photo by Nicholle Smith '06 Beverly Rodgers "Beverly Rodgers is a wonderful,
compassionate woman. Her office is always open and she very accessible
to her students. When her advisees are off-campus, she maintains
a constant line of communication, which makes her a superb co-op
advisor." Co-op advisors are always working. It's a 24-hour job. Dr. Beverly Rodgers is no exception. She provides students with all her contact information-both at work and at home. She is almost always accessible and available and says, "It's an intense job that draws on all the resources available." Beverly graduated from high school in 1966 and had done a lot of things by the time she got to college in 1991. She realized after years of experience with nonprofit organizations and volunteer programs that she was no longer interested in this type of work. She was ready for something new. Beverly decided to go back to college: "I was in southwest Missouri at that time, and I had reconnected with my heritage, which is the Miami Tribe of Oklahoma. I had heard of so many negative situations, involving children in particular, that I decided to go to college to become a social worker. Then I took a cultural anthropology class!" Beverly finished up her BA and then moved to Ohio to pursue her MA and PhD in anthropology at Ohio State University (OSU). Beverly began looking for a full-time job while she was finishing her dissertation, a paper that explored the subject of identity within the Indian Community of Northeastern Oklahoma. She came upon an opening at Antioch. "When I was looking at all the websites, I saw the advertisement for co-op and thought okay, it's education and dealing with business and industry." She knew it was something she could tackle. Beverly strives to be open to hearing her students and says that for students Antioch is by nature a place that creates a lot of tension. "Coming and going and figuring it out and putting it into place-there is a regular pressure to think about what it is they want to do." Beverly points out that Antioch demands a high level of maturity and the demand is more often than not met. She does her part by trying to create an atmosphere that is not fearful but is, at the same time, respectful. "I don't think there is a single person working in co-op who wouldn't say that is the key. You have to be open enough so that students can tell you the truth and figure out how to be critical without closing them up again." The co-op faculty work together as a team and Beverly has been thrilled to find a truly collegial environment. "There has never been a time when I've felt that I was being a pain by asking questions…There is so much synergy in this office." Like most of the faculty, Beverly is trying to find balance. She is presenting a paper at Miami University this spring and her tribe recently received a NAGPRA (Native American Graves and Repatriation Act) grant. This act states that any agency receiving federal funds must do an inventory of all Native artifacts, determine the tribe of origin and send these inventories to that tribe. "This process took years and years to accommodate," explains Beverly. "There was something like 30,000 boxes of bones in the Smithsonian that no one had ever heard about. We finally got a grant, and I'm one of the group members that will be going to the Ohio Historical Society, seven or eight additional sites, photographing and documenting their collection." When asked if there was something in her past
that might surprise her students, Beverly smiled and said, "I
used to sing in a rock 'n roll band called Wanderlust." Antioch
is lucky to have Beverly's rock 'n roll voice and energy on its
faculty. by Rachel Moulton '97 page last updated: April 5, 2004 |
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