Genevieve Hendricks, Ph.D., associate professor of art history and art department chair at Hollins University, has received a prestigious HERS-Mellon Fellowship to participate in the national HERS Leadership Institute at Butler University in Indianapolis, Indiana, July 22 to July 31, 2025.
The HERS Leadership Institute, a transformational leadership development program for higher education professionals who hold mid-to-senior level positions, focuses on women and people who are gender diverse. Using the pillars of self-knowledge, institutional awareness, networking, and practical application, the HERS program helps participants develop the skills and confidence to lead with a unique voice across their institution and the higher education sector. Hendricks is one of eight 2025 HERS Leadership Institute participants from the humanities to receive a competitive, $10,000 HERS-Mellon Leader Fellowship award, funded by the Mellon Foundation.
Hendricks’ Hollins Leadership
The unique opportunity to expand her knowledge of higher education change management and develop a national peer network coincides as Hendricks assumes new leadership roles. One of her first campus leadership positions was on the committee that revised the general education curriculum from 2019-2022, and in fall 2023, Hendricks began her tenure as art department chair overseeing the art history and studio art programs.
Currently, on Hollins academic renewal research and design team, Hendricks uses her research acumen to help the campus community understand today’s national and local environments for higher education. She is a senator on the university’s new faculty senate system and a member of the Academic Excellence team for Transforming Learning, Transforming Lives: The Levavi Oculos Strategic Plan, the strategic plan approvedunanimously by the Board of Trustees in 2023 that offers an energizing direction for Hollins.
Laura A. McLary, Ph.D., Nora Kizer Bell Provost and a HERS alumna, has championed Hendricks’s leadership approach and growth. “Genevieve is a collaborative partner always interested in eliciting from our community our best and brightest potential,” says McLary who encouraged Hendricks to apply to the HERS program. “She brings a generous spirit, earnest ethic of care and respect for others, and a passion for problem solving.” While chairing the Hollins tenure and promotion committee last year, Hendricks worked with colleagues to provide greater clarity and precision in the tenure-and-promotion review process.
“It’s been fairly recent that I’ve been stepping into leadership, which is why I very much appreciate the support and encouragement that President Hinton and Provost McLary have been offering to grow into these roles,” says Hendricks, who attended an online HERS course when she began her tenure as art department chair. She also is encouraged by the examples of her Hollins HERS Leadership Institute alumnae peers: McLary; LeeRay Costa, Ph.D., executive director of leadership studies and the Batten Leadership Institute and professor, Gender and Women’s Studies; and Rachel Nuñez, Ph.D., associate professor and history department chair and director of core curriculum and first-year foundations.
Inspiring Hollins Leaders
“I am inspired by President Hinton’s embrace of love as a leadership strategy and bringing forward everyone’s voices to create a culture and a community of support rather than competition,” Hendricks says. “Provost McLary’s leadership has shifted how we as faculty can collaborate to improve our student experience and how we bring vital perspectives from our fields to the world in a way that is meaningful.”
In the coming academic year, Hendricks plans to share the HERS leadership knowledge with the Hollins community. “As faculty, we need to share with students as we’re learning and growing to show that learning is not static,” she adds. “It’s critical that we help them navigate conflict management and the dynamics of bringing our whole human selves to create a culture of compassion and care that is imperative to growth and vision.” She also intends to lead a professional development workshop for faculty, as she did last spring following her participation in a 2024 National Endowment for the Humanities-funded learning community about teaching art history with AI.
“Knowing that Genevieve is a practitioner of reflection and self-discovery, I have no doubt she will apply new perspectives and practical strategies gleaned from the HERS Leadership Institute with ever greater skill and intention at Hollins,” McLary says.
