SEARCY — After more than four decades of teaching, a Searcy couple plan to retire from Harding University at the end of the school year.
Edmond Wilson, a professor of chemistry, began his Harding teaching career in 1970, and his wife, Beth, a professor in the department of family and consumer sciences, joined the university the next year.
“We worked past retirement age, and we felt the time was right,” Beth said of the decision to retire. “My husband had a lot of research grants, so he’s sort of finishing up those projects this semester. We felt like it was time to retire and spend some more time together, to travel a little bit. We both want to spend more time with our extended family in other states.”
Edmond, who has been a part of the Arkansas Space Grant Consortium for the past 26 years, said he looks forward to continuing research in his retirement. The Arkansas Space Grant Consortium is a part of the National Space Grant College and Fellowship Program, which helps acquaint students “with the mission of NASA and develop citizens into better engineers and scientists,” he said.
“I really love what I’m doing, but I’m getting older and have the normal problems that a person my age — I’m 77 — has, so I thought it’s probably time to retire,” he said. “My hearing is really getting bad. I was really hoping to continue in some capacity. The provost and the dean and the department head have all told me I can keep my laboratory and office for the time being.”
Beth said she and Ed met at the University of Alabama and married in 1965.
“We were a blind date. He had just started his master’s degree at the University of Alabama in chemistry, and I was starting my freshman year,” she said. “My roommate and his roommate were dating, and so they asked us if we wanted to go out with them one evening, and that’s how we met.”
Most days, because they are both on campus, Beth and Ed have breakfast, lunch and dinner together and see each other at chapel and campus events.
“That’s been a very, very good experience, the fact that we both understand the demands of our jobs. We’re both on campus, so we really can support each other,” she said.
Beth, who received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from the University of Alabama and her doctorate from the University of Memphis, said her upbringing on a farm in rural Athens, Alabama, drew her to the field of family and consumer sciences.
“I began looking at career choices in ninth grade. I was taking some home economic courses, and I wanted to teach at the high school level because I was really passionate about families and marriages and children, and I wanted to make a difference in their lives,” she said. “I think probably it had to do with the fact that I grew up in a rural community. I had five older sisters. My mom and dad were committed to the family — hard workers — and we lived above poverty, but we did not have a lot of material things. But I saw in my family a lot of love, and I just became passionate, I guess.”
Beth’s courses at Harding cover families in a global society, family dynamics, foundations of early childhood, pediatric nutrition and more.
Edmond said that in school, he started out studying physics but discovered he was better at chemistry.
“Everything that you see, feel, touch and smell is chemistry,” he said. “All the clothes we wear, all the materials our cars are made of and everything, all the medicines we take and the pollution of the environment — those are all chemical problems and solutions.”
Beth stepped down from her 30-year role of family and consumer sciences department chair about a year and a half ago.
“The challenges are to maintain enrollment, to maintain all of the academic rigor, lots of paperwork, doing lots of PR for the department,” she said of
being department chair. “But the reward is to see the dreams come true for the department, moving forward, seeing the accomplishments of the students.”
Edmond said that he, his department and his students have conducted space research over the years.
“My biggest project so far has been to develop a mobile robotic vehicle to search for signs of life on mars using lasers …,” he said. “My colleague here at Harding and I have submitted a proposal; it’s called a NASA Small Business Innovative Research proposal, to work with a company in Minneapolis that prints electronic circuits on cloth, paper, plastics, anything you can name.”
Over the years, Beth has seen the family and consumer sciences department at Harding increase in enrollment and degree offerings, she said. Ed said he’s seen the same take place in his department.
During her retirement, Beth said, she hopes to volunteer more and “maybe even sleep late and have a second cup of coffee.”
“I am passionate about the department, and I’m passionate about the university, so if they needed me to do something, I would,” she said. “I’m hoping to expand my volunteer work with the community. I’ve worked with the White County domestic violence [prevention] program since its beginning 20 years ago, so I’m hoping to do a little bit more work there, maybe do some more work in church activities and other community agencies.”
Ed said that during his retirement, he is most looking forward to continuing his research projects and traveling the country with Beth.
“I’ve always said teaching at Harding was a privilege and not something to be taken for granted,” he said. “I really enjoy working with the students. They’ve helped me to become a better person, and hopefully, I’ve helped them become better people also.”