If you attend guest speaker events, concerts, sports games and everything in between at Goshen College, you may have noticed mysterious people dressed in black pushing buttons in the background. It’s not as scary as it seems. They are trained professionals, making sure all of the audio and visual (AV) elements in the events are running smoothly. ITSMedia, the AV extension of ITS (Information Technology Services), has several key functions on campus, including the operation of Campus Post and classroom technology. What takes up most of their time, though, is the AV and systems support for events and event centers....

By Lukas Bontrager-Waite • February 23, 2023 • Features

Goshen College’s 135 acre campus is filled with courtyards, sidewalks, athletic fields and over a dozen buildings. The quick but often silent engine that keeps it all up and running is Physical Plant. The department has a wide range of duties, including wiring, plumbing, cleaning, painting and consists of four different areas: general maintenance, custodial, systems and grounds. These four areas bring a lot of responsibilities, so they rarely struggle to keep  busy.  This is especially true for grounds, which is naturally the department most affected by changes in season. Not only do they have different tasks during different times...

By Gabe Martinez • February 23, 2023 • Features

Tucked away on East Washington Street is the unofficial caffeine supplier for the city of Goshen, The Electric Brew.  A hodgepodge of decor along with various places to hide away and forget the outside world for a while greets you. To enter the shop is to wait in line and be given a chance to look around. A 1920s vintage bicycle divides the seating section from the front counter, a large painting of Earth as seen from space encompassing half of the wall, thrifted furniture of oak and pine wood that could only mesh well together in this setting, a...

By Faith Fegley • February 23, 2023 • Features

“I volunteered one day and put my arm in and I got a severe allergic reaction that lasted like three days on my whole arm. Never again. Lesson learned.” That’s new Goshen College biology professor Raquel Montañez-González explaining a challenge of mosquito research she became well-acquainted with while obtaining her doctorate: their need for blood — on that day, her blood — in order to reproduce. Montañez-González was hired last year to fill an open spot in the biology department after Jody Saylor moved to an administrative role on campus. She earned her doctorate in genetics at the University of...

By Amelia Witmer-Rich • February 16, 2023 • Features

On Jan. 26, I wrote an article on behalf of the student organization, Discrimination Student Caucus, that included issues of accessibility on campus.  In the published article there were phrasings that The Record staff changed, presumably in order to be more palatable to the GC administration and to the GC donors.  Listed below are the changes in vocabulary that diminished the severity of inaccessibility on campus.  Original words:  – All of Umble Center (Specifically the lack of a functional ramp, as there are only stairs to the other levels and there is no accessible seating)   –  The RFC’s “elevator” is...

By Robin Chico • February 16, 2023 • Features

By the time orientation week wraps up every year and classes get underway, there’s one person that every freshman on campus knows: Adela Hufford. Hufford is Goshen College’s director of orientation, transition and retention. She works in a wide variety of roles — and she’s held just as many positions at GC — but the one she’s most widely known for is the biggest part of her job: orientation. “Being a part of orientation didn’t happen for me until I was at the tail end of admissions and enrollment,” Hufford said. “It intrigued me. I love event planning and I...

By Daniel James • February 16, 2023 • Features

In the past decade, private institutions have gone bankrupt due to the lack of interest in the humanities and a liberal arts education. English departments across the country are currently dealing with low enrollment rates At Goshen College, the incoming class of 2022 has 9 declared English majors and 5 writing majors. There are 109 declared nursing majors and 65 business majors. This distribution is similar nationally, even among Ivy League institutions.  The rise of anti-intellectualism is to blame for this. By that, I am referring to the general sentiment of anger, mockery and dismissal against people who read and...

By Mariela Esparza • February 2, 2023 • Features

Students and faculty may view Java Junction as the campus’s successful, student-run coffee shop, but internally it has a reputation of barely breaking even.  This year, the management team is determined to change that. Micah Shenk and Connor Daniel are business majors at Goshen College and have been a part of Java’s management team since the start of the 2022-23 school year, with Shenk overseeing inventory and Daniel marketing. Shenk and Daniel moved up from their original roles as assistant managers and are using their increased responsibilities to make major positive changes to Java’s internal operations, profit margins and customer...

