Last Wednesday, Jimmy Kimmel shared that his interview with Democratic Texas Senate candidate James Talarico wouldn’t be aired on TV amidst threats from the Federal Communications Commission under the Trump administration. Any journalist will likely tell you that good independent journalism is essential to a healthy democracy. We are lucky at Goshen College to have editorial independence that is well respected, and it is easy to take that for granted. Beyond our campus, the censorship of national legacy media organizations has been rapidly increasing since the reelection of President Donald Trump in November 2024. As of March, POLITICO reported seven...

By Mackenzie P. Miller • September 17, 2026 • Features

The first article I ever wrote for The Record in the fall of my first year was about the homecoming one-act; a bilingual play called: “A Comedy Renaissance (Un renacimiento de la comedia).” Despite knowing practically nothing about journalistic writing, I was excited for the challenge and determined to succeed.   When I picked up The Record that Thursday, I was thrilled to see my byline on the arts page. I read through it and remember thinking, “Wait, I didn’t write that paragraph…” As it turns out, one cannot perfect AP Style or journalistic writing from simply reading over the introductory...

By Mackenzie P. Miller • September 10, 2026 • Features

It’s no secret that print journalism is a dying industry. With the rise of the web and the increasing monopoly of nationally syndicated papers, the local paper is a reality in decline. Selfishly, this is terrible news. Thinking in terms of the big picture, it’s still terrible. Communities need to be informed about the going-ons in their own spaces as much as, if not more than, what’s going on across the country.  This is by no means a new story; it’s been a growing problem for years. According to the Associated Press, around 136 newspapers closed their doors in 2025,...

By Kate Bodiker • April 16, 2026 • Features

I do not believe that generative AI belongs on a Mennonite college campus. There are many reasons for this, but I do feel the need to first clarify that I do mean generative AI, the type of chatbot that would have you believe it knows how to write better than you, that it gives good advice, that it is a knowledge machine — not a repository of all correct and incorrect information out on the internet. The sacredness of the human mind and communal effort has been at the forefront of the Mennonite movement for 500 years. It is not...

By Kate Bodiker • April 2, 2026 • Features

Our current intramural system at Goshen College is broken. That might sound hyperbolic, but when 25 out of the 46 players in intramural futsal are collegiate soccer players, it feels like we may have lost the plot somewhere. And beyond that, 13 out of the remaining 21 are other collegiate-level athletes. So, only eight people on the original set of rosters are non-athletes. Part of the reason for this has been the changing rules for intramurals — especially the team sports. In the past, there were almost always enough teams for both an A-league and a B-League, meaning there was...

By Kate Bodiker • March 26, 2026 • Features

Eliza Alemán I have been intentional about rejecting the notion that I must work harder if I want to succeed in the field of journalism. My commitment to this mindset isn’t about rejecting hard work; it’s about rejecting misogyny. The “grind” is misogynistic at its core. It only reinforces the belief that you are worthy of respect only after you prove yourself. It also dehumanizes the day-to-day experiences that journalistic writing hopes to capture. I have found that my writing and reporting skills are better when I put people first. My sensitive heart and assertive tone — the characteristics that...

By Kate Bodiker • March 12, 2026 • Features Mackenzie P. Miller • March 12, 2026 • Features Eliza Alemán • March 12, 2026 • Features Aaliah Higareda • March 12, 2026 • Features Mafe Aguilar Vargas • March 12, 2026 • Features

The week before midterm break, a time that for me should have been a sigh of relief before heading to New York City and then back home to Ohio, was in fact a failure of epic proportions. I was so sick that, by Monday night, I had to leave my night class early to go home and immediately fall asleep. I spent the next two days sleeping, eating, coughing, napping and then going back to sleep. I couldn’t go to any of my classes, and fell even further behind than I was already going to be because I was still...

