them. We've been talking about this for two decades. They've been talking about this for a year or two maybe. So it's good. We have really good people here.

Kent Barnds: Appreciate your transparency and with your community. I think that's very important. Your academic background's a political scientist. We'd love to know what attracted you to political science as a field of study and how has it shaped both your approach to decision making and also institutional leadership as a college president.

Karen Peterson I think well it's international relations, right? International conflict is my area. So that's I became interested in it because my father came to the US in 1947 after World War II. [ 00:19:14 ]And so my family's from Denmark. And so I was always interested in the rest of the world. And I wanted to do something that would allow me to explore the rest of the world. I mean, I'm a first generation college student. what I was doing. And I got into some classes in international relations and I was just absolutely fascinated, you know, sort of Cold War kid, post Vietnam, really interested in those kinds of things too. So it was a natural fit. off to grad school too. of dive into the deep end in this area and it really it's just transformative in the way that you think about problems when you study war. because you're studying these really fundamental human causes of behavior that is, you know, that has serious implications for people as individuals, but also for the global system. and you start to hone in on some of these attributes of human nature that really affect. that behavior and it transfers perfectly. Of course, the quantitative skills I picked up in grad school are probably my most transferable skills too because it's a heavily quantitative discipline. So yeah, I think it influences. Every day it influences the way I think about leadership. taking a look at the clock, you know, we're coming close.

[ 00:20:30 ]about up and one of our. has been about the future.

Dean Hoke: I'm very curious. view as a political science. your training, but also. faculty member and now president. How do you see this world in particularly? in the world of smaller colleges. How do you see what's gonna be happening You can make some sort of prediction.

Karen Petersen: No, no, I don't predict because I know better, but I think it's not difficult to look at where we are and just... make some comments about it. Hendrix is very fortunate for the reasons I mentioned. We have a great reputation. We're in an excellent location. Faculty are willing to do new things. don 't just do anything I asked them to do, but they're actually willing to be honest brokers. And so I don't take those things for granted. We're going to have a successful campaign and Hendrix is going to thrive. Really, that does not keep me awake at night too much. What keeps me awake at night is that higher education is in serious trouble. I don't know why this is so hard for people to see. And we've created some of the problems.

[ 00:21:40 ]I will, I'll be the first person to tell you like we need to own some of the problems because they are real and we created them. And we can't, we cannot just keep denying that they exist. And we need to think about. really institutions whether we value the higher education ecosystem we created. I've been all over the world, literally all over the world, and there's no country that has done what we've done with higher education. We've built this system with dizzying array of options. of institution types across the country where... Pretty much anyone who wants access to higher education can find a way in. And it's part of what's made our system the envy of the world, and it's part of what's made our economy the most dynamic and impressive economy in human history. It's built on that. And the fact that we're gonna squander that advantage And I'm not talking about government overreach here, right? Because that existed before this administration and that will exist after this administration. I'm talking about our sort of own unwillingness or inability to work together as a sector and really ensure that our ecosystem remains healthy instead of just sort of. our own individual institutions. You know, I can say more about that.

[ 00:22:51 ]It goes down the road of being a little bit critical of some of the actors in the system. I don't mind doing that. I'm pretty open about it. I don't know the answer. It's not a problem I have a solution for. I don't know. exactly how we could come together as institutional actors and make this better, but I know if we don't that the consequences will be catastrophic because I live in the middle of our country. I have lived in the middle of our country most of my life and I know when it hollows out like it did after NAFTA when it hollows out and there are no options for education for a bright young person from South Arkansas, we'll have a problem. We already have a problem with our republic. worse a lot faster. And so we need higher ed to thrive. across the country. not just in urban areas or in sort of elite. areas, not just at the flagship. but at the regional publics, right? It's in our best interest to solve the problem, but it is a collective action problem. and we could ignore it for a long time because there were plenty of people coming into the system and now there aren't. So now we have to figure out what's the solution.

[ 00:23:57 ]that maintains this incredible ecosystem. that has allowed us to build an economy in a country that's just... and what it's accomplished and the innovation that's come out of here. I don't know the answer. I hope that we can meet the moment though. kind of following up a little bit. The one comment you made I think is. something we've heard time after time. How do we get these voices together? As far as I know, nobody's been able to give us a particularly good answer to that question. We have so many different schools. We have so many different types of schools.

Dean Hoke: I'm curious. Do you have some thoughts? Is there work? What's their organizations? instead of harmonic conversions, I'm kind of curious about how you think that could possibly happen. I don't know. I think you have to have some leadership. from some of those national organizations. that are all sort of concerned about their own part of the ecosystem. So we have membership in those. organizations for small. private colleges and they're really busy trying to just protect small private colleges. And I get that and the public sector is the same thing. So I don't know, there's not a simple solution. but there are enough smart people.

[ 00:25:12 ]involved in higher education that we could probably come up with some ideas. What frustrates me, and I have not said this publicly anywhere, so you decide whether you want to keep it in here or cut it out. It's like, you know, those of us who've been working in regional publics or small privates most of our careers, you know, we've been fighting for. my whole career. has been about a struggle for survival is what it feels like. No one cared about that until... the Ivy League institutions were the brunt. bearing the brunt of it and it was all of a sudden, oh, we all need to rally together. Where have you been for 20 years? Why we've been out here in the trenches. You did not care that institutions were closing. And so I think that makes it hard too. There's a part of me that's a little annoyed with that. So I didn't come to you with an answer, but I came to you with a sort of. you asked for a prediction, my prediction is that if these if colleges sort of hollow out in the middle of the country and those options go away. It's not good for our country. It's not good for our republic.

[ 00:26:17 ] Kent Barnds: I appreciate that sentiment so much and your reinforcement of the strength of our economy and dynamism of the Republic and also this. ecosystem being the envy of the world. Boy, I hope that we don't lose sight of that. That has been our Republic's competitive advantage for years and years. The Lumina Foundation probably is one of those areas that makes the most compelling case for us, but we've got to get bipartisan. support across the entire country, but really appreciate your comments and sentiments. President Peterson, thank you for joining us today and sharing your perspective and also introducing many of our listeners to Hendricks College and its traditions and the role it plays in Conway, which is so important. as well as the wider role for liberal arts colleges. For those of you who are listening or viewing, if you 'd like to learn more about Small College America, please go to our webpage at w.smallcollegeamerica.net. where you can find details on upcoming episodes, contact us, and even suggest topics or guests This episode of Small College America is made possible with underwriting support of Edu Alliance Group, a higher education consulting firm that champions small colleges. and the communities they serve. On behalf of our guest, Dr. Karen Peterson, President of Hendricks College and my co-host Dean Hoke. We'd like to thank you for joining us.