Making Odyssey Possible

Funding Odyssey Fellowships

Every year, hundreds of Hendrix students develop Odyssey projects that merit special funding. Since 2004, we've awarded close to a million dollars in grants and fellowships to support extraordinary Odysseys that have served the world, spanned the globe, and changed lives. Since many are team projects, they have involved more than 1,000 student and faculty participants.

A model for experiential learning, Your Hendrix Odyssey: Engaging in Active Learning empowers students to personalize their educations to their own interests and abilities by completing three or more experiences from the six areas listed below. An experiential transcript becomes part of the student’s official academic record.

• Artistic Creativity: Experiences in which students explore their creative potential in art, music, dance, drama, or creative writing.
• Global Awareness: Experiences in which students immerse themselves in cultures or environments other than their own and engage in appropriate opportunities for reflection.
• Professional & Leadership Development: Experiences in which students apply their intellectual interests through internships, other opportunities for working alongside professionals on site, or leadership in community life or professional settings.
• Service to the World: Experiences within and beyond the Hendrix community in which students are engaged in helping meet the social, environmental and spiritual needs of our time.
• Undergraduate Research: Experiences in which students undertake significant research projects using the methods of their chosen discipline.
• Special Projects: Experiences in which students extend, apply, connect or share different ways of knowing (e.g., oral, verbal, tactile, imaginative, intuitive), often in interdisciplinary settings.

The Walker Challenge

In 2007, the Walker Foundation stepped forward to offer a $2 million 1:2 challenge grant to endow Odyssey Fellowships in perpetuity. Every $2 contributed by new donors toward the Fellowships will be matched by $1 from the Foundation, generating a $6 million endowment for Odyssey Fellowships.

• Campaign goal: At least $6 million to provide a continuing source of funding for Odyssey Fellowships.