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

By Isaac Sawatzky • October 26, 2023 • Features

As of the time I am writing this, I have noticed a distinct lack of administrative statements on the crisis in Gaza. This is especially striking because President Stoltzfus issued statements on both the Russo-Ukraine war and the Jan. 6th Capitol riots shortly after news broke. It has been several weeks since Israel declared war on Hamas and began the siege of Gaza. Let me preface my own statements by noting that I am neither Palestinian nor Jewish. I found Emma Gingerich’s piece on the importance of the Palestinian perspective insightful and poignant. You can find it in the Oct....

By Liam Morris • October 26, 2023 • Features

Dressed in his black chef cap, long-sleeve cooking jacket and apron dusted with flour from the morning’s prep work, Jeremy Corson took a seat and began to talk about a subject that has little to do with his credentials as a culinary arts graduate and his work as the head chef at Goshen College: Corson is a beekeeper. “I can talk about bees at length,” Corson said, smiling. He has been keeping bees since 2013.  He got his start when a family member asked him to join her in taking up the hobby.  “My sister-in-law, Jennifer, did this,” Corson said....

By Ann Howe • October 26, 2023 • Features

Seth Smith Kauffman (photos) and Tyson Miller (text) traveled to The Papers Inc. in Milford, IN, to take photos and interview the people who print The Record. Seth Smith Kauffman for The Record Seth Smith Kauffman for The Record Jon Anthony fine-tunes settings on the press as issues of The Record emerge. Seth Smith Kauffman for The Record Seth Smith Kauffman for The Record Jon Anthony stands at the controls of the press. The press can print 40,000 papers an hour. All 500 copies of The Record are printed in three minutes. Seth Smith Kauffman for The Record Rich Krygowski...

By Seth Smith Kauffman • October 12, 2023 • Features Tyson Miller • October 12, 2023 • Features

After years of spending time in Goshen, loving baseball and being the men’s baseball assistant coach, Brad Stoltzfus has been promoted to head coach of the Goshen College men’s baseball team. Stoltzfus brings a new energy to the baseball team and trying to cultivate a community unified with GC’s core values. Stoltzfus grew up in Souderton, Pennsylvania, fifty minutes north of Philadelphia, but he was always surrounded by Goshen alumni. He made a visit to Goshen his senior year in high school because he had relatives that attended, and said, “My parents, my brother, my grandparents and some relatives all...

By Griffin Eash • October 12, 2023 • Features

Editor’s note: This article was adapted from an Expository Writing class last May Term. Nikki Beer, the owner of Miller’s Orchard, is a first cousin to the author.   In the southwest corner of Nappanee, a small town about thirty minutes outside of Goshen, a rustic wooden building trimmed with green is nestled beside a border of towering trees and a simple white picket fence. Behind the building, a large expanse of vibrant green stretches toward the road. Dotted amongst the grass are rows of small, spindly trees, numbering almost 500 in total.  The apple trees planted in Miller’s Orchard...

By Lindsey Graber • October 5, 2023 • Features

With the rerouting of campus diners to the Leaf Raker, foot traffic has increased for a new feature on campus: the poetry garden.  The Fisher Terrace, dedicated in October 2021, and its poetry garden are located just outside the Leaf Raker. They feature six poems where the pavement meets the flowers, including work from Robert Frost, Mary Oliver, Eavan Boland, Julia Spicher Kasdorf, Wendell Berry and Seamus Heaney.  When asked if he noticed the poetry, Xudong Sun, a senior majoring in computer science, immediately pointed out a favorite poem of his. “The Summer Day,” by Mary Oliver, gave Sun “ideas...

By Caleb Shenk • October 5, 2023 • Features

The clock tower doesn’t garner much attention from students these days. In the era of cell phones, students have other ways to check the time.  Positioned on top of the Union building, the clock tower was built in 1956 as a part of the overall building construction. Initially a complicated system with many points of failure, it didn’t take long for the tower to be critiqued.  In 1959, Donald M. Marquis wrote an article for The Record complaining about the lack of consistency in the chimes. “It either didn’t ring, rang all the time, or rang a pseudo Jazz pattern...

By Tyson Miller • October 5, 2023 • Features

Interviewing people who talk for four or more hours per day isn’t the most difficult task in the world. They’ve got a lot to say. “I’m a quote machine,” said Jason Samuel, associate professor of communication and general manager of WGCS. “Don’t mess. Have I sold you yet?” Goshen College’s communication department is not all talk. Three broadcasting students, Dante Stanton, Amelia (Lee) Turnbull and Mike Murrell, have taken the real-world experience offered by the communication department to the next level, as they’re employed at radio stations and television channels before finishing their degrees. According to Samuel, GC’s awarded, dependable...

By Phil Witmer-Rich • September 28, 2023 • Features

National Hispanic Heritage Month is a time for celebration, and with Goshen College’s new status as a Hispanic-Serving Institution, the Latino Student Union is feeling the pressure.  “I do feel like there’s a big pressure on  this month,” said Gladys Leon Diaz, one of the student leaders of LSU. “Just to make sure we’re being inclusive enough. As an HSI … there’s just no way we can’t do anything or do the bare minimum.” Hispanic Heritage Month comes at a difficult time for students. Falling just weeks after they arrive back on campus, there isn’t much time to get plans...

By Tyson Miller • September 28, 2023 • Features

Palms slam the chain link fence, a vuvuzela blares and voices are raised in a chant of “you can’t do that” as a referee awards a yellow card to an opposing player. The Goshen College student section is out in full force for women’s soccer. It ends unfortunately for the Leafs; Siena Heights gets the 2-0 win, dealing the Maple Leafs their second loss of the season. But the student section is engaged until the end, cheering on their team, making noise and willing them to put a ball in the back of the net. The GC student section was...

By Tyson Miller • September 28, 2023 • Features

After getting back from studying in Ecuador this summer, I had four weeks at home before I moved into college. This transition time was awkward and challenging: I was abruptly back home and expected the reverse culture shock to hit me — but sometimes it didn’t, and the familiarity I felt returning to the U.S. was jarring in its own way. With a wide-open schedule for the first time in months, if not years, I wasn’t sure how to fill my days. I was feeling out-of-place in my country, in my privilege and at times in my family. One way...

By Caleb Shenk • September 14, 2023 • Features