Goshen News:
–student reflections at watch party
–Brenneman calls in from D.C.

Elkhart Truth:
–students who traveled to D.C.

Several Goshen students attended the inauguration, but Jim and Quinn Brenneman had the privilege of entering the ticketed area, much closer to President Obama. Photo submitted by Jim Brenneman

As we drove toward Washington, D.C. for the inauguration of President Barack Obama, my family and I soon got caught up in the euphoria of what clearly was a pilgrimage for the hundreds of people we met along the way. At every stop, we met fellow travelers from all over, donned in Obama scarves, buttons, hats, caps and jackets.

The thrill was heightened early on as Quinn and I jammed into the D.C. Metro alongside thousands of others and made our way to the Capitol.

To underscore the sense of a dream coming to pass, one African-American woman held up a beautifully crafted afghan emblazoned with Barack Obama’s likeness and the words,  “From Slavery to President, January 20, 2009″ scrolled across the top. Shouts of joy, amens and hallelujahs erupted, certainly something one doesn’t hear everyday on a Metro ride, I’m sure.

The day was cold but absolutely beautiful. We had near perfect seats – front and center, about half a football field below the dais where our new President took the oath of office and gave his inaugural speech. Behind us we could see an ocean of flag-waving people, which stretched back to the Washington Monument and as far as the eye could see. We could hear time and again a low rumble, which built to a tsunami of sound that rushed toward us: “O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma! O-ba-ma!”

The inauguration bore testimony to one of the great miracles of our nation: the regular and peaceful relinquishment of power, often between political adversaries. No matter who any one of us voted for, the ritual of an inauguration invokes this miracle and did so again as President Bush became Citizen Bush and Senator Obama became our 44^th President.

I wanted so much for Quinn to experience this day with me. By the time I was his age (12), I had experienced much of my childhood living in the deeply segregated South, where our theaters, restaurants, beaches and drinking fountains were blatantly divided between “whites” and “coloreds.”

So to be standing in the midst of such a throng from every race, culture and creed, together bearing witness to the inauguration of President Obama, sent shivers up my spine (and not just because it was below freezing). To hear Quinn say over and over, “This is amazing!” and to hear him express his wonder at being a part of history meant as much to me as anything else I heard on our pilgrimage.

Indeed, together we experienced with millions of fellow Americans renewed hope in our pledge to be “one nation, under God, indivisible!”

Jim Brenneman is president of Goshen College.

Photo provided by Public Relations

During the spring and summer of 1968, more than forty years ago now, I worked for the campaign of Senator Eugene McCarthy. I turned 14 that summer, and though I was very young to be canvassing door to door with college students, my heart was fully in the work.

It had been a tragic and difficult year. The assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in April, followed by rioting in cities across the country and the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. in June, crushed many spirits.

However, since I was young and resilient and believed in the Democratic process, I continued my daily work for a candidate I was certain would help to end the war in Vietnam. But that July – when I watched the Democratic National Convention in Chicago disintegrate into a political nadir – I lost my faith in politics.

While outside the convention, Mayor Daley’s police sprayed tear gas and cracked the heads of demonstrators with billy clubs. Inside the nomination of Hubert Humphrey was railroaded through.

“They’re not following Robert’s Rules of Order,” I kept crying out-having just learned about those rules that summer. But none of the delegates on the floor seemed to see what I was seeing. That’s when I learned that adults can often contradict their own values and beliefs, break their own rules and then act as though nothing has happened. For me, political language had become an official, but deadening form of speech.

Over and over again I sensed the presence of stultifying language as through the decades I watched elections, Watergate coverage, the media hype on the Gulf War, the Clarence Thomas hearings and even the War on Terror as it was covered on television. I voted, but rarely with enthusiasm.

Then the 2000 election debacle robbed me of my belief that my vote actually counted. 9/11 brought a sobering realism to our national discourse and a call to unity, but it was quickly co-opted as justification for the Patriot Act and then the War in Iraq. I felt the constraint of “correctness” infect my own speech. Even teachers were labeled “terrorists” under the Bush Administration. Critique was construed as unpatriotic: an Orwellian nightmare.

