Hodgie Bricke welcomed the world to KU and connected KU to the world

From across dinner tables to around the world, Margaret “Hodgie” Bricke had a knack for bringing people together.

Bricke, who passed away in 2020, began her international education career at KU in 1989 as a part-time program assistant in International Programs and retired in 2012 as assistant vice-provost. For more than three decades, she built networks that were fundamental to KU’s internationalization and placed the university on the global map.

“So much of what we are at KU in terms of international education has Hodgie’s stamp on it. She was somehow involved in making it happen,” said Melissa Birch, associate professor and director of International Programs at the School of Business.

Over the years, Bricke’s responsibilities at KU included building the Fulbright program, implementing international recruitment initiatives, establishing the Global Awareness Program, managing the KU graduate direct exchange program, leading study abroad programs and teaching international seminars.

From the day international students walked past her table at recruiting events, Bricke would form relationships that continued after their arrival on campus, Birch said.

“If students suddenly needed pots and pans, she would put out a call,” Birch said. “So much of the welcome that international students received had Hodgie’s face on it, but she had to mobilize this whole network behind her.”

Joe Potts, who worked with Bricke while he was director of International Support Services, recalls helping her move furniture on a bitterly cold day for a visiting scholar, teaching a Ghanaian student who was blind how to navigate KU’s campus, and supporting a traumatized student from Beirut who was mugged moments after arriving in Lawrence. 

“Hodgie touched the lives of people from every corner of the globe,” Potts said.

Charlie Bankart, associate vice provost for international affairs, first met Bricke in 2005. Over the years, he remembers her potluck dinners for the incoming Fulbright students, pulling mattresses from a storage container in a hail storm for a group of visiting professors and introducing children from Indonesia to her ginormous Lego collection.  

“Hodgie wasn’t working; she was creating a life that transcended barriers – geo-political, linguistic and cultural,” Bankart said. “She welcomed others to her community with grace, humor, sincerity and deep interest.”

Bricke’s welcoming nature wasn’t just reserved for international students and visitors.

In 1996 after serving as U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, David Lambertson took a position at KU as director of international development. Bricke, whose office was nearby, helped Lambertson learn how to use the computer and invited him and his partner Sacie to dinner.

The couple became close friends, enjoying many meals and holiday celebrations together. The Lambertsons remember Bricke as a voracious reader, wonderful cook, die-hard KU basketball fan and as someone who was deeply passionate about international education.

For Bricke, her proudest achievement was the establishment of the Global Awareness Program (GAP), which allows students to earn special notations on their degree for global awareness through study abroad, on-campus cultural activities and internationally-focused courses.

“She strongly felt it was important to a person’s education to have some exposure to the outside world and if they couldn’t afford to go there, she devised GAP to make up for that. It really was an innovative and constructive program and is a legacy for Hodgie” Lambertson said.

A Love for International Education

Bricke’s path into the field of international education was not a straight one. Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Bricke attended St. Mary’s College in Notre Dame, Indiana, where she majored in history combined with an interdisciplinary program incorporating art history, literature, philosophy and religion. After graduation, she took a three-month trip to Europe, where she traveled to 14 countries on a Eurail Pass.

In 1963, Bricke earned a master’s degree in medieval history at Fordham University, after which she attended KU as part of a doctoral program in European history. Bricke’s studies were paused when she married John “Jack” Bricke in 1964. The couple moved to Scotland so Jack could attend the University of Edinburgh. While there, Hodgie taught in a secondary school and conducted research on her Ph.D. in Scottish history. 

In 1968, Jack accepted a position at KU in the Philosophy Department and the two returned to Kansas. Hodgie continued to work on her dissertation and received her doctorate in Modern European History in 1972. In the ‘70s and ‘80s, Bricke had temporary teaching positions at Baker University and KU, was a stay-at-home mom and worked occasionally for a publishing firm in Kansas City.