By Lukas Bontrager-Waite • February 2, 2023 • Features

Todd Yoder is Goshen College’s vice president of institutional advancement. Yoder wears a suit and tie to the office, but outside of work there’s another outfit he puts on: a kilt, a jacket and a special hat. This outfit is also accompanied by a set of bagpipes.  Yoder has been mastering the craft of the bagpipes for 11 years. After graduating from GC, Yoder moved back to the east coast, where he was raised. He decided to learn the bagpipes while living in Pennsylvania, just one year before moving with his wife, Kathleen, back to Goshen in 2013. Kathleen also...

By Michael Murrell • February 2, 2023 • Features

Andy Ammons starts his class by taking students to the prairie behind the Newcomer Building at Goshen College. As they walk through the tall grass, students see bees flying around. This unorthodox classroom may make some students uncomfortable, but both bees and Ammons are in their natural habitat. Ammons gets stung a lot — sometimes even on purpose. During his course, Pollinators in Peril, Ammons makes a point of stinging himself. He catches a bee and puts it directly on his arm, encouraging the bee to release the stinger. He says he does so to show the class what happens...

By Amelia Lee • February 2, 2023 • Features

For students from Elkhart County all the way to Puerto Rico, Adriana Ortiz, assistant director of admissions at Goshen College, is usually part of the initial stages of a student’s experience. Although many see the smaller parts of Ortiz’s job, like an email letting someone know the next step in their admissions process, she is not a traditional admissions counselor. In fact, she does much more than that, especially for Latino students at GC.  Ortiz mentors, advises and most importantly, listens to prospective and current students. While listening, she learns more about the students to understand their “why,” their potential...

By Sadie Brenneman • January 26, 2023 • Features

When the clock hits 1:15 p.m., the Leaf Raker cafe descends into chaos with a queue of students rushing to get their “meal replacement” of a cheeseburger or a quesadilla.  Through all the hubbub, a voice rings out from behind the counter, calling students’ names as their food is ready. That voice is often the one of Candace Sheley — or, as she’s known to many on campus, Candy. “I started working here three years ago,” Sheley says. “I was a stay-at-home mom, and then … I got bored! So I started here.” Seniors may remember when Sheley worked at...

By Daniel James • January 26, 2023 • Features

Maria Petit Arias is a second year psychology major here at Goshen College, but across the street she works at Goshen Hospital and around the city at various Goshen Health affiliated locations interpreting for healthcare workers and patients. “I help Spanish-speakers at their medical appointments, ranging from something simple as bloodwork to something threatening such as chemotherapy treatments. You could say that the only thing I do at work is talk, but it really is more than that,” said Petit Arias.  The job comes with celebrations and struggles alike.  “In order to perform this duty to its full potential,” she...

By Sarah Miller • January 26, 2023 • Features

Walking into Cyneatha Millsaps’ room in Newcomer 10, there is a sense of comfort – plants in different corners of the room, marble-like rugs and soft chairs, all in the color green. Millsaps’ story begins with a choice made outside the walls of Goshen College: she applied to Indiana University of South Bend (IUSB) and a seminary at the same time.  In the mid-1990s, Millsaps started her career running a nonprofit agency, Family Services of Elkhart County, as well as the Elkhart County Women’s Shelter. “My plan was to go to get my Master’s in Public Administration and keep doing...

By Jakyra Green • January 19, 2023 • Features

This past Saturday, “Goshen: A Sundown Town’s Transformation” premiered at Umble Center. The project has been months in the making. As a Maple Scholar this past summer, Silas Immanuel, an accounting and film double major, researched and began work on a documentary about Goshen’s history as a “sundown town.” In James Loewen’s book, “Sundown Towns,” a sundown town is defined as an organized jurisdiction – a city, for example – that for decades kept African-Americans or other groups from living there or even staying overnight. This piece of history has already been made public and officially acknowledged. In 2015, the...

By Phil Witmer-Rich • January 19, 2023 • Features