This Friday is International Women’s Day and March is Women’s History Month. There are so many remarkable women I could write about, but I decided to consider this year’s theme for International Women’s Day: “#BalanceforBetter.” The International Women’s Day website says, “Better the balance, better the world. How will you celebrate women’s achievements on Friday, March 8, while calling for a more gender-balanced world?” Balance is key. Gender equality is about finding an equilibrium between male, female and non-binary folk. Everyone plays a part in keeping the scale from tipping too far to one side. Women often are the ones...

By Siana Emery • March 8, 2019 • Features

Three things happened last Friday: I got rejected from my top-choice summer internship, I watched “The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt” and I found my senior pictures. Trust me, these will connect. Let’s start with the senior photos. Even though I look largely the same now as I did in the summer of 2015 , I can assure you that the person in those images is unrecognizable from the one sharing this editorial. A lot of unpredictable things can happen in a short amount of time. It’s easy to trace the events that led to your current situation, but looking back, the...

By Siana Emery • February 21, 2019 • Features

On Tuesday night, I attended the C. Henry Smith Oratorical lecture and had the privilege of hearing four remarkable speeches from my peers.   During the lecture, Mandira Panta spoke on the topic of climate change. “We no longer have the luxury to plan without urgency,” she said. “A healthy planet and stable climate are not political issues.”   Climate change is the single most pressing issue of our time. We are already seeing consequences, through things such as erratic weather patterns, and the most dire effects become closer to reality every day. It seems like every day a new...

By Siana Emery • February 15, 2019 • Features

Our society is built on stress, and for some reason, I seem to thrive off of it. I’m a fast-paced, no-wasted-time kind of person and I get antsy when I have too much down time (which isn’t going to be an asset on SST, I know). Some may say I take on too much. As a true “I was Undecided for all of my first year” kind of student, I would argue that I just have an interest in everything and am awful at narrowing down my activities. Perhaps I do have a tendency to overextend myself, though. It’s impossible...

By Siana Emery • February 7, 2019 • Features

By nature, I’m a planner. I’d argue that, most of the time, I’m pretty good at it too. It helps me organize my chaotic schedule. I’m a habitual maker of lists and a sucker for covering all my bases in preparation. I take comfort in having control over a situation. I like to know exactly what is coming and when, know exactly how to do each step of a task, and I absolutely thrive off of routine. While I would like to think that everything and everyone is on the same page as me about this, I know that’s not...

By Siana Emery • January 31, 2019 • Features

This past weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in a poetry workshop with guest poet Tiana Clark. Clark opened the workshop with a quote from Caribbean-American poet June Jordan which begins, “Poetry is a political act because it involves telling the truth.” I agree completely. All art, not just poetry, is political by nature. Art reflects the world back onto those who live in it. We, as humans, use artistic platforms to tell our versions of the truth, whether that means absolute truth or personal truth. In doing so, we inherently take sides. While someone can be more moderate...

By Siana Emery • January 24, 2019 • Features

Welcome to another semester and to another 10 issues of the Record. As I was trying to determine what to write for this introductory editorial, I stumbled upon a recent series of events that I feel demonstrates why I chose to take on this position.   I am from Maine. Arguably the most famous Mainer is Stephen King. On Jan. 11, Stephen King took to Twitter to protest the removal of freelance reviews of local books and authors in the Maine Sunday Telegram, a weekly published by the Portland Press Herald.   The Press Herald responded to King saying, “These...

By Siana Emery • January 17, 2019 • Features

By most definitions, I wouldn’t say I’m a risk taker. I would say I like knowing what’s going on. As a Five according to the Enneagram, an INTJ according to Myers-Briggs and high-strung according to my mother, I like to be in control of my situation or at least have a general understanding of what’s happening. So if you’re expecting my last editorial to be an inspirational story about how I took a risk and applied to be executive editor and it changed my life for the better, I’ll say now that’s not what this is. Was being editor a...

By Kristin Troyer • November 28, 2018 • Features

Journalism is separating yourself from the opinions from others. Journalism is separating your own opinions from your work. Journalism is objective. Journalism is unbiased. Journalism isn’t telling the reader how to think; it’s giving the reader something to think about. “I read the news,” says a hypothetical person based on many, very real people. “I know journalism. I have opinions on journalism.” OK, great. Having opinions is great. Your opinions are valid. Your opinions are relevant to your place in life. We’ll even operate under the assumption your opinions are unique and interesting. We want to hear your opinions, and,...

By Kristin Troyer • November 7, 2018 • Features

Right before I started to write this, I FaceTimed Abby King. I was sad and overwhelmed and lonely and hungry and cold and my skin was dry. I just needed some love. Luckily, she always knows how to make me feel better — in this case, by putting a bright green highlighter in between her toes and writing my name with it, and then realizing that she spelled it wrong because she was “thinking too hard” about it. What have I done to deserve her? In fact, what have I done to deserve any of the amazing women in my...

By Kristin Troyer • October 24, 2018 • Features

This week has been hard. Watching Congress vote to confirm Brett Kavanaugh was hard. Watching him, despite multiple accusations of sexual assault, be sworn in as a Supreme Court Justice was hard. If this week has been too much for you, feel free to not read this. If you don’t understand what all the fuss is about, please continue and then read Sharada Weaver’s perspectives piece on page 6. Women don’t owe you anything. Women don’t owe you a hello. Women don’t owe you a smile. Women don’t owe you vulnerability. Women don’t owe you emotional energy. Women don’t owe...

By Kristin Troyer • October 10, 2018 • Features

Dave Rawlings and Gillian Welch sing: “Where you gonna run, tell me where will you roam When you can’t go home Oh pilgrim, you can’t go home” I’ll be celebrating Homecoming weekend by doing just that — going home. But I’ve learned that “home” can be a weird concept. Home is where you’re from. My original home is Shickley, Nebraska, population 329 according to the sign leading into town. It might be 35 miles to the nearest Walmart, but there are several different options for a hairdresser and three different churches inside “city” limits, three more if you’re willing to...

By Kristin Troyer • October 3, 2018 • Features

I recently made a big decision: instead of spending my spring semester in Peru on Goshen College’s Study-Service Term like I had intended, I’m going to stay on campus. And I won’t be going to Peru in the fall of 2019, or even the following spring. In fact, I won’t be going on SST at all. I wish I had a good reason for opting out of “the chance of a lifetime,” but I don’t. I simply just don’t want to go; I’ve never wanted to go. When I was a prospective student, I recall glazing over when the admissions...

By Abby King • September 26, 2018 • Features

It’s me, again, for the third week. I’m glad you’re back. If we are being honest, are we all under the assumption that I am going to have something wise and worthwhile to say in this editorial every week? That’s a lot of pressure. I don’t know what you’re expectations are, but I feel like a child. When I’m at home with my family, they don’t even let me use knives. Sometimes my mom still makes me drink milk at meals “out of habit.” My favorite movie is Trolls. And people expect me to have something interesting and profound to...

By Kristin Troyer • September 19, 2018 • Features

I wanted to write my editorial about how I can do things by myself. So I called my mom and asked for help. I acknowledge the irony. But she’s always telling stories about what a little punk I was — fiercely independent but also aggravatingly stubborn. In our family photo book, there’s a picture of me in nothing but a diaper, plopped in the middle of the set-for-lunch kitchen table, hands and mouth dripping with the sliced tomatoes that had apparently caught my eye as I toddled through the kitchen. “Why wait?” I assume my 2-year-old self rationalized. “I can...

By Kristin Troyer • September 12, 2018 • Features