Over recent years, the college has undergone many institutional changes, from a brand change to the national anthem decision process to budget cuts.  Last week, President Brenneman announced in a faculty/staff meeting that this year’s freshman class is the first in the history of the college to have more non-Mennonites than Mennonites.  Is there a correlation between these institutional changes and demographic changes, and are demographic changes necessarily a bad thing? Personally, I don’t think think we should use church denomination as the main way of measuring the study body’s character, though I can understand it is an easy way...

By Alysha Landis • February 24, 2011 • Features

Sometimes, all I want to do is sit alone at the Rott. Last semester on Tuesdays, I’d get out of Ann Hostetler’s Creative Writing class at 10:45 a.m., walk to the Union to check my mail, get my Time magazine for the week and head over to the Rott to eat an early lunch. I was always the first one there, hoping that Elsie would open the door just a minute or two early. (Don’t worry, she never did.) I would chat with her or Trudy – whoever happened to be swiping cards that day – about how miserably cold...

By Lavonne Shetler • February 16, 2011 • Features

I am not a math major, but I heard some disappointments in the Campus Activities Council’s GEEK card system last week. As a member of CAC, I decided to do the math and try and figure out, is it really a waste of money to buy the GEEK card? We had the First Friday fiesta in the fall where the Goshen College GEEK card holders were given the opportunity to get 15 percent off participating stores and 7 gift cards, worth $20 each for stores like Rachel’s Bread, The Electric Brew, Maple City Market, etc. Then we had the movie...

By Chagan Sanathu • February 10, 2011 • Features

Whenever I pass through the connector, I have been drawn to the opinion board, which until recently was located in the Union. Over the past few weeks it has been filled with different faculty and staff members’ opinions on the national anthem ruling. I have been very interested in reading their stories. Many of them share experiences overseas showcasing the violent side of nationalism; all of them express disappointment with Goshen College’s decision to play the national anthem. I have mixed emotions as I read the opinion board. On the one hand, I’m a little bit tired of talking about...

By Kristina Mast • February 5, 2011 • Features

For my Senior Seminar class, I am reading “Cosmopolitanism: Ethics in a World of Strangers,” by Kwame Anthony Appiah.  Cosmopolitanism, as Appiah defines it, consists of two interwoven threads.  The first is the idea that we all have an obligation and responsibility to one another–“obligations,” said Appiah, “that stretch beyond those to whom we are related by ties of kith and kind, or even the more formal ties of a shared citizenship.”  Woven with this is the idea that we should place value in others’ lives, and therefore take interest in their significant practices and beliefs (their culture).  “People are...

By Alysha Landis • February 5, 2011 • Features

As I began scheming my plans for the Record this semester, I immediately saw it as a chance to bring attention to issues that the student body cares about. What issues do students care about?  What kinds of things are Student Life and Administration doing?  What about Student Senate?  It is, after all, a newspaper for the students. If there’s an issue on campus that seems to be getting brushed under the rug, a person on campus who should be recognized for something that is particularly unique about her or him, or something extraordinary that more people should know about,...

By Alysha Landis • January 20, 2011 • Features

When I think through the primary events on campus this semester, the word that screams out to me the most is growth. I’ll explain. Budget Cuts – Students, faculty, staff and administration all dealt with budget cuts in some way; some departments took harder hits than others. Some painful cuts occurred, but it was less dramatic than many anticipated. One of the overarching changes I noticed was a campus-wide desire to incorporate sustainability practices into the budget cuts. A good example is the native landscaping project. An interesting trend I’ve noticed is people’s initial interest in the subject, but frequent...

By Laura Schlabach • December 2, 2010 • Features

I met with President Jim Brenneman early in the semester to touch base about campus news and Record plans for the semester. Our discussion eventually wandered to other topics more inspiring than budget cuts, bringing us to an idea President Brenneman called “the second naiveté.” How do we balance the tough, often discouraging situations and issues of life (from budget cuts to international conflicts) yet still fully engage in the joyful moments of daily life? That day we met to chat, President Brenneman said one of his favorite days on campus so far had been the day students returned to campus....

