SHEPHERDSTOWN, W.Va. — Saturday marks Shepherd University’s 153rd commencement and it will be the final one presided over by outgoing Shepherd University President Dr. Mary Hendrix.
“I am so proud and thrilled to celebrate it with our graduates, their families, and friends,” she said in a post released Friday.
This weekend’s events will feature 63 students earning master’s or doctoral degrees and 450 students earning bachelor’s degrees.
“Their accomplishments reflect the strength of Shepherd’s academic community and our shared commitment to student success,” according to Hendrix.
“As we prepare to send the Class of 2026 into the world, I am filled with gratitude for the opportunity to have been part of their journey. Shepherd will always hold a special place in my heart, and I look forward to seeing our newest graduates carry forward the values and spirit that define this institution,” Hendrix said.
President Hendrix, reflected on her time at the helm of her alma mater earlier this year on WEPM’s Panhandle Live.
“I just love Shepherd and of course the community,” She said, crediting Shepherd (College, at the time) for her career in research
“The tradition of caring about our students and their success is carried on to this day by our faculty and staff,” Hendrix said, “And to be part of that and to be able to pay back what was given to me has been so important.”
She looked back at some of the highlights of her time in charge that featured major renovations, expanded residential and dining facilities, upgraded classroom technology, and the establishment of new academic centers and institutes. “We are really focused on upgrading our instructional spaces so that we have the latest and most advanced technology,” Hendrix said during the interview.
“Believe it or not, one of the most important first things that we did together was to create additional parking lot,” Hendrix said, emphasizing that the work continues. “We also constructed a major residential hall. And we are in the midst of resurrecting a new dining hall and athletic facility on West Campus,” Hendrix said in January.
Dr. Hendrix has done significant cancer research during her career. That research will continue to get her focus after she leaves Shepherd. “This work is going to continue through a company called TaiRx and after I leave Shepherd, I will be chairing the scientific Advisory Board for that company, which holds all of our patents in therapeutics and diagnostics,” she said.
Shepherd University faculty, staff, alumni, students, and community members gathered to honor President Dr. Mary J.C. Hendrix at a reception on Tuesday, May 5th in the University’s Wellness Center Atrium.
The event offered the University community an opportunity to recognize Hendrix ahead of her retirement this summer, marking a decade of service to Shepherd.
Approximately 200 attendees celebrated her leadership and impact on the institution and the state of West Virginia, among them U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), who spoke about Hendrix’s tenure and her role in advancing the University.
In February, the Shepherd University Board of Governors announced the university’s 17th president and the successor to Dr. Mary Hendrix would be Dr. Cameron B. Wesson.
The Spring 2016 edition of Shepherd University Magazine, gave a more comprehensive look at Dr. Hendrix’s life and her connections to Shepherd University as well as the community at large. As Hendrix prepared to take the helm of the university that helped form her as the first alumnus to lead the institution in its 145-year history, it offered a look at her expansive background.
Hendrix graduated from Shepherd in 1974 then went on to earn a doctorate and become a leading scientist in cancer research.
Prior to her installment as the university’s 16th president, Hendrix served as president and scientific director of the Stanley Manne Children’s Research Institute at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine,
In that 2016 interview, Hendrix said she had “always been interested in the direction Shepherd is taking.”
She had been involved with the Shepherd University Foundation, establishing several named student scholarships, and had followed Shepherd’s progress closely in the years following her graduation.
“I was so excited,” she said at the time. “I just have to tell you, I have many friends who sent me articles that appeared in the local newspapers here announcing that this position was going to be open. I started thinking, wow, maybe this is the time when I could come back and contribute—where I could leverage my national and international contacts, my love of research, and my fundraising abilities. I have a global vision—it’s big, and I could bring that to Shepherd.”
Hendrix was born into a military family. Due to her Navy dad’s career, they moved to a number of places, but when she was in fourth grade, her family moved to a farm outside of Shepherdstown on a property that now partly contains the National Conservation Training Center. “What was so interesting about that was that his day job was in Annapolis, Maryland, where he started the oceanography department at the U.S. Naval Academy. He traveled back and forth every day so my mother and I could live in Shepherdstown on this beautiful farm while he commuted.” Hendrix said in the interview for Shepherd University Magazine.
Hendrix belonged to the local 4-H Club and was a Girl Scout. She showed the sheep at local and state fairs and was responsible for having them shorn and selling the wool
Hendrix attended St. Joseph School in Martinsburg until its closure when she was a junior in 1971. She was able to pass her college entrance exam, finish high school early with a certificate from St. Joseph’s, and enroll at Shepherd. “I was 16 years old and so it was important, I believe, to all of us that I remain closer to home, and Shepherd College was kind enough to allow me to start early,” she said.
She attended graduate school at George Washington University and graduated in three years with her doctorate. From 1977 to 1980 she was a National Institutes of Health Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Harvard Medical School in the department of anatomy and cell biology according to her introductory article in 2016.
At the University of Arizona Hendrix established her first research laboratory. She told Shepherd University Magazine an area of focus became melanoma, since it affects a number of those who live in Arizona:
My laboratory and I have focused on melanoma research ever since. It has taken a long time in this particular area to make some fundamental discoveries that have led to patents that have now allowed us to work with the pharmaceutical industry in trying to develop new therapeutic approaches in the treatment of cancer.
Hendrix holds several patents in the field of cancer research.