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From the book: Ouachita Is … People

January 01, 2020
“Ouachita Voices” borrows its name from the university’s 125th anniversary commemorative coffee table book that features essays from a number of notable Ouachitonians. This is an excerpt from the personal entry of Dr. Joe Jeffers.

What is Ouachita? Ouachita is a name. Ouachita is a place. Ouachita is an institution. Ouachita is … people. Only the name and the institution remain (fairly) constant. The others change.

People make the place—students, faculty, administrators and staff. Students are the heart of Ouachita. (I’ll come back to the brain shortly.) They have the energy and drive. From a student perspective, most of the Ouachita people are other students. They eat with them, they live with them and they study with them. They share their most intimate moments of life together and they provide a support network that is as strong as family. Students mature immensely in four years. The freshmen who enter and the seniors who graduate only vaguely resemble one another. As a faculty member, it is quite gratifying to play a role in the dénouement of a particular student’s story.

The faculty are the brains. They have to be to keep a step ahead of the students. Former students visiting campus after graduation don’t necessarily expect to see their student friends after the first couple of years, but they do expect to see their mentors. Former students aren’t students anymore; they are friends. Relationships established during the mentor-mentee period become richer, more nuanced. Often a different kind of reciprocal respect emerges. Never is a faculty member more fulfilled than when such a relationship takes root.

Getting to know each student, making him or her feel special, but keeping a respectful distance is my goal. Watching students wrestle with ideas and patterns, helping them make connections and celebrating with them when they do is a professor’s delight. One can see the individual epiphanies as they occur. The light bulbs actually go off. It’s written on their faces. And we learn from them too. It is a rare year when a student question or comment doesn’t make me see a pattern I had never seen before.

Finally, there is the institution that is Ouachita, the most enduring constant of all. It is and has been a college with a strong liberal arts tradition since 1886. It prides itself in helping students and faculty grow. Part of that growth requires questioning, developing a critical and discerning mind, engaging the world, fighting bigotry and prejudice and focusing on opportunities and obligations for service. We only grow when we are challenged, and we need to grow for a lifetime. That’s the Ouachita of which I am proud to be a part.
 Joe Jeffers Ouachita Baptist University Dr. Joe Jeffers, a 1966 Ouachita graduate, serves as the Charles S. and Elma Grey Goodwin Holt Professor of Chemistry and Pre-Medical Studies

 

 


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