‘To Be Where Your Feet Are’ The Kendrick Award, established in memory of Bryant Kendrick ’67, encourages W&L students to experience the natural world.

By Kelsey Goodwin
December 4, 2024

“At the heart of this award is the essence of why the liberal arts matters — this is about why we’re in the world.”

~ Alexandra Brown, Fletcher Otey Thomas Professor in Bible

Addie-Grace Cook ’25, a politics major with a double minor in Middle East and South Asia studies and poverty and human capability studies, tacked on an admirable personal challenge to her busy summer in Lexington. While interning at Project Horizon, an organization that works to eradicate domestic violence and sexual assault in the Rockbridge area, Cook also ran the entire length of Rockbridge County in one day on Aug. 18, creating a route map during the countless hours she spent running in preparation for the endeavor as well as a watercolor painting that incorporated voice notes she recorded while running sections of the trail. Her project was made possible through the Outing Club’s Kendrick Award, an opportunity that supports W&L students’ pursuit of creative self-reflection in the natural world.

Cook was one of four students who completed a Kendrick project this summer and who presented their final projects to the W&L community on November 20. James Dick, W&L’s director of outdoor education, invites anyone interested in applying for the next year’s Kendrick Award to the annual presentation, which asks those who’ve recently completed their Kendrick projects to share their reflections and a final creative product with the W&L community. The Kendrick Committee hopes the award will lead participants to profound connections with nature, self-discovery and personal growth, and encourages applicants to reach out early and often for guidance as they shape their project proposals.

“From the committee’s perspective, the why is more important than the where,” Dick said. “How are you going to inspire the sophomore sitting in the meeting listening to your presentation? Unpolished is better, quirky is better – we want to see creativity and a deeper meaning to the project.”

The Kendrick Award has provided underclassmen Washington and Lee University students with funding and support for an extramural experience of self-examination and reflection through exploration in nature since 2001. Funding for the award was established in memory of Bryant S. Kendrick ’67 and is distributed annually through an application process overseen by the Kendrick Committee. Dick chairs the committee, which includes Leah Naomi Green, visiting assistant professor of English; Jeffrey Kosky, professor of religion; Alexandra Brown, Fletcher Otey Thomas Professor in Bible; and Kirk Follo ’67, instructor emeritus of German and Italian, a classmate and close friend of Kendrick’s who was instrumental in establishing the award after his passing in 2000. Follo said Kendrick’s spiritual and philosophical grounding, his focus on the individual, his warmth and generosity and his service-oriented approach to all his endeavors deeply informed his personal philosophy and practice of medicine.

The Rev. Dr. Bryant S. Kendrick graduated from Washington and Lee in 1967 with a degree in philosophy. He enlisted as a hospital corpsman in the Navy during the height of the Vietnam War. He received his Master of Divinity from Duke University in 1974 and completed a pastoral care residency at North Carolina Baptist Hospital in 1979. In 1986, he was awarded his Doctor of Ministry from Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary. At the time of his passing, he was an associate professor in Wake Forest University’s Department of Internal Medicine and associate program director for the Internal Medicine Residency Program, where he taught medical ethics, effective interviewing skills and the psychosocial aspects of patient management decisions to medical residents for more than 20 years. After his passing, the Kendrick family initiated the Bryant Kendrick Fund for Spirituality in Healing at the Wake Forest University School of Medicine, and Kendrick’s W&L classmates established the Bryant S. Kendrick Memorial Outdoors Fund at W&L shortly thereafter.

Kendrick’s interests in creative writing, music and philosophical discussions in nature are at the root of the project that award recipients are asked to share with the W&L community after their Kendrick experience, a stipulation that Follo said is an extension of Kendrick’s keen interest in sharing his many gifts with others.

“Bryant engaged in self-reflection generously,” Follo said. “He was open to others. That’s what we aimed to convey in establishing the Kendrick Award — that perspective on life.”

Kendrick’s enthusiasm for sharing his knowledge and interests is a recurring theme among those who knew him.

“He truly inspired all three of his daughters to spend more time outdoors and to find peace and solace in nature,” said Kendrick’s daughter Erika Friedel. “He played a key role in encouraging us to embrace the experiences in nature that can change, move, support, and nourish us.” Friedel added that Kendrick would have been thrilled to see so many women take advantage of the Kendrick Award since it began.

Cook’s inspiration, she said, was her father, who often encouraged her to “be where your feet are.”

“I thought, what if I had the opportunity to really do that — to ‘be where your feet are’ in a place I have spent so much time and where I have the blessing of spending my whole summer,” said Cook, who added that the runs allowed her to develop a deeper, more personal connection to Rockbridge County beyond just the physical act of traversing it, transforming her perspective on knowing a place. The community aspect, she said, was also crucial; having her family, friends and professors join her for parts of the run provided motivation and a richer experience.

