Associate Professor of Management Jamie Hendry inspired the campus community to achieve sustainability by fostering a caring and trusting community during her talk called “Inspiration” on Nov. 11. Hendry was selected as the recipient of the Class of 1956 Lectureship.

“What does it mean for people to get to know one another, care about the folks that will be impacted, and make something extraordinary?” Hendry said.

She spoke about promoting an engaged learning community while teaching the Management 101 course and how this sense of caring can impact the University community.

“[Management 101 is] the most significant engaged learning I’ve ever seen,” Hendry said.

Students are tasked with “doing the most good 28 people can do in two weeks” by starting real companies that raise money for service, Hendry said.

“If you haven’t lived it, you just can’t imagine,” Hendry said.

The sense of classroom community allows students to get to know each other and take risks together.

“Sustainability means that the future matters. Oddly enough, this hasn’t always been taught in business schools,” Hendry said. 

Hendry tries to teach students that ethics and sustainability are not only possible, but are actually an essential component of business. Early in her career, she realized the unregulated damages that the government was allowing corporations to inflict.

“I was appalled that we’d allowed corporations and individuals to kill the only home we have,” Hendry said.  

Since then, she decided that she wanted to devote her life to sustainability. 

Hendry has since led the movement for sustainability at the University. Many of her former students have been inspired to choose unexpected careers in sustainable companies and nonprofit organizations, and the University “is doing pretty well” in sustainability, according to Hendry. It recently published its first report on sustainability with LEED Silver certifications for several buildings. The University has also created a recycling program, constructed new buildings with LEED Silver certifications, created over 110 sustainability courses, fostered the Social Justice and Environmental Residential Colleges, and organized projects with the community garden and the Bucknell Brigades. It also plans to create its first zero-waste meal next week.

But Hendry says it’s not enough.

“Far too often, private institutions don’t get as involved as they could in their local communities,” Hendry said.

She encourages the campus community to learn from the surrounding community by taking advantage of teaching opportunities for local students at the Bucknell View Mobile Home Park, helping at local retirement homes and animal shelters, offering summer camps, and working with the Lewisburg Downtown Partnership. Of course, this doesn’t mean that the University has a supreme right to redeem the rest of the community. 

“They can’t come riding in on their white horse to save the day. We just don’t recognize how much we can be part of the area. They could save us,” Hendry said.

Hendry hopes to engage students not just through more homework, but through inspiration. 

“We socially constructed the system the way it is, so I sure hope we can socially construct a new one. If not, we’re damned,” Associate Professor of Management Neil Boyd said.

“Professor Hendry exuded her sense of deep commitment and caring towards her students and shared with us insights on how we can generate similar levels of excitement about caring in our own classrooms,” Associate Professor of Management Janice Traflet said.