Strength for Today and Bright Hope for Tomorrow

Ouachita has faced high times and low times. Years of strength and years of struggle. Through all these seasons — institutional and individual — one certainty remains: God's faithfulness.

Staff Profile: Sonny Jackson

One member of the Ouachita family was Sonny Jackson. Once a professional middleweight boxer in the Pacific Northwest, Sonny wasn't a Ouachita graduate. But he was very much part of the family as a member and later the head of Ouachita's grounds crew.

Faculty Profile: Phil Rice

What an honor it is to share a few words about a man who impacted my life so profoundly. As a good Baptist, I thought I would arrange my thoughts around three alliterative points: paper, people and purpose.

Faculty Profile: Bill Downs

Melinda Mayo reflects on her professor, Bill Downs, professor emeritus of mass communications, who served Ouachita for 41 years.

Karen (Stabley) Matros '92: Director of Student Financial Services

Karen Matros is passionate about a few things – her family, her alma mater and serving others. Matros began working for Ouachita even before she graduated, serving part time in admissions counseling while she finished her degree. She graduated in May of 1992, was married a week later in Berry Chapel to Brant Matros ’93 and began working full time in admissions that summer.

A Home for the Times

When I was six, my family moved into a president’s home as my father took the helm at a Baptist university. Early on, I discovered that he put loose change in his briefcase and didn’t seem to mind that I collected the coins. In time, I started reading his papers, sparking my interest in Christian higher education.

Dan Turner '94: Partnering Through Prosecution

When Dan Turner ’94 was preparing for law school as a political science student at Ouachita, he never would have predicted using campus as a makeshift courthouse – a pivot during the pandemic to accommodate social distancing requirements – or being honored on campus for his work prosecuting one of the most notorious sex offenders in the state.

Julyse Migan-Gandonou Horr: Director of Applied Behavior Analysis Program and Assistant Professor of ABA

With a toddler and a newborn, Dr. Julyse Horr and her husband, Corey, are in that early phase of parenthood when sleep is a rare treat and your most valuable currency can be Cheerios and Goldfish crackers.

Ann (Owen) Chami '83

It’s often been said that you can’t kid a kidder. Ann Chami ’83 would say that you can’t kid a kid.

Courage to engage

Ouachita prides itself in its personal approach to higher education, from the thoughtful attention prospective students receive during their college search, to the ways faculty and staff invest in students’ lives, to our commitment to tight-knit Christian community, which is built in dozens of ways for students whether they live on campus or attend classes online. During the pandemic, this level of engagement was challenged. Physical distance separated us; events, classes and residence life took new approaches.

The Why Behind Our Traditions

While we often want to hold on to the comfort of traditions, I think it’s important to ask why they were important to us. What about the behavior do we long to preserve? I often remind students to think beyond the behavior of a tradition and consider the belief behind it. What is it about the tradition that is important? Often, the importance is found in the why.

Staff Profile: Rosemary Chu

When I give the newly arrived freshmen a taste of Ouachita history before classes start each fall, I tell the inspirational story of Rosemary Chu. What Chu had was the investment she had made in Ouachita. And Ouachita invested in her.

Faculty Profile: Kenneth Sandifer

Tim Knight shares about his professor and colleague, Kenneth Sandifer, professor emeritus of biology at Ouachita.

Stewarding Tradition

The editor's note by James Taylor in Ouachita's Fall/Winter 2025 edition of the alumni magazine, the Circle.

Brett Rogers '90: People are the Priority

Ouachita has been a home away from home for every student who’s lived in campus housing. Every year for Tiger basketball student-athletes, it’s also a home away from home for the holidays.

Master's degree in counseling dovetails with Ouachita's mission

Ouachita’s newest graduate program equips students to become Licensed Professional Counselors with the skill to treat clients professionally and ethically in response to the global mental health crisis. The program gets at the heart of Ouachita’s mission to prepare students for lives of meaningful work.

Finding Home: Following Christ in Cambridge and Cone-Bottoms

It was my first time to attend a Cambridge formal hall, a posh ceremonial dinner for which the world’s oldest universities are renowned. As a fifth-generation Texan and a faithful Baptist since birth, I knew everything about BBQs and potluck fellowships. But I knew next to nothing about formal halls, except that they required black tie and sub fusc (the flowing academic gowns we see on Harry Potter).

Home - person, place, or thing?

“When I first stepped foot on Ouachita’s campus, it just felt like home.”

Chris Babb '99

As a senior communications major at Ouachita, Chris Babb ’99 sat across the desk from his advisor, Dr. Bill Downs, and told him he might want to teach. He was not sure what was pulling him in that direction but knew his future job also would involve sports.

Honoring firsts

Carolyn Jean Green and the late Gustine Blevins, who in 1966 became the first African American graduates in Ouachita’s history, were celebrated Nov. 12 when the Green-Blevins Rotunda was dedicated in their honor.