Hampton helps others become businesswomen

Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Steve Reed/Cottey College Renee Hampton, Cottey College experiential learning and student success coordinator speaks to student Meredith Mattocks, of Truckee, Calif. about the forthcoming CATO fashion show. Mattocks also is a member of the Rotaract Club.

Editor's note: It's National Businesswomen's Week, and in today's edition of the Nevada Daily Mail, this story, and an additonal story on Page 7, salute just some of the many working women in the area.

By Donna Logan

Special to the Daily Mail

If Cottey College wanted to build a stronger bridge to the Nevada community it would be harder to find someone to construct it than Renee Hampton, the dynamic professional with the big title of Experiential Learning and Student Success Coordinator.

From her office in Cottey's Academic Assistance Center, Hampton oversees a myriad of programs intended to strengthen the ties between town and gown by helping students broaden their awareness of the world outside the classroom through internships and service learning, class projects and undergraduate research.

"I love working with the students and promoting our area," said Hampton, a Nevada native. "It's very important for them to know Nevada well so that Cottey becomes their home while they're here."

Several Cottey interns have been placed in supervised positions at various places, from Belles and Beaus and the Nevada Police Department to the Chamber of Commerce and the Nevada R-5 schools, and at Cottey in alumni relations, theatre costume indexing and YouTube videography.

The students get internship credit for their planned learning experience. What an internships is not, said Hampton, are timeouts from college work, an easy grade, volunteer experience, "go-fer" duties, or a guarantee of a job offer.

In the area of scholarships, Hampton acts as a guide for the student to sift through the bewildering number of scholarships and find what she is looking for. The just announced "nominated scholarships" for which students must be nominated by the college. are much coveted. This fall they include Coca Cola, USA Today, Jack Kent Cook, Barry Goldwater, and Phi Theta Kappa scholastic honorary scholarships.

In undergraduate research, Hampton is coordinating a search for over-25 participants for a special study students are doing in the recently approved department of psychology.

Hampton assisted with the coordination of the August Cottey Community Picnic and Fair, as well as the school's first career and internship fair in early October which drew 35 representatives from regional colleges, banks and businesses in Missouri and eastern Kansas.

Working with the admissions office, she presented information on experiential learning for "C for Yourself" weekend Oct. 25 for 85 junior and senior high school students to visit the campus.

She is sponsor of Rotoract, a student service club, and has helped in coordinating Joplin tornado relief. Now the club is readying for the CATO fashion show, slated Nov. 11, to benefit the community food Pantry. It will be held in the Missouri Recital Hall, featuring student models, dancers and rhythmic drumming.

Hampton has had a wealth of experience working with young people since her graduation from Nevada High School in 1974 and subsequent graduation from Missouri State University and internship in Washington, D.C. She's worked with Girl Scouts, the YMCA, the Missouri Soil and Water Conser-vation District and the Missouri Division of Family Services.

Hampton moved back to Nevada in 1984. "I wanted to raise my four sons in a community near family," she said.

Before coming to Cottey two years ago, Hampton ran her own firm, The Idea Factory, for 20 years, writing grants and developing programs in early childhood education.

Hampton is the daughter of Wanda Arthur, widely known in Nevada for her civic endeavors, and great-granddaughter of Vernon County pioneers in the Sheldon area, John Phipps and Judith Longacre Phipps. Growing up, she loved riding her horse in the Pleasure Horse Club in Nevada and on the family's century farm and showing it at the Vernon County fairgrounds.

Does she still ride?

"No," she lamented, "I don't have time."

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