So, like many others, I was ready for change during this election year, with its historic woman candidate and its historic African American candidate. I wanted to hope, yet I was afraid.

When I taught Expository Writing last spring, I decided to have my students investigate the platforms and programs of the various candidates and write analyses and reviews of websites and speeches. Together we did our homework as citizens. I am grateful to the students from that class for teaching me so much.

When Obama became the Democratic candidate, I began to get a bit excited.

The Democratic convention in Denver last summer was a healing balm for people of my generation. Obama spoke to voters with dignity and respect. I felt – for the first time in eight years – that perhaps the voting machines would actually work as they were supposed to in November. Yet I kept holding my breath, almost unable to believe what was happening.

My three adult children were not constrained by living through past trauma. They canvassed. They campaigned in several states. They voted. I babysat my oldest daughter’s children so she could work at the Obama headquarters. It dawned on me that since the summer of 1968, part of my heart had been frozen. And somehow during that time I had grown older than the president.

What the inauguration means to me is a great thawing of frozen hope – even on an icy January day. I sense dignity restored to the language. Language on Obama’s tongue is an act of care and precision. He has a gift for re-framing the ordinary in a most extraordinarily inspiring way, even as he makes his listeners feel valued.

Peggy Noonan has said that the most moving thing in an Obama speech is its logic. This is because his logic – informed by wide and intelligent reading and conversation – is an act of respect to the listener. Perhaps even an act of love-love for the Democratic process, for what Buddhists call “right speech,” even for poetry.

“What if,” as poet Elizabeth Alexander read today, “the mightiest word is love … love that casts a widening pool of light?” And what if young people today, such as my 10 year-old son – the only non-voting member of the family – can look up to a president with such values and discover the promise of Democracy restored?

I will be happy to entrust the future to them.

Ann Hostetler is a professor of English at Goshen College.

Photo by Chase Snyder

“Change we can believe in.” “Hope.” These are the core messages on which our 44th president was elected.

These messages make me proud to be an American. The realities of the financial crisis, declining education standards and two wars are horrific indicators of where our nation is right now. But the way in which we will go about handling them seems to be changing.

Already, from the few administrative decisions he has made, the “team of rivals” he has named and his choice of vice president, Barack Obama has shown that he will make wise decisions. Already, we are seeing the beginnings of a major shift in policy from the past eight years. Hopefully these changes will continue and our nation will begin to enact policies that aid the poor, boost education, change health care and foreign policies and balance the budget all at the same time.

Ever since I read Obama’s book “The Audacity of Hope” while on S.S.T. in Cambodia during the spring semester of 2007, I have been excited about Obama. After coming home, I was thrilled to attend some of his speeches. The excitement that Obama has generated has been contagious. The excitement of the election in general has been a positive example of democracy at work, with one of the largest voter turnouts in history.

While the future of our country has yet to be determined, I remain excited and hopeful in our new president. I have faith that he will fulfill his promises to the nation. But as Obama said in his inaugural address, “For as much as government can do and must do, it is ultimately the faith and determination of the American people upon which this nation relies.” I hope that we can all do our part.

Dirk Miller is a senior history major from Wellman, Iowa.

Only 240,000 tickets were issued to grant access to the areas closest to the western front of the United States Capitol. Many ticket-holders found that just because they had a ticket, their entry to the National Mall would not be easy, or even guaranteed.

Some visitors, who waited to enter the “silver” ticket area – the largest of the color-coded ticket areas – lined up as early as 5 am. Many more ticket-holders continued to get in line throughout the morning. As the beginning of the official ceremonies approached, it became clear that the line would not move quickly enough for all ticket holders to enter.

Many people with tickets simply turned back, discouraged. Others continued to move towards the gate. At least 1,000 individuals with tickets were not able to enter.

There were serious logistical issues at other ticket areas as well.

As some visitors continued to move closer to the gate, it was clear that security would not let anyone enter, or even cross Independence Ave., which runs parallel to the National Mall. Those ticket-holders – who were closest to the gate – collectively waved their tickets in the air and chanted, “Let us in!”