A healthy sense of humor was a key ingredient of Loren Hertzler ’27’s presentation on her planned backpacking trip through Kings Canyon National Park with her mother this summer. Both developed altitude sickness halfway through the trip and hiked out, redirecting their trip into the Sequoia National Park after they recuperated. Hertzler, a biology major minoring in art and education studies, said that while the trip was one of her most challenging experiences, the photo diary she created of the adventure with her mother, a fellow artist and outdoor explorer, helped her realize her true motivations.

“I realized that getting to know who my mom truly is was most important to me,” Hertzler said, adding that she is also grateful for the opportunity to have seen natural wonders that would have been inaccessible on a day hike. “Backpacking isn’t necessarily easy for me, but I felt like pushing through that challenge was worth it for the chance to see a part of the wilderness that so few people get to see in their lives.” In addition to her still photography, Hertzler is currently finishing a set of woodcut prints inspired by the sequoia trees she and her mother encountered during their time in the park.

David Heinen ’16’s Kendrick Award, completed in the summer of 2014, also had its roots in family and memory-making. Heinen and his older brother went backpacking in the backcountry of Banff National Park in Canada with the goal of reaching Peyto Lake, the site of a childhood trip with their parents. The two faced their own challenges during the trek, at one point stopping to boil creek water to replenish their water supply after accidentally breaking their water filtration equipment. Heinen’s campus presentation featured poems he had written inspired by Henry David Thoreau’s writings, which he read extensively throughout the trip. Heinen, a psychology major, said the experience planted the seeds for his eventual shift toward creative writing as a career path.

“Writing those poems on the trail was affirming — to have a forum where an interest in the outdoors can also be filtered through that academic lens is valuable,” said Heinen, who went on to obtain an MFA in creative writing at Hollins University and is currently pursuing his Ph.D. in English and creative writing at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Kendrick alumna Diana Banks Jones ’17, whose award took her to the GR 20 trail, a long-distance hiking path in Corsica, Italy, recalls the intense training for the experience and says the physical challenges she faced on the trip were made easier by the friends she made long the way, including a fellow female solo hiker whom she has stayed in touch with over the years.

“I came to realize that my connection and reliance on other people through this experience was going to be the best and most important part,” Jones said.

Jones is now a manager of climate strategy and analysis at Capital One and said her Kendrick Award is one of her most meaningful W&L memories.

“I think most of us who have received the award and completed the project would probably consider it one of the most memorable and incredible things we’ve ever done, even a turning point,” said Jones.

Nisha Walvekar ’26, a computer science and environmental studies double major from Bangalore, India, focused her Kendrick project this summer on exploring barren landscapes, specifically in the Badlands National Park and the Black Hills National Forest in South Dakota. Walvekar wanted to challenge the idea of what is pristine or “Edenic” in nature using comics, an art form she recently developed an interest in after taking Creating Comics, a course that combines creative writing and studio art. Through her comics, Walvekar explored the themes of fear, wonder and the human tendency to want to center ourselves in nature, and said the project offered an opportunity to self-reflect in a way that she had not done since writing her college application essays.

“At the end of my final project for my Creating Comics class, I created a panel that said, ‘The comics are creating me,’ and that was the mindset with which I entered into this experience,” Walvekar said.

Nora Jacobson ’26, an English major minoring in environmental studies and creative writing, set out to use her Kendrick Award to create a children’s book based on Huntley Meadows Park, a nature preserve near where she grew up in Alexandria, Virginia.

“This was an idea that had been ruminating in my head for a long time,” said Jacobson. “This felt like the perfect way to do it since it’s all about an intersection of personal reflection and growth and environmental education.”

Jacobson envisioned the book as a walk through the park incorporating poetic prose, hand-drawn illustrations, and scientific notes. Jacobson said her goal is to inspire younger children to spend more time in nature and that discussions in her environmental studies courses at W&L impressed upon her the importance of environmental education. While the book remains in the planning stages, Jacobson will dedicate it to the memory of a family friend and science teacher who had a profound impact on her love of science and the natural world.

“He’s a constant inspiration to me to embody his outlook of kindness and of fostering a real thirst for knowledge,” Jacobson said. “He’s another reason why I wanted to do this.”

Fletcher Otey Thomas Professor in Bible Alex Brown, who has served on the Kendrick committee for the past four years, said the Kendrick Award encourages recipients to ask the kinds of questions of themselves and their surroundings during their travels that the humanities has always asked.

“Having space to ask the ‘why’ questions is more important now than ever,” Brown said. “At the heart of this award is the essence of why the liberal arts matters — this is about why we’re in the world.”

Applications for the 2025 Kendrick Award are due on Jan. 17, 2025. For more information, visit the Bryant S. Kendrick Memorial Outdoors Fund website or email jdick@wlu.edu.