By Emelia Delaporte
Studying liberal arts helps to ensure that students will have the benefit of a well-rounded education as they move forward into their futures. What many may forget is that being well-rounded extends into personal lives as well as professional lives. For ΦBK member Derek Godshall, his undergraduate degree from Eckerd College has led to volunteerism throughout his career. It started largely with a student garden club on campus.
“I started as a freshman, and I was one of the people who showed up regularly. The president then was a senior leaving and encouraged me to become one of the co-presidents, even though I had only been there for a few months,” Godshall said. “It was a benefit of being in a small school. You could get involved in anything you wanted and get deeply involved really easily.”
Godshall was drawn to the garden by his upbringing in Pennsylvania. He participated in 4-H as a child and comes from a multigenerational farming family. He describes agriculture as something that makes him feel connected to the lives of his dad and grandparents. Being a member of the club taught Godshall many of the same principles taught in his liberal arts coursework—problem-solving, creativity, independent learning, and how to work with the future in mind.
When looking to carve out a career, Godshall combined agriculture and international relations with a desire to help people. He went into international development after graduation and spent three years in Burkina Faso with his wife, Amy Bergey Godshall, working for a small NGO.
“Right as we moved there, there was a lot more terrorist activity. Each year became more and more unsafe,” Godshall said. “While we had both graduated thinking we would move abroad and work in development for the rest of our lives, the situation we moved into deteriorated pretty quickly.”
At the end of their service term, they moved back to the United States to work in a more stable environment. Bergey Godshall became an ACLU lawyer, and Godshall changed course to coaching pickleball. His passion for community work persisted, and before long, he found his way back to the student garden at Eckerd, which had by then become the Community Farm. Godshall now serves as an alumni volunteer and volunteer coordinator.
“I’m there to try to kind of help with the food forest and organize the stuff that’s easy to forget about,” Godshall said. “It just feels really special to be working in that space that got me interested and involved in all of this food production and garden community. It’s really nice to give back and try to help recreate that space that was so important to me.”
Godshall also became involved with other agriculture groups in the Tampa Bay area to further his passion for permaculture. He helps to organize monthly potlucks, permablitzes, and community connections for a permaculture group. He also volunteers with the Sustainable Urban Agriculture Coalition in St. Petersburg. Godshall started as a marine science major, interested in international fisheries management. He took an introductory international relations class and was captivated by the bigger picture outside of natural sciences.
“I was lucky that Eckerd ended up being such a good liberal arts school, because when I switched, there were lots of really interesting things to switch to. I wasn’t kind of pigeonholed into natural sciences,” Godshall said.
Switching his degree path allowed him to become more thoroughly involved with the greater liberal arts discipline. He broadened his horizons by completing two fellowships in food security with the Institute on Science for Global Policy and two French-language immersion courses in Montreal. Ultimately, the breadth of his interests and his academic success earned him an invitation to join Phi Beta Kappa.
“It was an honor to be included. I was appreciative of having some recognition for all of the work I put into my schooling,” Godshall said.
For current students and recent graduates, Godshall proves that there is more to an academic subject area than a path to a conventional job. He uses his liberal arts background in his community work every day and is sowing the seeds for current and future Eckerd students to use the farm as a point of inspiration as well.
Emelia Delaporte is a 2025 graduate of Virginia Tech, where she majored in journalism and English and minored in biodiversity conservation and natural resources recreation. She was inducted into Phi Beta Kappa there in April 2025. Virginia Tech is home to the Mu of Virginia chapter of Phi Beta Kappa.