I started working on my history senior thesis last week. I’m telling the story of the 2010-11 national anthem controversy at Goshen College, a tale of politics, convictions and identity. Those of you who were around 13 years ago probably remember it well; it’s a fascinating topic — for those of who you don’t know it, I would recommend looking it up. But this isn’t about that subject — what I love about writing this thesis is that I’m using this very newspaper as my most important primary source. The Record is beautiful in that way, I think. Studying both...

By Daniel James • January 18, 2024 • Features

A penguin drawing with a scarf hangs in front of Roy Jackson’s desk. With a smile, he shares, “I have this thing for penguins; a student made this for me.” Adjacent to it is a colorful rendering of a skyscraper: “This student always titled their artwork … I save everything: every little picture, every note.” An Atlanta, Georgia, native, Jackson works in Church-Chapel 115E in the education department. His room is decorated with student artwork and photo collages. Jackson studied English at Western Michigan University, focusing on literature, creative writing and philosophy. His initial aspiration to become a college professor...

By Jakyra Green • January 18, 2024 • Features

​In the community of kayakers in Goshen, there are a few people that like to trace their conversion to one very persuasive proselytizer who has an office on the second floor of the Administration Building, happens to teach social work — and once even had an experience so terrifying that she gave up water sports for 20 years.  ​Jeanette Harder, the director of the master’s program in social work at Goshen College and a professor of social work, has started to recruit faculty and staff from across campus to join her in her joy of kayaking.  ​Growing up surrounded by...

By Steven Lopez • January 18, 2024 • Features

Sauder Concert Hall was built with an emphasis on the details. Architects put in time to create a visually beautiful space that could support large shows, sound good and provide an intimate feel.  But the details go beyond the obvious. If you look past the several seconds of reverberation, the maple stage and the soft hues of the colored LED lights, you can find another place that was designed with care: the bathrooms.  Shirley Showalter was the president of Goshen College from 1997-2004. Around the turn of the century, she hosted several donors in Colorado. The college had just finished...

By Tyson Miller • November 30, 2023 • Features

When he was in third grade, Phil Allman’s parents sat him down to watch the 1975 thriller film “Jaws,” hoping that it would quell his desire to spend all day, every day, at the beach.  But their plan backfired miserably.  Allman couldn’t get enough of the movie about a shark who wreaks havoc on an unsuspecting, beach-going public. In the movie’s final showdown with the bloodthirsty fish, the marine biologist, accompanied by the police chief and a local fisherman, climbs aboard a rickety boat to pursue the great white shark. Allman recalled that he wanted to be on the boat...

By Jennifer Murrell • November 30, 2023 • Features

  After three years of an unchanged lineup of books in the Identity, Culture and Community class all first-years take, a new book has finally arrived in the curriculum: “The Anthropocene Reviewed,” by John Green. Derived from the Greek roots “anthropo” and “cene,” meaning “man” and “new,” respectively, the title refers both to the effect that human beings have on the world and the proposed term for the current geological age of the planet, as Green describes. Green’s affable personality and knack for storytelling shine an interestingly positive light, while he writes topics that are often depicted as bleak and...

By Griffin Eash • November 30, 2023 • Features

The final editorial of the semester has a tried-and-true pattern, often offering encomiums and a love letter to journalism — and I, for one, am happy to carry on that tradition. After nine issues together, I have little else but gratitude on my mind. The path from accounting to The Record may not be well-trod, and it certainly wasn’t in my college plans, but I’ve found the newspaper’s central role as a forum for campus discussion to be captivating. When I had my first article published (an opinion on starting college amid a pandemic), I was fascinated with the process...

By Caleb Shenk • November 30, 2023 • Features

It’s no secret that Goshen College is across the street from a funeral home. The building is hard to miss, and it’s not uncommon to see vehicles lined up for a procession. But there’s another connection to death next to campus: a cemetery, hidden behind the trees and tall grasses of the prairie south of Newcomer Center.  After a trip to the Goshen Historical Society, the Mennonite Historical Library and the graveyard itself, I began to get a picture of where the cemetery really came from and what it has become.  This cemetery is no longer active, but houses more...