In 1989 while mopping her kitchen floor, Bricke received a call from a KU administrator asking if she would be interested in a part-time job in the Office of International Studies. She agreed with little hesitation.

“She found her love in international education,” said Mary Klayder, associate director of undergraduate studies for the English department and University Honors Lecturer. “She loved what she learned, she loved visiting places, she loved having the kind of structure and opportunity to meet and really talk about ideas with people all over the world. She just found it irresistible.”

In 1989, Bricke was paired with Klayder, then a teaching assistant, to revive the month-long British Summer Institute study abroad program. The two redesigned the program to highlight British art, literature, history and culture while touring London and the Scottish Highlands. Klayder, who went on to lead more than 50 study abroad programs, said it was Bricke who showed her how to successfully structure a study abroad program. One of the key elements was gathering students at the end of the day to hear about their experiences.

“We found group dinners to be really important. Because sitting around a table eating and talking about what you are learning is so much different than a classroom or visit to a museum. We had to sit down, have food and engage,” Klayder said.

In London, Bricke would be schedule-driven, ensuring students followed an action-packed itinerary. That persona changed when the group arrived in Scotland, which Klayder said Hodgie loved beyond belief. 

“We would stop on the border and salute Scottish Hodgie,” Klayder said. “Because once she got to Scotland, she was rowdier and funnier. It became something she loved, she kind of let loose and the students ended up adoring her.”

Bricke similarly connected with students and faculty members as a Fulbright program advisor. Not only did she know the ins and outs of the application process, Bankart said, but she deeply cared about the students.

“Year after year, proposal after proposal, regardless of discipline or degree of esotericism, each student she worked with found a fresh advocate. I have no doubt that for many of these students, Hodgie was one of the people they will always remember from their KU careers,” Bankart said.

Global Connections

Bricke’s network was a global one. 

Petra-Angela Wacker began working with Bricke back in 1989 as the coordinator for the American Studies direct exchange program at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in Germany. It was a time when international partnerships were maintained through pen and paper. 

“Everything was by letter. But even Hodgie’s letters had this aura,” Wacker said. “It wasn’t just commitment to what she was doing, it was also the enormous energy she brought to that.”

Wacker first met Bricke in person when Johannes Gutenberg University hosted a celebration for the American Studies Program and invited its international partners. A group of former German students pooled their money together so Bricke could visit, making her one of the few international partners from the United States to attend. 

The two later connected at a NAFSA conference in 2005, where Bricke riveted the crowd with a presentation on the Global Awareness Program.

“She was presenting ideas and a program that are still totally relevant today,” Wacker said. “Especially the idea that international exchange doesn’t necessarily have to be a semester abroad.”

Several years later, Wacker came to KU to participate in a Fulbright training program for international officers. During that trip, she recalls that Bricke ensured there would be extra recycling bins to accommodate the environmentally-conscious Germans.

“Remembering what people liked, her attention to detail, organizing it and then telling us about it with a twinkle in her eye, that was so typical of Hodgie,” Wacker said. 

For Birch, Bricke became her go-to resource at KU for all things international. 

“She was so down to earth and easy to talk to. And, she knew everyone on campus who was doing anything international, who had been to what country or had students from different countries. And, she was always willing to share that information,” Birch said.

The value of those connections wasn’t always clear at first, Birch said, recalling a time when Bricke once asked Birch to meet with a coalition of Germans from the University of Strasbourg. As a Latin-Americanist, Birch said there wasn’t a direct link to her work, but the introduction proved fruitful several years later. 

Just before the School of Business was scheduled to take students to Taiwan for a program focused on the shipbuilding industry, the SARS outbreak hit. So, Birch called Bricke and the two worked in a matter of weeks to relocate the program to the University of Strasbourg and center the program on the region’s auto-making businesses.

“When I think of Hodgie, I think of this incredible network of people that she could pull together. She was just the nexus of all these webs of relationships and KU would be entirely different if she hadn’t been there,” Birch said.