Last week, Logan Miller wrote an editorial about students being rude during chapels and convocations. I, too, have noticed a problem in chapel behavior. We all see it: students talking, doing homework, using laptops and generally not paying attention during chapel/convo. And then there are the people who we don’t see because they’ve managed to “swipe and dash,” leaving chapel before it’s even started. While dissatisfaction with chapels is not a new phenomenon at Goshen College, I would argue that it’s gotten worse during my time here. Why, we might ask, is chapel despised by so many students? A lot...

By Ariel Ropp • February 21, 2013 • Features

Jennifer Beer, the new campus counselor, spoke in Monday’s convocation about relationships and our individual roles in those relationships. “Strong relationships begin with a strong you” was the title, and even though I heard what she said about different forms of relationships, the interactions of different personality types, and some of the firsthand experience she’s had as the campus counselor, I still had a hard time cutting through the chatter. When I started at Goshen College last September, one of the first things I noticed about convocations and chapels was that, unlike my experience at Hesston, we are allowed to...

By Logan Miller • February 13, 2013 • Features

At convocation on Monday, four international students shared insights about their cross-cultural experiences at Goshen College and challenged the student body to embrace diversity on campus. One of those students, Jan Zawadzki, a senior business major from Germany, discussed a concept he called the Menno-Wall, an invisible wall that divides Mennonite students from non-Mennonite students. To illustrate his point, Zawadzki asked students in the audience to consider where they were sitting. Sure enough, the chapel was split into two (mostly) dichotomous groups: white Mennonite students on the north end of chapel and non-white and international students on the south end. As...

By Ariel Ropp • February 7, 2013 • Features

Last weekend as I attended spring Kick-Off and Billy Funk’s senior show, I was reminded why I love Goshen College. Maybe it was the exceptionally strong talent, or the pulsing energy of the crowd, or the way the audience cheered when Funk proposed to Alita Yoder at the end of his recital (congratulations, you two!). Or maybe I’m just sentimental because I’m a senior and won’t be seeing any more Kick-Offs and senior shows after this year. Whatever it was, I sensed a lot of positive energy and — dare I say — community on campus over the weekend. We talk...

By Ariel Ropp • January 30, 2013 • Features

Martin Luther King Jr. visited Goshen College in 1960, calling the campus and community to join his nonviolent crusade against racial injustice. Fifty-three years later, our first African-American president gave his second Inaugural Address to the nation on the very holiday that honors MLK’s life. I don’t know about you, but I think that’s pretty cool. Standing before hundreds of thousands of spectators gathered at the Capitol building and millions watching on national television, Obama took the oath of office on a Bible belonging to the slain civil rights hero. His speech invoked the ideals of MLK—equality, freedom, justice—as he...

By Ariel Ropp • January 24, 2013 • Features

Nothing beats a good old-fashioned taffy-pull, even when global warming gets in the way. I learned that lesson last weekend when my fellow Vita House-mates and I hosted a taffy-pull party for the whole campus to attend. A taffy-pull, for those who have never been to one, is when you take homemade taffy—sugar, cream, corn syrup and gelatin—slather your hands with butter, and, with a partner, continuously pull the candy back and forth until it’s light and fluffy. Then, you cut the taffy into bite-size pieces and roll it up with wax paper, creating sweet morsels of sugary bliss. Sounds...

By Ariel Ropp • January 17, 2013 • Features

Editing The Record this semester has been a lot like rollerblading while blindfolded. That is to say, every week, just when I thought I’d mastered feeling my way across the path, my feet would remember they were on skates and they’d fly out from beneath me. Editing means always being in some state of helplessness. But despite my lack of sleep and the hit my grades have taken, I’m really grateful for this experience. Editing has been a gratifying end to my four years of Record involvement. I’m reminded of the significant role the paper plays on campus: it is...

