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University of Arkansas Alumna Gives $600k to Alma Mater

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Hot Springs native and University of Arkansas alumna K. Denise Henderson is giving more than a half-million dollars to her alma mater.

Henderson’s planned gift of $600,000 will be divided between the Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural Food & Life Sciences, the Women’s Giving Circle and the Arkansas Alumni Association. Each entity will receive $200,000.

Her donation to the Bumpers College will establish the K. Denise Henderson Endowed Scholarship that will benefit undergraduate students in the School of Human Environmental Sciences. 

“She is a proud home economics graduate, and we appreciate her support of our human nutrition and hospitality innovation program,” Dean Mike Vayda said in a news release. “Her gift will allow us to increase scholarship opportunities for students, which is one of our main priorities.”

Henderson’s nearly quarter-million dollars to the Women’s Giving Circle will establish a permanent endowment, the K. Denise Henderson Women’s Giving Circle Endowed Fund. The endowment will allow the organization the ability to regularly disperse funds into the endowment through its annual grant-making cycle and enhance the programming capabilities of the organization.

“Upon returning to Arkansas, I was struck by how few women were in leadership positions,” Henderson said in the release. “I’ve been a member of the Women’s Giving Circle for a few years and have seen the good work they do.”

The donation to the Arkansas Alumni Association will support the Mike & Kris Macechko Endowed Alumni Scholarship.

“Mike Macechko, who was then the executive director, was personally responsible for my joining the board,” Henderson said in the release. “I had no idea what a special and coveted position it was at the time. Mike worked incessantly to increase Arkansas Alumni Association scholarships, which is why I wanted my contribution to support his scholarship.”

Henderson graduated from the university with a bachelor’s in home economics. She’s worked with the Southern Living Cooking School and Kraft Foods and is currently enrolled full-time at the Central Arkansas Arts & Hospitality Management Institute in Little Rock.

“If not for my degree from the Bumpers College and support from my instructors, the gift would not be possible,” Henderson said. “My instructors played a major role in my being hired for my first position out of school.”

Henderson is to be inducted to the Towers of Old Main, a giving society reserved for the university’s most generous benefactors.

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