A total of three members of the Hope College faculty are retiring at the end of the school year: Lynne Hendrix, professor of accountancy; Maura Reynolds, associate professor of Latin and director of advising; and Dr. William Reynolds, dean for the arts and humanities and professor of English.
Together, they have served Hope students for a combined 109 years.
Lynne Hendrix has been a member of the Hope faculty since 1984. She has taught courses including Principles of Financial Accounting, Cost Accounting, Principles of Managerial Accounting, Intermediate I, Auditing I and II, and Accounting Practicum I and II. She has also directed the Accounting Practicum (internship program) and chaired various scholarship committees. She served as a “Faculty in Residence” during a sabbatical, working in the tax department of BDO Seidman in Grand Rapids.
Her work as a mentor also extends to helping graduating students with their resumes and even with their job search. In recognition of her commitment to and excellence in teaching accounting and promoting the CPA profession, the Michigan Association of Certified Public Accountants presented her with its “Accounting Educator of the Year” award in 2005.
Among her other service to the college, she has been one of Hope’s two MIAA conference faculty representatives and NCAA faculty representatives for 24 years, also serving as a member and chair of the college’s Athletic Committee. She has also served as Hope’s liaison to the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA), the Institute of Management Accountants (IMA) and the American Society of Women Accountants. In addition to her teaching in accounting, she also formerly taught sailing at Hope and is a past advisor to the college’s Sailing Club.
Hendrix completed her bachelor’s degree at Eastern Michigan University, graduating summa cum laude in 1978. After gaining four years of auditing and tax experience as a senior accountant with Peat, Marwick, Mitchell & Co. in Toledo, Ohio, she completed an MBA at Grand Valley State University. She and her fiance, Joe, have a combined family including three grown daughters, including Christie ’92 and Laura ’95, and three grandchildren.
Maura Reynolds joined the college in 1975 as director of the Academic Support Center, a position she held for four years, also teaching expository writing. She began teaching Latin at Hope in 1980.
She was appointed director of advising in 1988, and also served as coordinator for pilot sections of Hope’s “First-Year Seminar” program. She delivered the college’s Opening Convocation address in August of 1998 and Commencement address in May of 2001. In 2003, she received both the college’s “Provost’s Award for Service to the Academic Program,” given to professors who have demonstrated recognizable excellence in specific activities or aspects of teaching, and “Vanderbush-Weller Development Fund” award, presented for strong, positive impact on students.
Maura Reynolds helped plan and implement New Student Orientation at Hope from 1987 through the beginning of the spring 2013 semester. For more than 20 years she was also a member of the staff of the college’s Teaching Enhancement Workshop, geared toward faculty members about to begin their first year at Hope.
She has made several presentations at professional conferences, discussing advising and teaching. She is currently serving a three-year term as chair of the Small Colleges and Universities Commission of the National Academic Advising Association (NACADA).
Reynolds holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Latin from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Prior to coming to Hope, she had taught Latin at West Ottawa High School and at Thornton Township High School in Harvey, Ill. She and her husband, Bill, who is also retiring from Hope this year, have two grown daughters and two granddaughters.
William Reynolds has been a member of the Hope English faculty since 1971. He chaired the department of English from 1987 until his appointment as dean in 1994. During his leadership, the division, which consists of nine departments, has hired nearly 50 new faculty, has gained new and improved facilities including through the renovation of Lubbers Hall, the construction of the Martha Miller Center for Global Communication, and is anticipating the construction of the Kruizenga Art Museum and the new concert hall and music complex.
Courses he has taught at the college have included expository writing and world literature, as well as the history of the English language, and British literature of the Old and Middle English periods and the earlier Renaissance. He has been a member or chair of several committees at Hope, and co-chaired the Faculty-Staff Division of the college’s “Hope in the Future” comprehensive campaign.
He co-edited the book “It’s a Print: Detective Fiction from Page to Screen,” which was published in October 1994 by the Popular Press of Bowling Green State University in Ohio. He also contributed one of the book’s 13 essays: “The Patriarchy Restored: BBC Television’s Adaptation of Dorothy Sayers’s ‘Strong Poison,’ ‘Have His Carcase’ and ‘Gaudy Night.’”
William Reynolds has had several articles and reviews published, in journals including “Christianity and Literature,” “Clues,” “Crime and Detective Stories,” and “The Armchair Detective.” He has also regularly presented papers during the Annual Convention of the Popular Culture Association. He is a member of the Popular Culture Association, the Modern Language Association, and the Conference on Christianity and Literature.
William Reynolds holds his undergraduate degree from Xavier University, a master’s degree from Columbia University and a doctorate from the University of Illinois. He and his wife, Maura, who is also retiring from Hope this year, have two grown daughters and two granddaughters.