The massive crowd eventually overwhelmed security personnel, crossed Independence Ave., and entered the surprisingly empty “silver” ticket area. But those who did make it in didn’t even have to show their tickets, which were supposed to grant access to this “reserved section.”

Despite the unorganized and somewhat chaotic entry, the mood on the Mall was upbeat, cheerful and amiable. Onlookers cheered wildly as President Barack Obama was introduced and sworn in. The crowd hushed as they listened intently to Obama’s inaugural address.

After the ceremony, the crowd celebrated with communal hugs, dancing and cheers.

Here’s a video of C.J. Hague rushing into the ticketed area at the inauguration:

Those of us who couldn’t celebrate in our nation’s capitol filed into the Umble Center at 11:15 a.m. on Tuesday, confident that this was worth missing or cance

Photo by Jordan Kauffman

ling a class for. With Martin Luther King Jr. Day festivities and the inauguration of our country’s first African-American/biracial commander in chief both falling within a two-day span, students have barely had time to breathe, let alone to reflect on what this all means.

King’s dream may seem to have been fulfilled, but the inauguration of Obama is only one step on a long journey to racial equality. Based on hope and change, however, Obama’s campaign and subsequent presidency could be exactly what the American people need right now to bend the plot line of racial history. Perhaps history will paint Obama standing at the horizon of American politics, exactly when our country needs the strength to believe again.

I was elated to see how many students and faculty came to witness the inauguration. For the first time I can remember, the country seems to be alive with anticipation. Chants of “yes we can” were audible throughout the country, even in the midst of a recession, housing crisis and potential for racial division.

It is my hope that Obama can fulfill his plans and truly lead to change. We are a part of history. We helped make it, and it’s time for us to join in and celebrate it.

I encourage you all to offer the gift of hope to your fellow Goshen College students throughout the rest of this week. Random acts of kindness and words of encouragement are small gifts that don’t take a lot of time to give but are greatly appreciated.

We are the ones who made this election possible. Obama won our age demographic. We made his story. Now let’s make our own.

Jennifer Speight is a sophomore English, secondary education and pre-law major from Cleveland, Ohio.

Photo by Chase Snyder

This season of change in U.S. politics has inspired many in our generation to believe and hope in a system we have grown cynical about.

Most of the folks my age – especially here at Goshen College – would identify much more strongly with our new President, Barack Obama, than with our now former President, George W. Bush. Bush’s final press conference, however, felt strangely familiar to me.

I started as a freshman living on Miller 1 a couple months before the 2004 election gave then-President Bush another four years in office. Now, Bush is moving on to the next phase of his life a few months before I graduate and do the same.

Like Bush, I will soon be leaving a chapter in my life that seems like the most important and memorable one so far, and I have been thinking about my own legacy at Goshen College.

Like Bush, I worry that I will not be remembered as the person I really am, and that some of my past attitudes, choices and mistakes will shape my legacy more than my talents and achievements.

While I haven’t had to deal with terrorist attacks and formulate a response, I have been attacked by periods of severe depression and academic dysfunction. I haven’t started any wars, but I have made some really dumb mistakes, including some that alienated me from people with whom I could have been friends.

But as America looks to a new leader to help us through the challenges ahead, I am also looking forward to the life I will build after college.

Watching the inauguration of our first black president was even more inspiring than I could have expected. His readiness to tackle the nation’s problems and draw people together gives me a confidence in the future both for myself and for the whole country.

I will miss Goshen College, but this time of transition is also a huge opportunity to leave behind attitudes and choices that have held me back and created problems in the past. Like President Obama, I will have to work hard to disrupt destructive patterns, and I will have to rely on others for support.

Luckily, I have assembled a wonderful “cabinet” of friends to take me into the next four years. With their help and with my own determination, I am excited to build my life in what feels like the start of things getting better, a season of change.

Nathan Graber is a senior history major from Elkhart, Ind.

Raymond Waweru, second year Kenyan student is excited about newly inaugurated Barack Obama's Kenyan heritage, and what it means for the U.S. and Kenya. Photo by Chase Snyder.

