For the RecordFor the Record is a weekly editorial usually written by the current executive editor of The Record. It may also be written by other Record editors.
For the Record is a weekly editorial usually written by the current executive editor of The Record. It may also be written by other Record editors.
February 25, 2022
The gift of presence
There were nine people living in my house this weekend: my ninety-four-year-old grandfather who moved in with us last week, my uncle and cousin who came to visit, and my family of six. In the afternoons, my grandmother came over, and at the dinner table, we were joined by a few additional friends. My family’s house has been described as “chaotic.” There are always guests at the table or visitors drinking tea in the living room. My parents tell me and my siblings to bring friends home whenever we want; it doesn’t matter how last-minute or how many. My family...
February 17, 2022
Garbage isn’t boring
Garbage isn’t a subject most people consider exciting. It’s dirty. It smells bad. And we usually don’t talk about it very often. But at a gathering I attended last Thursday, trash was the topic of conversation. The guest speaker at the first Sustainable Living Series gathering was John Bowers, the director of the Elkhart County Landfill. The purpose of the discussion, which was attended by over 20 college students and community members, was to learn about what actually happens to the trash we produce after it’s whisked away in a garbage truck. My interest in trash began almost exactly seven...
February 11, 2022
Why I don’t call myself an athlete
This is the first week of the Winter Olympics, 2022. The best athletes from around the world are gathered right now in Beijing, testing their performance on a world stage. The Olympic games are exciting and inspiring. For me, they bring up a subject I have an uneasy relationship with: athletics. I came to Goshen College five years ago with aspirations of becoming a star cross country and track runner. A few years later, I wanted nothing to do with the word ‘athlete.’ The transition happened slowly. As a first-year, I worked hard — really hard. I wanted to be...
January 28, 2022
Sleep, eat and swim outdoors
I was pedaling through a green tree tunnel in Ohio on my cross-country bike trip this summer, when one of my fellow riders asked me a question: What are your three favorite outdoor activities? It was a simple question, the kind you might use as an ice-breaker… or as a way to pass the time when you’re biking eight hours a day with the same group of people all summer. But I had to stop and think before giving my answer. There are so many things I love to do outdoors: running, hiking, canoeing, building fires, rafting, slack-lining, biking and...
January 20, 2022
Who is telling our stories?
Last year, 64% of Goshen College’s student body identified as female. But when I analyzed the gender of sources referenced in front-page articles of The Record, females made up only 54%. This is an improvement over eight years ago when only 45% of sources were female (that year the student body was 60% female). Since then, Goshen College has appointed a female president, and the presidential cabinet has gone from being 20% female to 75%. Still, the numbers are clear: females aren’t represented proportionally in our “authoritative newspaper of record.” That concerns me. If this group isn’t being represented fairly...
December 2, 2021
What The Record means to me
I had a conversation with somebody a few weeks ago about why I have invested so much of my time into The Record. It’s not required for my major, and I have done most of the work without pay or credit. Why bother? I had to think about that for a while. What does The Record mean to me? Why have I spent hours each week reporting, writing and editing stories, even though I am under no obligation to do so? The easy thing to do would be to just shrug and say I don’t know, but I think that...
November 11, 2021
Power of poetry
When I was in high school, I once heard an adult who I admired and considered an intellectual say they hated poetry – all poetry. I don’t even remember what their reasons were, but for a long time afterwards I believed all poetry was simple and stupid. On top of that, I believed that enjoying poetry was a sign that you were simple and stupid yourself. Now, I feel like anyone who has such a decisive and harsh view of an entire sacred art form that spans centuries, cultures and religions is probably a very judgemental person whose opinion I...
November 4, 2021
The reality of virtual reality
Facebook announced last Thursday that they have changed their brand name to Meta, all part of their move towards the “next chapter” of the internet – a virtual reality universe that you can do anything and everything in. Your animated avatar will be able to change clothes and mimic your facial expressions. You will even be able to feel things, thanks to a new magnetic material called ReSkin. You can work in the virtual office, from home. Just put on a headset (eventually just glasses) and voila! A virtual world to distract from the real one. Facebook, which already holds...
October 28, 2021
Walnut shells and the objects we hold dear
My housemates and I realized a few weeks ago that our front porch – a glorified cement slab – is a very popular destination for squirrels to discard walnut shells. They pile them up neatly on the edge, in evenly spaced piles. We swept them off one morning in a cleaning frenzy, and by the afternoon, more piles had magically appeared. Instead of trying to sweep them off again, my friend Caroline Robling Griest, decided to buy a bag of peanuts and feed the squirrels. Our house of eleven women is chaotic in its own wonderful way. Dozens of scattered...
October 14, 2021
It is time for sustainable infrastructure
Each article in The Record starts with a question. What does an unvaccinated person think about the required vaccine? What makes the cross country team so successful? Which building on campus is the most haunted? Who takes care of that garden behind Newcomer? We then return to campus seeking answers. We talk to our professors, janitors, administrators, chefs, groundskeepers, community members and peers. We try to ask tough questions, and we try to defend our right to know the truth. We often fall short. In past semesters, we have received criticism from professors that our journalism isn’t “investigative” enough. These...
October 7, 2021
Getting it right
Last summer, I was responsible for transferring articles from the old Record website to the new one. There were over 5,000 articles that Augusta Nafziger and I had to handle. Although it was monotonous at times, the task gave me a unique opportunity to experience the various thoughts and feelings of the Goshen College community from the decade before I arrived on campus. I learned about a range of topics that covered everything from the inauguration of President Stoltzfus to, I kid you not, a student’s lamentations over losing his only nipple hair. Some of the articles that I read...
September 30, 2021
Blink and you might miss it
Blink, and you might miss it. Starting today, GC alumni are trickling their way back onto campus for Homecoming Weekend, where they will wander through buildings, talk to friends and reflect on all that has changed since their time here. For some current students, this weekend might just mean there are a few more oldsters around (and hopefully the Rott pulls out all the stops). Yet I can’t help but wonder what this weekend means for those returning. How does one decide that it’s time to come back to a former home? When is it too soon? When is it...
September 16, 2021
Striving for the deep end
As the semester kicks into high gear, my little red planner is quickly filling up with commitments, some too big to be quantified by a scribble in black ink, and others so unimportant that I wish I didn’t have to write them down in the first place. Even though they look the same on paper, they couldn’t be more different. So, in a frantic effort to bring more peace and calm to my life, I have decided to organize these commitments as either “shallow” or “deep.” What requires the deepest work from me, in which I am most engaged and...
September 9, 2021
Diary of a missing bike
After biking over 3000 miles through thirteen states across the U.S. this summer, my bike was stolen on Saturday night. Although my bike is basically just a fancy piece of steel with bits of plastic and rubber, it feels strangely like a living, breathing creature. It creaks and groans when it’s tired, it whirs when it’s uncomfortable, and it squeaks when it’s wet. It has lots of character, thanks to dents and scratches, chipped paint, stickers and new parts that were added after a hard crash in Nebraska. My bike wasn’t just a handy mode of transportation, it was a...
April 29, 2021
‘Fear, pain and lack of shock’
The trial of Derek Chauvin in connection with the death of George Floyd started on March 29, and it brought back so many memories from May 25 and the weeks afterwards. The fear, the pain and the lack of shock. I haven’t been able to bring myself to actually watch the trial live, but I follow it through news nuggets from a few different places. This trial has me thinking about the increased racism towards the Asian American and Pacific Islander community. I can’t help but think about the pain, fear and possible lack of shock many AAPI people are...