Volunteering in their local communities has been central to the lives and love story of first-generation college graduates Andy Kehr ’09 and Jackie Betsch Kehr ’08. The two had mutual friends who founded the student service organization Alpha Phi Omega, and met while participating in service activities when he was a junior and she was a senior.

As a first-gen student, Jackie had been invited to come to campus for an early orientation her freshman year, along with Bonner Scholars, Posse Scholars, and a few other groups. Several of the friends she made during that week became members of the Phi Gamma Delta (Fiji) Fraternity. Her senior year found her spending time at the house with those friends, where she eventually ran into Andy again.

Andy says he thought it was abhorrent that after hangout sessions, Jackie was walking back to her own apartment alone and began walking her home on occasion. On those walks across campus, a spark was kindled and the two were soon dating.

Now married and the parents of two daughters, the couple recently returned to Greencastle and DePauw, where Andy is an assistant professor of chemistry and biochemistry. He taught the “Fermentology” course during winter term this year and has a research project exploring an enzymatic cause of childhood blindness related to mitochondrial mutations.

As a student, Andy’s participation in the Science Research Fellows program led to influential research experiences, including a summer spent in a lab in Germany. “It was my first time traveling outside the country, first time traveling alone. The experience informed a lot about how I viewed science and the world moving forward,” he says.

Shortly after returning to Greencastle, Jackie began volunteering at the Giving Garden at the university’s Ullem Family Campus Farm. She says that throughout their lives together, the couple has met so many of their friends and has seen so many opportunities open up through community service. She taught a class about food systems as a part-time faculty member. She is now interim manager of the Ullem Family Campus Farm.

Jackie says, “There are lots of questions these days about the role and cost of liberal arts education. We’ve been involved in various groups with young people talking about these sorts of issues. We keep coming back to: it was worth it. Taking very diverse classes, being surrounded by people from very different viewpoints, being challenged. I learned to like history because I had instructors who focused on concepts and instead of the elementary idea of memorization. All those things pushed me to think about the world differently. It was absolutely invaluable to the person that I am today.”

Andy echoes this sentiment, noting that even as a science major, courses in anthropology, Buddhism, and literature opened him to new perspectives and even passions. He says courses like those taught him to be open to new experiences. “My attitude toward everything is to say yes; just try it.”