“When Obama first obtained his Senate seat, I was in a rural area of Kenya doing fieldwork,” said Ryan Sensenig, assistant professor of biology. “My field assistants were excitedly discussing Obama’s run for the Senate seat before I knew who Obama was.”

Sensenig, who grew up in Kenya, explained that news “is part of the very fabric of Kenyan culture … The citizenry is very literate about global concerns.” In fact, the greeting “hello” in Swahili is literally translated, “What is the news?”

Afrah Haile, a sophomore from Kenya, remembers talking online in November to his brother and sister. His siblings had a two-day vacation after the election.

Raymond Mwangi Waweru, a first-year, affirmed Haile. “My Mum called. … She told me that the day after he was elected was announced as a public holiday for the whole country.”

Waweru’s family celebrated the win with their neighbors.

Sensenig said that “the declaration of a national holiday marking a U.S. political event speaks most profoundly to the Kenyan awareness of global politics and the inextricable links between East African and U.S. policies.”

Back in the U.S., Waweru was ecstatic when he heard the election results. He “knew how much it meant to Kenya that the son of a Kenyan father was going to be president of a world superpower.”

Sensenig said that family is an important facet of the Kenyan culture, so Obama’s inauguration represents “the achievement of an extended family member.”

Sylia Awino Oduor, a first-year international student, said, “The people who are really excited … are from the Luo tradition.” Obama’s grandmother was a Luo, as is Oduor, who feels “pretty thrilled” about the inauguration. She believes that Kenyans without televisions probably traveled miles to watch the ceremony, just like they did on Election Day.

According to Sensenig, the world faces challenges that require “more empathy and more connections between peoples from all corners of the world.” He believes that “Obama personifies these connections between cultures and countries separated by thousands of miles and billions of dollars.”

Sensenig is particularly energized about the inauguration because of the potential for increased international awareness. He wonders, “Can an Obama presidency help us become global community members who are as astute as those field assistants in Kenya?”

Melody Musser with fellow WCSC interns at Barack Obama's Inauguration. Melody was one of several Goshen Students who attended the event. Photo submitted by Melody Musser.

They traveled hundreds of miles to stand for hours in cold temperatures in a crowd of over one million people. But for the handful of Goshen College students who saw Barack Obama’s inauguration firsthand, it was worth it.

Some traveled to Washington by car, others by plane. One was already in the city.

Melody Musser, a junior, has been in D.C. this semester as an intern at the Washington Community Scholars Center. She noticed the city change as Inauguration Day approached.

“There has been a lot of excitement among pretty much everyone that I have encountered in the weeks approaching the inauguration,” she said. “It was interesting to see the massive numbers of porta-potties being set up lining the mall. All of the stands and vendors traded in their usual D.C. tourist souvenirs for Barack Obama souvenirs.”

Musser said she was “overjoyed and overwhelmed with excitement” when Obama was inaugurated. She said the most exciting part of the ceremony was the crowd that gathered in D.C. on Tuesday.

“People are so hopeful and supportive. Random cheers would break out of ‘O-BA-MA!’” she said.

Junior Maria Byler also emphasized the mood of excitement in the city.

“It’s such a celebration,” she said. “Everyone is just giddy.”

Byler drove to D.C. with her aunt. For Byler, Obama’s historic election is a beginning, not an end.

“I know there is still so much work to be done on race relations and racism, and the fact that Obama is elected could very easily distract people from that work,” Byler said. “But the organizing and momentum that I’m seeing both in Goshen and [in D.C.] are really invigorating.”

The diversity of people she saw also gave her hope.

“I got to sit on top of some port-a-johns and watch this unbelievable crowd of different ages, races, socioeconomic statuses, all dancing and singing and it made everything that this Obama guy keeps talking about actually seem possible,” she said.

So, it seems that you’ve become the president of the United States of America. Congratulations, you know? It was a long race. You were probably stressed out a lot. You probably didn’t get a lot of sleep. Perhaps you had to hang out with people you weren’t particularly fond of. Don’t worry, we’ve all been there and we feel your pain.

