faculty
January 25, 2024
Flying away: Krabill to retire
After 22 years, the longtime interdisciplinary and arts professor Merrill Krabill announced his retirement from Goshen College effective May 2024. Krabill ’79 started his employment in September 2001 and has been a professor of art since being promoted to the department chair in 2009. When asked about what he was most proud of in his time at Goshen, Krabill responded with no hesitation. “In the end, it’s all about people,” he said, “both as … a person and a parent and a teacher. When my kids do well … that’s the thing that … makes it feel worthwhile.” Krabill’s office...
January 18, 2024
Finding a voice in education
A penguin drawing with a scarf hangs in front of Roy Jackson’s desk. With a smile, he shares, “I have this thing for penguins; a student made this for me.” Adjacent to it is a colorful rendering of a skyscraper: “This student always titled their artwork … I save everything: every little picture, every note.” An Atlanta, Georgia, native, Jackson works in Church-Chapel 115E in the education department. His room is decorated with student artwork and photo collages. Jackson studied English at Western Michigan University, focusing on literature, creative writing and philosophy. His initial aspiration to become a college professor...
January 18, 2024
Turning kayaking into a bonding event
In the community of kayakers in Goshen, there are a few people that like to trace their conversion to one very persuasive proselytizer who has an office on the second floor of the Administration Building, happens to teach social work — and once even had an experience so terrifying that she gave up water sports for 20 years. Jeanette Harder, the director of the master’s program in social work at Goshen College and a professor of social work, has started to recruit faculty and staff from across campus to join her in her joy of kayaking. Growing up surrounded by...
January 18, 2024
Graber joins faculty
Ben Graber is a new adjunct professor of Spanish this semester at Goshen College. The position opened when Cristobal Garza filled the role of SST leader in this semester’s Ecuador unit, and with the opening, Graber is taking over the Spanish 101 course. Graber graduated from GC in 2008 with a degree in Spanish education. In his time at GC, he went to the Dominican Republic on SST for further Spanish immersion and spent a semester in Ecuador with Brethren Colleges Abroad for his major. “I was excited about doing something different like this,” Graber said. “I’ve been a homemaker...
January 18, 2024
Mary Oyer dies at 100
Mary Oyer died in Goshen on January 11, 2024, at the age of 100. Oyer was a professor emerita of music at Goshen College. Oyer moved to Goshen in August of 1924 at 16 months old, after her father, Noah Oyer, took a job as the dean of GC. She moved into a yellow house on Eighth Street, right across the road from campus. Oyer graduated GC in 1944 and then began working at GC the following year where she would work until 1987. In those early summers she studied cello at the University of Michigan. In 1958 she would...
January 18, 2024
Millsaps celebrates ‘sheroes’
This past weekend, Goshen College celebrated the life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. with a variety of events surrounding this year’s theme: “Black Housing and Unsung Sheroes, Champions of Change in Elkhart County.” Cyneatha Millsaps, executive director of the center for community engagement and keynote speaker for MLK day, hoped that the weekend sparked meaningful conversations around campus. “I think we only move if we create spaces for us to have the tough conversations in which we can hear truth and listen and debate even,” Millsaps said. “I often know the things that I say challenge people, it is...
September 15, 2022
Elizabeth Miller begins work as the new director of ISGA and MHL
As the new director of the Institute for the Study of Global Anabaptism (ISGA) as well as the Mennonite Historical Library (MHL), Elizabeth Miller will get a chance to connect Anabaptists worldwide by helping tell their stories. Miller, who graduated from Goshen College in 2006, is also starting teaching duties as assistant professor of history at GC. She assumed responsibility for these three positions in August, replacing John Roth, who retired as a professor in June after 37 years of teaching at the college. Founded in 1906, the MHL collects published works relating to Mennonites and Anabaptists. Roth established the...
September 8, 2022
Sara Method joins GC art department
Sara Method, the new art professor at Goshen College, got the first of her three degrees “at a small liberal arts college [sic] not unlike this one.” She has practiced and studied art throughout her life, growing up in Virginia before moving to North Carolina. “As a kid […] I would always ask people what I should draw on those long road trips we took as family […] and I stuck with it!” Method said, reflecting on what led to her becoming an art instructor. She has an extensive background in studio art and art history, having studied at Salem...
