Dr. Bettye Hodnett MacPhail-Wilcox
Dr. Elizabeth (Bettye) MacPhail-Wilcox is a former faculty member and Department Head in what is now known as the Educational Leadership, Policy, and Human Development Department within the College of Education. Hodnett is her birth middle name. Her careers included teaching physics, chemistry and biology before serving as a high school and central office administrator. She also held management positions in the Technology field prior to working at NC State.
Dr. MacPhail-Wilcox lives in Florida with her husband Will. Her hobbies include flying, metalsmithing, woodworking, golfing, herb gardening, and others. She has been a Hospice volunteer and teaches in the Methodist church. Challenge and learning have always been important to her. In addition to the Wilcox-Hodnett Doctoral Fellowship Endowment, Dr. MacPhail also established an endowed Administrative Technology fund administered by the Dean’s office in the College of Education.
Impact
The Wilcox-Hodnett Doctoral Fellowship Endowment was established to advance exceptional leadership among public school administrators by supporting outstanding students that can blend educational administration, policy and research. Dr. MacPhail-Wilcox has stated that “If we are to have a continuously adapting system of public schools that best serve the interests of children and this nation, we must have administrators who are strong moral and technical leaders. On the one hand, they must have enormous character and courage to operate from principle and deal with the inevitable conflict that accompanies change. On the other hand, they must demonstrate creative and technical excellence in learning, leading, designing and administering organizations.” The Wilcox-Hodnett Doctoral Fellowship supports academically talented administrators for a year of resident study with two advisors at NC State, to foster strong theoretic and analytic skills as well as a spirit of inquiry and critical thinking.
The Fellowships support up to two full-time doctoral students in Educational Leadership each year. The generous amount of the fellowship allows practicing administrators to take leave from their jobs and devote a year to intensive study, during which time they collaboratively develop either a publication, a presentation, or a product which gives them experience in professional activities that they are expected to undertake as doctoral gradates. After their year of residency, fellows return to their field and continue their doctoral work as they become exceptional leaders among administrators.