I’m also sure you’ve realized that your work as president has only just begun. Just think: according to the ever-infallible internets, there are approximately 18 million graduate and undergraduate students across the nation. These same internets claim that nearly 85% of those students were registered to vote in 2008.

Let’s assume, then, that 50% of college students voted for Barack Obama (mostly because I don’t like doing hard maths – percentages included). That’s nine million votes, Barack! Nine million!

Consider that each of us likely spent at least 20 minutes – a conservative estimate – actually voting for you. That’s 180 million minutes, or 3 million hours, or 125 thousand days. If you continue to slog through the numbers, that comes out to about 340 years. The college students of America alone spent over 340 years electing you. We’ve been waiting for you since 1669, Barack! Just imagine that!

In 1669, when Antonio Stradivari was building his first violin, he was thinking of you! In that same year, the first Newtonian reflecting telescope was built to eventually magnify your chiseled jaw and regal demeanor! And even more, Mt. Etna erupted with joy at the thought of your administration (and subsequently killed 20,000 people and the town of Nicolosi, but let’s not dwell on that)!

In short, Barack, you owe us. Big time. You might need some inspiration as to how, exactly, you can go about expunging such a magnificent debt. Luckily, I’ve been thinking about this for quite some time now and I have a few suggestions.

First, you need to do something about this weather. Did you know that it snows on some college campuses? This should be rectified posthaste, as it is cold and makes me sad. Thus, I propose you increase funding into ways that we can increase global warming. Because it sure ain’t warm up here in Goshen, Ind.

Second, I think it would be great if we all got kittens, you know, like a “welcome to school” gift. We could even keep them in our classy and sophisticated custom Goshen College messenger bags. Satchels and kittens are the best combination!

Finally, I think you (or one of your highly-paid interns) should make sure to friend each and every college student who cares enough to maintain a Facebook page. As an added bonus, you’re the president! You can make it illegal for anyone to block your request! You will be the guy who has the most friends on all of the internet and that would be great. Also, this would let each and every one of us personally send you high-fives, growing plants, cause invitations and any other obnoxious Facebook application invitations we so choose! If all goes as I’ve planned, you will make these illegal as well, to the benefit of all people ever.

In conclusion, Mr. President, I’m glad to see you made it into office. You worked hard, you endured much and you have many miles to go before you sleep. You can accomplish big things during your time in office and I know you will. You just gotta remember to give credit where credit’s due, you know? Never forget that. Never forget.

Love,

-The Funnies Page

10. Streakers

9. A “Best Moments of Presidential Campaign ‘08” reel

8. The First Dog

7. President Obama flubbing the words to his oath (lol)

6. The musical stylings of Kanye West

5. More of Aretha Franklin’s rockin’ hat

4. “USA! USA! USA!”

3. A raucous bubble party in the Washington Monument reflecting pool

2. Jack Bauer

1. A rousing round of #606

Yeah, yeah, I’m sure he’ll be the greatest president ever. I’m sure that if you got sprinkled with his sweat while thinking happy thoughts, you could probably fly. President Obama will probably build the first magical city on the moon. I accept these things as fact. But could we please, please stop talking about it?

All I want is to be able to crawl back under my rock, you know? Is that such a sin? So what if basically every other national leader is super-pumped about this new presidential administration?

It’s their job to care, not mine. You know the only thing that might be worse than the past semester’s worth of constant, inescapable, mind-numbing coverage? Eight more years of the same.

Here’s hoping that now, since Obama has become President Obama, we can all safely let him fade into the background. After all, what’s the worst a president can do, right?

Hague will also post on his online photo album throughout the next few days. Click here to view his photos as he posts them.

Along with Hague, Goshen College President Jim Brenneman and Goshen Mayor Allan Kauffman are in Washington. Look for a perspective later this week from Mayor Kauffman on the inauguration ceremony and the historic implications this week has for Goshen College, the city of Goshen, our nation and the world.

Various other inauguration-specific articles will be published in this week’s Jan. 22 issue of the Record. Look for these articles and photos later this week.

http://www.mixedink.com/Slate/InauguralAddress/