04/10/08
Sandy Davidson was a lonely woman managing a motel in De Soto in 1978.
During this time, she enjoyed experimenting with recipes. Her most memorable failure was baking beer bread. When the beer did not warm and the bread did not raise, she gave the unsuccessful loaf to her neighbor’s dog.
<a href="http://www.bakeru.edu/orangeline/0708video/sandyd.html" target="_blank"><strong>Watch a KNBU video featuring Davidson.</strong></a> Watch a KNBU video featuring Davidson.
Later, she looked out her window and saw that the dog was lying on its side. Davidson thought the dog looked like a four-legged barrel that was about to explode. She was afraid she had killed the dog, but later that night she noticed the dog was up and running around again, and her neighbors were none the wiser.
Thirty years later, the story has a happy ending. Davidson successfully baked some beer bread in October, and she has been making it regularly since then.
Davidson’s life revolves around happy endings. As Student Academic Services tutoring coordinator, she tries to help students reach their own happy endings. “Sandy has an open style that makes students feel very comfortable with asking for her assistance,” Academic Service Assistant Kathy Wilson said.
Many students agree with Wilson.
“I love her! She is one of those teachers that actually cares about her students not just in school but with their life,” sophomore Alysia King said.
Because of United States Air Force commitments, Davidson’s family moved every two to three years to a new city or country. She said she learned to love new places, people and stimulation but had a difficult time staying in one place for a long period of time. After she graduated high school, she experienced many adventures that took her to Florida, California, Hawaii and Japan. Through her experiences she accumulated many lifetime memories and a couple hundred hours of college credit.
It took her 15 years to complete her degree, but she did it. Two years later she had accomplished a goal of hers that she would receive a hood and diploma and be sitting in the front row for graduation.
Davidson started teaching at a private college-prep high school. She said she loved teaching and her students and understood what they were going through.
Later, she began teaching general education classes at Ottawa University in Overland Park and added DeVry University and Baker’s School of Professional and Graduate Studies to her adjunct teaching circuit.
In 2002, she learned that Lisa Johnston, assistant dean for SAS, was taking a position at Baker University and knew that Sandy had always wanted to work there. So Davidson ended up applying for the advising and tutoring coordinator position.
“I am here for anyone whether it is to talk or get help with assignments,” she said. “I do not want someone to depend on me for his or her work to get done but to learn and become independent.”
This year Davidson teaches an Academic Enhancement Seminar class for selected freshmen. The class helps students deal with the many issues that drove her away from college after her freshman year. The issues include seeking and accepting independence, setting goals, managing time, growing emotional intelligence and taking personal responsibility for actions.
She said her goal is to make this class available for all freshmen, so that they can come with a “willing spirit.”
The class, like making beer bread, is an example of how Davidson strives to find happy endings for herself and her students.
“It took me almost 30 years to rediscover the delicious rewards of making beer bread,” she said. “In the future, I will not give up so easily.”