By Laura Schlabach • November 17, 2010 • Features

Lately I’ve developed this weird thing where I only drink my Rott (dining hall) coffee out of a yellow mug. (Yes, that indecisive mug that can’t decide if it’s mimicking the brown of Dijon mustard or the gold of a faded Olympic medal, any Rott-goer knows the one.) There’s something so wonderful about a routine. Of knowing with confidence what you’ll do that day, who you’ll be with, where you’ll eat, where you’ll do your homework. Routine provides at least a simple structure for the unknowns of any given day to fall into. As a first-year last year, I felt...

By Becca Kraybill • November 10, 2010 • Features

Eric Brende, author of “Better Off: Flipping the Switch on Technology” spoke in my environmental economics class on Monday. His journey from MIT to living with the Amish for a year helped him experience the conversation and growth that come with monotonous labor tasks, ones like husking corn. In class, he represented this idea audibly through a piano demonstration; he played a repetitive rhythm with his left hand and noted the somewhat boring nature of it. But he said this repetitive rhythm really becomes the basis for conversation that can emerge—he played a melody with his right hand to represent...

By Laura Schlabach • November 3, 2010 • Features

I told my roommate she should be Sarah Palin for Halloween. All I had thought about were the black glasses my roommate has that are similar to Palin’s; I guess I was thinking about their similar face structures too. But the rest of the women in our house vetoed my idea. “She’d be shunned,” they said. I hadn’t even thought about the ramifications of impersonating Palin for Halloween, but it’s true—if I saw Palin walking down the street with a bag of candy on her arm, my first instinct would be to throw a cup of tea in her face....

By Annalisa Harder • October 27, 2010 • Features

Fans of political satirists John Stewart and Stephen Colbert are awaiting Oct. 30 with high anticipation. The two will be holding opposing rallies on Oct. 30 in Washington D.C. on the National Mall. Stewart introduced his Rally to Restore Sanity on The Daily Show on Sept. 16, which not so coincidentally happened to be the same day Colbert announced his Rally to Keep Fear Alive. It was a hilarious episode of The Daily Show, and I had no idea they were dead serious about their scheme. “Ours is a rally for the people who’ve been too busy to go to rallies, who...

By Laura Schlabach • October 14, 2010 • Features

My friend Sam Martin, from Tucson, Ariz., came to visit Goshen College during my sophomore year. He thought it was absolutely hilarious when students would see a train coming and sprint across campus in order to make it across the tracks on time. Since I’m used to seeing this phenomenon on a daily basis, I was greatly amusing to watch him laugh and laugh at people taking off running across campus to beat a train. When I thought more about this scenario, it occurred to me that it’s one of those situations you could describe as “all or nothing.” Students...

By Laura Schlabach • October 6, 2010 • Features

I never saw a tallgrass prairie the same way after I took Ecology last fall with Ryan Sensenig, associate professor of biology. Perhaps it was the passion with which he taught us about his PhD research in Kenya, when he observed how controlled burns affected the growth of the prairie on the plains. Perhaps it was the down to earth, yet clearly knowledgeable tone with which he interacted with us in and out of class that made me and my fellow Ecology students—and many other students around campus—so instantly passionate about the ecological principles he taught. But one of the...

By Laura Schlabach • September 30, 2010 • Features

Ebooks are new and hip, but don’t necessarily trade them right away for your good old paperback. This summer I read a review on ebooks by Rick Steves, of CNN Travel. He pointed out a few of their benefits: they’re small, lightweight and efficient for multi-destination travel. You can buy ebooks almost anywhere given their wireless features. But, he countered, they’re not ideal for guidebooks, which often feature double-page maps. After also learning that ebook sales are now outselling paperbacks and hardcovers on Amazon.com, it made me wonder what college textbook purchases will look like in coming years. When I...

By Laura Schlabach • September 23, 2010 • Features