Alumni and Trustee Story

Watching these students — getting to know them, seeing what they’re capable of — has been one of the most rewarding things we’ve ever done... It is the most rewarding.”

On a shelf in Deborah and Dyke Messinger’s home, there’s a tidy stack of postcards and handwritten notes — thank-yous from students who have traveled farther than they ever thought they could. Beside them sits a photo book: snapshots from Catawba College’s Honors Program travel courses, sent by Dr. Maria Vandergriff-Avery, director of the program, and by the students who now call them family.

Deborah takes one of the notes from the stack and reads aloud.

“Thank you so much for your support. I’ve never been out of the country before—and without y’all, it would not have happened. It was such a powerful experience.”

She looks over at Dyke, her eyes full.

“That’s the reason right there,” he says. “It was luck. Good luck, certainly. But we’re lucky that we are able to help.”

This spring, the Messingers made their second major gift to the Catawba College Honors Program — $1 million, given not with fanfare but with thanks. The gift is the latest chapter in a quietly remarkable story that began with a deliberate, philosophical choice to invest in people and in the future of Catawba.

“Some of those students have become real friends of ours,” Dyke says. “And will be, as long as we’re around.”

In 2019, the Messingers sold Power Curbers, the family business they had spent their lives building. The sale left them with something rare: the freedom to give forward. Their first gift to Catawba’s Honors Program was anonymous—transformative in size, but characteristically quiet in spirit.

A few years later, they did something even more unexpected. They signed up for class.

The course was States of Killing: Genocide in the 20th Century, a semester-long interdisciplinary Honors course co-taught by Dr. Maria Vandergriff-Avery and political scientist Dr. Michael Bitzer. The Messingers sat alongside undergraduates, read the same material, joined the same discussions, and traveled with the class to Germany and Poland. What happened next surprised them.

“We became close with the students,” Deborah says. "They called us ‘mom and dad.’ They shared things with us — not just ideas, but personal stories, perspectives, and hopes. It was one of the most meaningful experiences of our lives."

That class, and the friendships it seeded, became the heart of their latest gift.

If the Messingers’ generosity made the Honors Program possible, it is Maria’s vision that gives it shape. A sociologist by training, Vandergriff-Avery has led the program for more than a decade — and in her telling, the value of honors education isn’t acceleration or prestige, but depth.

“Our students don’t just study topics,” she says. “They inhabit them. They write, they sing, they build, they debate. They learn by doing — and they learn by doing it together.”

The Honors Program at Catawba isn’t a parallel track for elite students; it’s a deliberately interdisciplinary, community-oriented experience. Students from every major—education, environmental sustainability, musical theatre, digital media—take classes designed to dig deep. And they do it with dedicated faculty who are paid small stipends to teach the courses, allowing them a little freedom to experiment.

That investment has paid off.

In the 2024–25 academic year, the program reached a record enrollment high, with 217 students enrolled across 11 different honors courses. But numbers only tell part of the story. The real story is in the voices of students — and in the places the program has taken them.

One course sent students to Detroit to explore postindustrial rebirth, where they compared Renaissance ideals to modern revitalization. Sounds of Silence, a first-year seminar co-taught by Vandergriff-Avery and Dr. Julie Chamberlain, Professor of Music, allowed students to write original blues songs about social movements—from environmental justice to reproductive rights—and perform them after visiting labor and civil rights museums.

There was the trip to the National Parks — Death Valley, Joshua Tree, and Channel Islands — where students hiked slot canyons and stargazed in Badwater Basin.

“Being able to take what we read in the classroom and then see it with my own two eyes gave me a new appreciation for the opportunity of hands-on experiences,” says honors student Keira Potts.

And there’s Julian Beltran Bamaca — the first Catawba student to study abroad at the University of Glasgow through the prestigious Principia Consortium. Julian, a first-generation college student, was unfamiliar with travel and those things most tackle during their first steps of independence and young adulthood.

“He navigated public transportation, the UK university system, and the music and art scenes,” Vandergriff-Avery says. “And he flourished. That experience changed his life.”

That kind of access is exactly what the Messingers’ gifts enable — travel, research, and transformation.

“This is what it means to give with vision,” says Meg Dees, Vice President of Development. “The Messingers understand that when you invest in students — in their voices, their curiosity, and in their leadership — you’re shaping the next generation.”

President David Nelson agrees.

“Catawba is a liberal arts college,” Nelson says. “We stand in a long tradition that recognizes that disciplines like philosophy and poetry and science are not separate from life but integral and enriching to it. Our Honors Program exemplifies that ethos — and the Messingers’ gift allows it to become more fully realized in the lives of our students.”

The Honors curriculum is rigorous. To graduate, students must complete 21 credit hours, present their original research at off-campus conferences, and travel domestically or internationally with the College. They must also complete at least 40 hours of community service, maintain a 3.5 GPA, and submit a reflective portfolio narrating their intellectual growth.

Those portfolios offer some of the most intimate insights into the program’s impact.

“My experience in the Honors Program has been, to put it lightly, transformative,” writes Emma Jackson, an Environment and Sustainability major. “It has made me more introspective, more inquisitive, and a well-rounded scholar.”

“I've learned to imagine what life looks like outside my little bubble,” says Winter Hamilton, a Theatre Arts major. The classes gave her the space to discuss things like gender and cultural differences and to stretch her creative capacity.

“The College Honors Program (CHP) at Catawba College has been an integral part of my academic and personal development,” writes Abby Hilton, who double-majored in Elementary and Special Education. “The program has helped shape me into a more well-rounded, critical thinker and has strengthened my abilities. [It] has deepened my appreciation for the liberal arts and expanded my knowledge in a variety of areas that I wouldn't have experienced elsewhere.”

Back in their home, the Messingers flip through the pages of the photo book one more time. There are snapshots from South Korea, where students explored markets, visited an orange farm on Jeju Island, and biked the volcanic coast of Udo. There are pictures from Chattanooga, where 16 students presented original research at the Southern Regional Honors Council. There’s Julian in Glasgow. A group at the Renaissance Festival. Another hiking in the Mojave.

These are not the kind of metrics you find on a giving report. But they are, for the Messingers, the only ones that matter.

“Watching these students—getting to know them, seeing what they’re capable of — has been one of the most rewarding things we’ve ever done,” Deborah says.

She pauses, then corrects herself.

“It is the most rewarding.”

READ MORE: $1 Million Gift Strengthens Honors Program at Catawba College