By Kate Bodiker • March 5, 2026 • Features

As a kid, I was raised on a generous dose of rebels. Between “Star Wars,” “Lord of the Rings” and “The Hunger Games,” one of the things that I wanted most when I was younger was the chance to be a part of making history. To be a hero that stood up to injustice and fought the good fight even when it was hard.  I felt this same type of longing as I got older and started learning local history, like the Kent State shooting that took place only about an hour from my house.   Some of this is the...

By Kate Bodiker • January 29, 2026 • Features

With all the social upheaval going on these days, I hear a lot from all sides about fighting for America. What that actually looks like means different things to different people, but a core talking point on both sides of the aisle is one of taking back the U.S.  When I was younger, I was easily moved by these arguments — the idea that America needed to hold true to its lofty ideals of freedom and equality made a lot of sense to me. When things look bleak, as they do right now, it’s easy to believe that this is...

By Kate Bodiker • January 22, 2026 • Features

This year marks a major milestone for our country. As of 2026, we have considered ourselves an independent nation for 250 years. Of course, nothing is official until July so in theory we haven’t quite made it yet, but it’s a big year nonetheless.  In honor of this moment, I wanted to take inspiration from some local history — what were my predecessors saying in their editorials, a mere 50 years ago. 1976 was a year marked largely by the fact that it was the first year in what, for many college students of the time, would have been living...

By Kate Bodiker • January 15, 2026 • Features

For the first time in Record history, three Latina women have held semester-long executive positions. Our leadership is a reflection of the Goshen College student body today.  Concluding our time as editors, we wanted to share our reflections with you all — our triumphs, our hardships and mistakes. We only hope that you read carefully, with an open heart and mind.  Eliza Alemán:  Growing up with a mother who worked in the nonprofit sector, I learned how to engage with the public at a young age. My mother knew this was a slippery slope. While I learned to listen and...

By Eliza Alemán • December 4, 2025 • Features Aaliah Higareda • December 4, 2025 • Features Mafe Aguilar Vargas • December 4, 2025 • Features

I have always felt the need to create.  I was always looking for something new to work on. Rummaging through piles of felt, construction paper, crayons, colored pencils, paints and pens. Pretty much any art medium you could think of, I had clutched in my small, already ink-stained hands. Plain surfaces were just a blank canvas for me, even the walls! Especially the walls. The familiar sage green plaster of my kitchen was no match for me and my trusty pencil. Covering the bumpy old farmhouse walls with scribbles, attempting to spell ‘Rosemary.’ Countless traces of backward R’s and B’s,...

By Rosemary Baer • November 20, 2025 • Features

When Aaliah and Eliza approached me about writing this editorial, I was excited by the chance to share my thoughts on an issue that I care about with the rest of campus, and wanted to make sure I did a good job with this piece. I had no shortage of ideas for topics, and spent several weeks mentally going over this list. But while I was weighing these options, I had to stay on top of school work, edit a page of this paper, serve as the stage manager for “Hansel and Gretel,” the theater department’s fall mainstage production, sing...

By Teo Kingsley • November 13, 2025 • Features

Art can act as a gateway into the ideals of the culture that created it. Despite being constructed in the seventh century B.C.E., we can analyze Greek marble sculpture and get a glimpse into the values and principles that were deemed important. Themes of beauty, strength, storytelling, and power still resonate with modern viewers even when much of the context and people have long since been forgotten. So what is modern art saying about our culture now? As much as I enjoy perusing art museums and overthinking abstract pieces, I can’t help but feel that the purpose of art has...

By Ryan Snider • October 30, 2025 • Features

My Study-Service Term to Red Lake, Minnesota with Mennonite Disaster Service was my first prolonged interaction with Kendra Yoder, and the first time I reflected on the weight of the gossip culture at Goshen College. Yoder is a professor of sociology and co-director of global engagement here at GC, and she happened to be one of my SST leaders. One evening, after a crappy service day, she and I went on a walk outside the reservation’s casino hotel — home for our time in Red Lake due to some behind-schedule renovations. We ended our walk by the entryway lawn, where...

By Eliza Alemán • October 23, 2025 • Features