Jensi Souders was drum major of Chattanooga High School’s marching band before she became the first female drum major of Middle Tennessee State University’s Band of Blue.
Now the former field commander is directing the path her international teacher’s society will take over the next two years.
Dr. Virginia “Jensi” Souders, 63, was elected international president of Delta Kappa Gamma Society International during its convention last month.
Souders is the first Tennessean to be elected president of the 100,000-member society, with chapters in 17 countries, since the organization went international in 1952 with the addition of chapters in Canada.
Only one other Tennessean has held as high an office. Dr. Maycie K. Southall, a Peabody professor in Nashville, was national president in 1938, before the society branched into foreign countries.
“She’s always been in the forefront of any group, as if with her height (6-feet, 2 inches) she’s expected to lead. People respect her. Being the first female drum major at MTSU seemed to get her started on a string of firsts,” said Barbara Northcut of Souders, whom she sponsored into DKG membership 36 years ago.
Souders and her husband, James, are both retired educators, each with 30-year careers in the Catoosa County School system.
He was band director at Lakeview-Fort Oglethorpe High School. She taught English at LFO for 10 years, then was the school’s library media specialist another 10 before transferring to the system’s central office. She retired in 1999 as instructional specialist with the Catoosa system.
“Jensi has a vision for the future of the society,” said Dee Dee Rives of Pinson, Tenn., state president. “She is a people person, well organized, committed to the members and purposes of the society, and she has the leadership skills to guide members.”
Souders held numerous offices in her local chapter, including president, before becoming state president in 1995.
“I put 160,000 mile on my car in two years,” she said, adding she still worked full-time in the Catoosa central office while making chapter visits.
After serving on several international committees in the late ’90s, she was recommended by her state to the position of international member-at-large, which she served for four years.
She then was elected one of five regional directors, then international first vice president before becoming president.
“I’m really excited about the challenges of the next two years,” she said.
Her travels, she said, will include about 10 trips to state conventions as well as a trip to Germany for the European regional conference.
The president said she’ll focus her term on increasing support of early career educators. She cites statistics that reveal 50 percent of new
teachers leave education by their third year, while 70 percent of new teachers drop out by their fifth year.
“That’s appalling! It’s always difficult to be a new teacher, the responsibilites are many. It’s incumbent on educators to support these young ones both monetarily and through positive encouragement,” she said.
“Local chapters have for years given grant-in-aids to those going into education. How do they know that those young people actually do go into education? Wouldn’t there be a greater impact if that money was channeled to a first-year teacher?
“We’re shifting our focus now to support early-career educators through their third year,” she said.
Chapters offer monetary grants for classroom supplies or for teachers without funds for professional clothing. She listed leadership training, scholarships, grants-in-aid and professional development grants as other benefits of membership.
“Our members who are retired as well as active educators are supporting (new teachers) in the classroom by volunteering, tutoring students, helping young teachers do bulletin boards, whatever they need to make their early years in education a success so they will gain hold and make a career of education,” she said.
“They trust Jensi so at the international level, that when DKG was bequeathed $1 million, she was put in charge of the committee to decide how it would be put to use,” said Northcut.
“Under her leadership, DKG reached out to other educators and made that award open to women outside our society for use for professional development,” Northcut said.
“We are here for excellence in education,” said Souders. “We are an international group of women educators whose purpose it is to promote professional growth that makes women successful in their careers and lives.”