The inaugural Peace Talks contest, part of Goshen College’s More Than Just Stories project, will take place this Saturday at 7 p.m. in Umble Center. Caoimhe Farrell, a junior communication major, will be representing GC against four other orators from other faith-based colleges and universities that participate in the C. Henry Smith Oratorical Contest.

“We are just so pleased, after months of laying the foundation, to be able to … share our storytelling projects with the campus, the community and — we hope — the country,” Duane Stoltzfus, project director of MTJS, said.

After GC received the $5 million in grant funding from the Lilly Endowment to launch MTJS, Stoltzfus immediately began to imagine Peace Talks as an integral part of the plan for MTJS. Anna Groff, associate professor of communication and contest director of Peace Talks, also began to dream of what this aspect of the MTJS could look like. She is particularly excited about students from different schools competing together.

“It’s our great fortune that Anna Groff is teaching at Goshen College in the communication department and directing the C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest, and that she was willing to say yes to the invitation to become director of Peace Talks. She’s the perfect person to lead this new enterprise,” Stoltzfus said.

Farrell didn’t expect her speculative audition for last year’s C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest to land her on the Umble Center’s stage this coming Saturday. “When I originally auditioned, … I had just gotten out of the hospital — I got really sick — and so I wasn’t really thinking much of it,” she said. After it was announced that Farrell was the runner-up of the contest, she expected that to be the end of the story.

“Around two weeks ago, I got an email from Anna Groff, and she was inviting me to speak at the Peace Talks,” Farrell said. “Since then, it’s just been kind of a whirlwind.”

Farell’s previous adviser, Kortney Stern, has left GC, so Stoltzfus has filled that role. “I think It’s definitely been kind of challenging to come from having Kortney as my mentor to having to redo the whole speech, but now without her, because she was a pretty integral part,” Farrell said.

Farrell and the other contestants joining her will also get the opportunity to have additional coaching from Allan Rudy-Froese, associate professor of preaching and voice at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary, on breathing and public speaking techniques, among other planned events for the group this Friday and Saturday.

The four other contestants are Katherine Brown of Tabor College, Mateo Gonzalez of Hesston College, Sophia Kauffman of Conrad Grebel University College and Preston Vicenzi of Bethel College.

Brown is honored to be a part of the first Peace Talks. “I have a passion for speaking, especially about important topics like those that will be addressed in the competition. I’ve had this passion for public speaking and teaching since I was nine years old, and that ambition is especially important to me now, in a culture where the voices of Christian women seem to be limited,” she said.

Peace Talks will aim to expand the contest’s area of influence in coming years by inviting all faith-based colleges and universities in Indiana for the second contest, all Indiana colleges and universities for the third and all U.S. colleges and universities for the fourth. “Individual campuses may be shaped as people either attend the event here or listen in,” Stoltzfus said.

Groff said, “It’d be a good problem if we had too many [schools].”

Stoltzfus said, “I believe in the power of student stories and advocacy. In a world where violence in many forms is normalized, Peace Talks is a prestigious forum for student peace-dreamers and peacemakers from five schools to take the Umble Center stage. I am eager to hear what they have to say, and proud that GC is leading and hosting this new event.”

Open and free to the public, doors for Peace Talks will open at 6:30 p.m., and the first contestant will begin their speech at 7 p.m. There will be words from Groff, a reception and the announcement of the contest’s winner and runner-up following the conclusion of the fifth speech.