By Becca Kraybill • December 6, 2012 • Features

Last week, as I stuffed myself silly with mashed potatoes and turkey, I couldn’t help but remember that last year I was pressing into my last week of my Study-Service Term in Shaanxi Provence, China. My group crowded into a fancy restaurant, ordered a delicious meal and prepared to bike around the city wall of Xi’an. In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I will say that I’m incredibly grateful for my SST experience. I loved the elderly woman in my courtyard who motioned to me every morning to bring an umbrella to school. I loved taking long walks along the river...

By Becca Kraybill • November 29, 2012 • Features

This is a story of personal pain, struggle and ultimately triumph. A story of how one mathematically-challenged soul came to pass the Math Competency exam. My hate for math started the day my kindergarten teacher used animal crackers to teach subtraction. She held up three crackers and then placed one behind her back. How many animals are left? she asked. Maybe I was too distracted by the animal shapes, but my brain just couldn’t understand the problem. Math didn’t get any better through elementary and middle school. In 4th grade, I channeled my hate for it through humor. One day...

By Becca Kraybill • November 15, 2012 • Features

1,461 more days. 2.1 million more minutes. Four more years. Come Nov. 8, 2016, America will vote for a president again. For some of us, the intervening time will be the best years of our lives. For some of us, we’ll want to hit the reset button and come back to Tuesday night. Of the five races I was watching, my candidate won in three and lost in two. I’d venture a guess that most of you reading this are in a similar boat. But my favorite part of the election isn’t the winning and losing, as much as my...

By Tony Miller • November 8, 2012 • Features

Suzanne Ehst, an adjunct professor of education and doctoral student at West Michigan University, wrote this poem in the form of a “Found” poem. Ehst gathered phrases from emails sent by the Obama campaign and organized them into verses. This week, as the election nears its riveting end, I urge the campus to vote on Tuesday. However, I also hope that the end of the election can be recognized as an end to months of national and personal divisions. As Ehst introduces her poem, “May we all survive this political season with our grace and humor in tact!” ——————————– Before...

By Becca Kraybill • October 31, 2012 • Features

The way I see it, there are two types of people in the world. There are the people that peek under the lid when they cook rice. And there are the people that don’t peek under the lid when they cook rice. If you don’t believe me, ask your friend how they cook rice. Chances are, they’re either pro-peeking or pro-not. I’m a peeker. But I didn’t really comprehend my identity as a peeker until several weeks ago when I was following my craving for a hearty bowl of rice and beans. I prepared the beans. Then I stuck a...

By Becca Kraybill • October 18, 2012 • Features

This week, I am reminded of the importance of remembering. This Saturday during Homecoming, I gathered with over 30 former editors of The Record to honor the paper’s 100th anniversary. Though we represented the classes of 1956-2013, we all shared one experience: the hard work, stress and fun of editing The Record. During the reunion, former editors reflected on their Record experiences. John Lapp, who edited in 1982, remembered an embarrassing mistake when he accidentally switched the type set of the paper’s title. Instead of reading “The Goshen College Record,” it printed as “The Goshen Record College.” Sue Clemmer Steiner,...

By Becca Kraybill • October 11, 2012 • Features

This weekend, as Goshen College welcomes the return of 11 graduated classes to campus, I am reminded of my own Goshen College identity. My parents met here at Goshen. My mom was a right-brained art major from Oregon. My dad, in contrast, was a Pennsylvania farm boy dreaming of medical school. One day, my mom caught a glimpse of my dad walking across the dining hall. She thought to herself, “Now that is who I’m going to marry!” My dad, however, must’ve had other plans–he asked out my mom’s roommate. Luckily, the date flopped and my parents started dating instead....

By Becca Kraybill • October 4, 2012 • Features

The best advice I’ve ever heard about college didn’t come from an upperclassman, a professor or Seventeen magazine’s “Guide to College.” It came from my grandma. Grandma called me one night during my first semester here. It was a night when home seemed a universe away and learning within the college context felt unnatural, unimportant and unnecessary. Grandma took a non-traditional approach to college. As a young woman, she earned an associate degree in biblical studies from Eastern Mennonite College. But it was many years later—when she was 50 years old, with four kids—that she completed her bachelor’s degree at...

By Becca Kraybill • September 27, 2012 • Features