Some notes on communication and creativity: During the summer, I picked up a book called “A Whole New Mind” by Daniel Pink.  The book is about a trend toward more creative and right-brain oriented success in the world of business and industry.  Pink argues that lock-step, sequential, left brain style thinking is only valuable in conjunction with highly creative, artistic thinking, in every facet of modern business.  This is an attractive idea to me.  I have always seen myself as more of a right-brain thinker, and the idea that, with no particular effort on my part, my style of thinking...

By Chase Snyder • September 17, 2009 • Features

Ah, here we are – the final issue of the Record for the 2008-2009 academic year. I recognize that some of you have inevitably already read some (or all?) of this last issue online. Good work. It is 11 p.m. on Wednesday, and Michael Neumann and I are finished with layout design. We’ve finished editing before midnight each week this semester, a tribute to an unprecedentedly effective staff. Thank you to everyone who has contributed this semester, and most of all, you, for reading this newspaper.

By Sheldon Good • April 16, 2009 • Features

A simple yet profound request made its way into my Gmail inbox last week.  It was an invitation to sign a graduation pledge, which read: “I pledge to take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job I consider and will try to improve those aspects of any organization for which I work.” Last year, 90 Goshen College seniors signed this pledge and wore a small green ribbon at graduation ceremonies to signify their support.  Tamara Shantz, assistant campus minister and this year’s organizer, hopes to get over 100 participants. Thanks to four years at an institution like Goshen...

By Ben Noll • April 9, 2009 • Features

When approaching people to inquire whether they might consider writing a perspective for the Record, I always feel slightly guilty – a bit like a door-to-door carpet cleaner salesperson must feel. I feel this guilt mostly because I know people are already so busy. The most popular conversation on campus goes something like this: Harold (an ambiguous designation, not representative of Goshen College’s Harold population in general): “Ugh, this is going to be a miserable night. I have a ten-page political science paper due tomorrow that I haven’t even started yet, and then I have to study for my Spanish...

By Sarah Rich • April 2, 2009 • Features

Recently I’ve been thinking about what a collaborative Mennonite college newspaper might look like. It’s ironic that in our (great/horrible) age of globalization, the five Mennonite colleges are not more connected. What’s happening at Bethel College? Did Bluffton University finally finalize plans for a new recreation center? How is Eastern Mennonite University? And what about Hesston College? I think a newspaper produced by students that connects these five schools together would be awesome. It’s possible now. Just this semester, Sheldon Good, the editor-in-chief of the Record, has helped our staff learn and adapt to an online software program called WordPress....

By Annalisa Harder • March 26, 2009 • Features

As a funnies editor, I spend a lot of time thinking about humor. What do I find funny this week? Will other people find it funny as well? Will my article cast some light on the human condition, exposing a peculiarity so truthful that the reader cannot help but to emit a chuckle of recognition? Or will I merely string together phrases such as “twangy banjos” and “dancing koalas” until I make myself giggle? In general, I like humor. I like the way my body feels after I laugh. I like the feel of community that can be created by...

By Jesse Landis-Eigsti • March 19, 2009 • Features

Something quietly disappeared with the launch of the Record’s new Web site. I think it deserves a few words. I’m talking about the Record’s online archives. When we transferred to the WordPress software – which now provides the foundation of our Web site – we retired the old site, including – for now – all the archives of past issues it had accumulated. Those archives were far from perfect. They were poorly organized and impossible to navigate. The search function was just short of useless. But, with the right terms, a desired article was usually a Google search away. I...

By Paul Boers • March 12, 2009 • Features

I came back to campus with my feet dragging behind me after the whirlwind of my spring break in New York City. I really didn’t want to be back in Indiana. As classes started up again, I felt sorry for myself as I loafed throughout campus with my head down, trying to figure out a way to finish all my work I had left until the last minute. But as I sat down and began the reading assignment in Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott for my Feature Writing class, I was reminded that I hadn’t really been living at...

By Alysha Landis • March 5, 2009 • Features

When I was in the fourth grade, I wrote my very first story. The story, written longhand in my Tweety notebook, was about a girl who got all her wishes granted. She had a purple necklace that would grant the wishes whenever she wanted, wishes such as the ability to breathe underwater and to have a pet chimpanzee. I don’t know why I wrote the story, and I don’t know where it is now. But it was my first timid step into the addictive and crazy world of writing. I’ve kept a journal for the past eleven years. Over time,...

By Emily Shantz • February 19, 2009 • Features

When the Record’s expert delegator – Sheldon Good, editor-in-chief – informed me that I would be responsible for this week’s “For the Record,” I was hardly in a position to refuse. The problem, however, was that I actually am too busy to spend any more time on the newspaper. My attempt to complete college in three years has pretty much taken over my life. I didn’t explain this to Sheldon. He’s in my senior seminar, so a certain courtesy is required. If I wasn’t in that class, though, I might have more time for editorials and maybe even for things...

By Kathryn Birky • February 12, 2009 • Features

The Record has made a quiet but significant change to the way it works. For many students, picking up the Record on Thursday is normal. But such an action is declining across the nation. Newspapers everywhere are struggling to maintain their profits as many readers increasingly go to the Internet to get their news for free. The Record – which is free for its students – is not suffering from this shift, but has joined in the great debate of print media. What many of you may not know is that the Record is now primarily a blog. Yes, the...

By Jacob Schlabach • February 5, 2009 • Features

Some of my best memories from the Record have come on Thursday afternoons: sitting around a table in the Rott reading the paper, discussing articles and “perspectives” with friends and hanging around until the room is almost completely empty. We read about the what’s happening at Goshen College, argue about peoples’ opinions and laugh at the funnies page. Now I’m sure my friends and I aren’t the only people at Goshen College who have opinions about decisions made by the administration, general campus life and other college concerns. We all have opinions about news the Record publishes each week. In...

By Tyler Falk • January 29, 2009 • Features

If there’s one thing that I’ve learned as editor for the funnies page over this school year, it is this: being funny is hard. Being funny on a weekly, scheduled basis is even harder. Now, I’m not complaining. I knew what I was getting myself into when I signed up for this. However, let’s be realistic. Jesse and I are just simply not able to supply you, fair readers, with the type of  multifaceted humor that you deserve week after week. Admittedly, some amongst you may be “down with the sickness” (thanks, Disturbed), but we can’t please everybody every time....

By Tyler Yoder • January 22, 2009 • Features

According to J. Glenn Reynolds, author of the Instapundit.com blog, the key to a successful blog is to “post regularly, find topics that interest you and track them steadily.” That’s exactly what I intend to do. But only with a bit of help from all of you. Yes, you. Time magazine’s 2006 Person of the Year was You. Recall that 2006 was the year when user-generated content was embedded into our online psyches as a lasting reality rather than a passing phenomenon. Web sites such as Wikipedia, YouTube, Facebook, MySpace, Digg and Second Life crept into our Firefox bookmark toolbars....

By Sheldon Good • January 15, 2009 • Features