April 14, 2022
GC hires four new faculty members
Next year, there will be some new faces at the front of classrooms. Goshen College has hired four new faculty members in the departments of religion, sustainability, Master of Social Work (MSW), biology and nursing. Luke Kreider, currently a lecturer of Christian ethics at Yale Divinity School, will join the faculty in a unique joint position, dividing his time between the religion, justice and society department and the sustainability department. Kreider said he is “interested in the connections between peace, justice and sustainability issues.” Kreider’s area of research ties together some of the interdisciplinary causes of climate change, and he...
March 31, 2022
Former GC faculty runs for U.S. Congress
Paul Steury, Goshen College alumnus and longtime educational coordinator at Merry Lea, announced last week that he would be running to represent Indiana’s second congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. A GC class of 1988 graduate, Steury worked at Merry Lea for fifteen years, where he not only directed the educational program, but also taught May Term classes, worked with graduate students, and even helped start the college’s graduate program. He is currently a high school science teacher at Elkhart Academy. Steury, who lives in Goshen, launched his campaign Thursday at a gathering at the Goshen Brewing Company....
March 31, 2022
Loewen gives back to GC students
Jesse Loewen, the assistant director of the Academic Success Center on campus, believes that sometimes, just knowing someone cares can make all of the difference. A 2017 Goshen College graduate, Loewen knows what it’s like to struggle in school. Loewen changed majors two times in his first two years as a student at GC. He started as a nursing major, then switched to history and later social work. During his first May term on campus, Loewen’s father was diagnosed with brain cancer and eventually passed away, which took a toll on his mental health and affected his performance on the...
March 17, 2022
‘GC’s toughest prof’ to retire this year
Keith Graber Miller has led nine SST units; seen the Goshen College Bible and Religion Department through highs (it had 60 majors and minors in 2008) and lows (there are currently two majors); and won the title of “GC’s toughest prof” in the 2019 competition held by The Record’s Funnies page. After 35 years in front of the classroom, Goshen College’s longest-serving professor will retire at the end of this year. Graber Miller, professor of Bible and religion, started working for the college in 1987. Over three decades later, he is still here because of his love for his students...
March 17, 2022
Ukraine crisis affects GC community
The Russian invasion of Ukraine has intensified in the last couple of weeks; while thousands of miles away, the conflict is not as far removed from Goshen College as it may appear. Solomia Soroka, GC professor of music and a world-renowned violinist, grew up in Ukraine and has family currently living there. Her sister, Ustyna, is a professor of ceramics at a Ukrainian college and lives in Lviv, Ukraine, where they grew up. Ustyna now volunteers to make nutritional bars for soldiers and help protect the city’s art in case of bombings. Ustyna’s children — Solomia’s niece and nephew —...
February 25, 2022
A pastor who dumpster dives?
Cathy Stoner became Goshen College’s campus pastor in September. Since then, she’s proved to be anything but your average pastor. Stoner loves bike rides, dumpster diving and funk music. She also enjoys running with her dog and fixing bikes. Stoner uses her runs and bike rides as opportunities to scavenge thrown-away items, like the red boots she wore to speak in chapel one Wednesday last semester. One of Stoner’s most treasured “found items” is a bicycle she saved from the side of the road. “I watched it rusting away over the course of 15 or 20 years in someone’s yard,”...
February 17, 2022
What music means to Jason Samuel
While most professors have hefty books on their shelves, Jason Samuel, associate professor of communication, has filled his office with CDs. Samuel was bitten by the radio bug early on. The first music he ever listened to was “probably my parents’ records,” Samuel said. These included popular rock and country bands and artists of the ‘60s and ‘70s such as The Beatles, The Kinks, Johnny Cash and Marty Robbins, to name a few. “I can remember listening to a lot of Motown [growing up],” he added. In his Cub Scout days, his mother took him and his denmates to visit...