By Kate Bodiker • November 9, 2023 • Features

Sadie Gustafson-Zook, a singer-songwriter from Goshen, spends most of her time in her home office — a room that used to be her bedroom back in college, when the small red house was college housing.  Now, she’s transformed her old bedroom into a home studio, complete with recording equipment, instruments and goals on a bulletin board labeled “goals,” “schemes” and “plans.” South-facing windows let in natural light as she works at a desk left over from some college student years before. “I started really early,” Gustafson-Zook said. “My family was Mennonite, so we were singing a lot in church. I...

By Tyson Miller • November 9, 2023 • Features

Dear editor, I appreciated the coverage of the philosophy minor in The Record last week and would like to offer some of my thoughts. During the fall of my first year, I took the course Philosophy, Wonder and Existence with Professor Woodington, an adjunct who is no longer at GC. Now, in my fifth year, 160 credit hours later, I still remember it as being one of my favorite and most formative classes. The topics we covered were completely unrelated to my film and communication studies, but I was fully engaged by the content. We tried to understand the fundamental...

By Jackson Steinmetz • November 9, 2023 • Features Eli Reimer • November 9, 2023 • Features

Most student-athletes don’t have time to complain about being bored. They are too busy juggling classes, practice, games and a social life. But Summer Cooper is a juggler’s juggler.  Cooper, who is often in the market for interesting hobbies, has taken up “joggling,” a combination of juggling and jogging, to go along with her loves of crocheting, knitting and playing chess.  The style of joggling looks different from person to person, but her go-to objects to toss are small mesh balls because “they are easy to wash,” she said; and they do need to be washed, whether from falling on...

By Kate Bodiker • November 2, 2023 • Features

Chad Coleman’s office is decked out. Star Wars and Game of Thrones Funko Pops. Dozens of stacked up Apple product boxes, along with a Steve Jobs bobble head and biography. A palm tree. A Jimmy-Buffett-themed shelf. Chicago Bears and Cincinnati Reds merchandise. “I have all this stuff here,” he said, “a lot of it for conversational pieces. That’s one of my mottos is [to] surround yourself with things that you like, especially in areas you spend a lot of time in.” Coleman, coming up on his 21st year at Goshen College, has quite a bit to talk about. He started...

By Phil Witmer-Rich • November 2, 2023 • Features

Located next to Shrock Plaza, the current Commuter Student Lounge stands in a central location on campus, with quick access to the education department, union dining and the Good Library.  According to Gilberto Pérez Jr., vice president of student life and Hispanic-serving initiatives and dean of students, the lounge has had several locations in the past several years. It was originally in the Welcome Center, but has since been in the basement of Kulp and on the first floor of Coffman. Regarding these previous locations, Pérez said, “None of those spaces really felt as though they were central.” Ashley Valencia,...

By Mackenzie P. Miller • November 2, 2023 • Features

Dear editor, The violence unfolding in Israel/Palestine is horrifying and heartbreaking. As a follower of Jesus, I stand for peace and am opposed to killing. And as Dr. Martin Luther King said, “There can be no justice without peace and there can be no peace without justice.” The tensions between peace and justice makes this conflict so heavy and morally disturbing. The brutal loss of life and hostage-taking on Oct. 7 left me speechless, and now the horrific violence of the Israeli response grinds on relentlessly. I grapple with painful images, rhetoric from activists and media on both sides, and...

By Rebecca Stoltzfus • November 2, 2023 • Features

Last summer, just over a year after Sierra Ross Richer graduated from Goshen College, she met the Wiederkehr family on assignment. The self-sufficient Anabaptist family lives on a farm in a remote section of Ontario, Canada. Ross Richer had written about the Wiederkehr family and their 100 acres of farmland a few months earlier for the Anabaptist Climate Collaborative. She was assigned to write 48 articles and stories about Anabaptists around the globe and was drawn toward their self-sufficient lifestyle. For the article, she carried out her interviews remotely. In her article titled “Composting: An act of pacifism,” Ross Richer...

By Charlie Aldrich • October 26, 2023 • Features