umble center
March 14, 2024
Monologues shares feminine experience
Last Sunday, Monologues took the stage for the 11th year in a row, as Goshen College students performed stories from around the GC community highlighting the feminine experience. Mariela Esparza is a senior English major who served on the committee, and remembered how the language used has changed over the years. “Monologues started as a space for people whose biological sex was female,” Esparza said. “It was really only last year on the committee that we decided, ‘hey, we have to really think about our language.’ Before our language was ‘female identifying,’ and then we changed to ‘feminine identifying.’” For...
February 22, 2024
The winning speech: A breakdown
Annika Alderfer Fisher began her speech by painting a vivid picture of her grandparents, who possessed a unique talent for fixing things. Instead of succumbing to the throwaway culture of their time, they were dedicated to repairing items that others had discarded. From clocks to furniture, they breathed new life into forgotten treasures, demonstrating a profound respect for craftsmanship and a disdain for mindless consumption. Alderfer Fisher urged the audience to pause and reconsider their choices, then took the audience on her journey to Tanzania, where the stark realities of overconsumption were laid bare. Against the backdrop of a history...
February 7, 2020
Recent grad crosses departments in new position
When asked what it is like coming back to campus after graduation, 2019 graduate Jonah Yoder said that, “the biggest difference is no homework!” Yoder, who graduated last May with an interdisciplinary major with concentrations in music, theater, and business, was hired this spring to work in the Umble Center as the Interim Technical Director. Yoder, Aaron Kaufmann and Jerry Peters are sharing the responsibilities of a full time Technical Director. While Kaufmann handles matters of lighting and power and Peters manages the shop, Yoder runs the Umble performance spaces. He arrives on campus every day in the early afternoon...
September 12, 2018
Umble Celebrates 40th
The Goshen College theater department will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the John S. Umble Center this year with a lineup of shows written by female playwrights. The 2018-2019 theater season will consist of four shows: a peace play in October, the fall mainstage in November, a mainstage musical in March and a set of one acts in April. The first play in the series will be “History Lesson” by Frankie Little Hardin. The play is set on a stormy day at an Audubon museum in Kentucky. The show is the winner of the 2018 Peace Play Contest. “[Hardin] is...
March 16, 2017
Solidarity with Native Nations Rise
Tomorrow, a panel of “water protectors” will take to the Umble Center stage to hold an open discussion about the Dakota Access Pipeline and the indigenous people that live there, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe. The panel consists of Noemi Salvador and Naomi Gross, seniors, and Hannah Yoder and Chelsea Risser, juniors, who all traveled to the site of the protests that went on throughout 2016. Along with them, two Dine Nation speakers, Craig Tsosie and Theron Begay, will also share their experiences and answer questions about their time at Standing Rock. The session will be a chance to have...
September 8, 2016
“A Justice That Heals” fills Umble
Over 400 students, faculty and staff and community members filled Umble Center on Tuesday night to witness an incredible story. The evening began with the opening question, “What’s the right thing to do when one man kills another?” A documentary exploring that question followed. In June of 1996, the day after he graduated from high school in Chicago, 18-year-old Mario Ramos pulled a trigger and ended the life of 19-year-old Andrew Young. Amidst the 90 homicides in Chicago that month, it seemed to be nothing more than a number lost in the statistics. But the aftermath of this tragedy is...
November 19, 2015
GC theater presents ‘Godspell’
Thirteen GC theater and music students are performing this fall in “Godspell,” a musical that brings the narrative of Jesus to life through song and dance. Jacob Zehr, a sophomore music education major who played the leading role of Jesus, enjoyed building relationships with the rest of the cast, his 12 disciples, as well as the crew throughout the rehearsal and performance process. “I think one of the biggest joys was being able to experience a very real sense of community and love with the cast and crew,” he said. “They are the single reason I will cherish this experience...
January 22, 2015
A rush of creativity: Goshen hosts the Global Game Jam
This weekend, the 23rd through the 25th of January, Goshen College will be hosting the 2015 Global Game Jam for the first time. This is an event where up to 40 participants will get the chance to form teams in order to create board game computer games through a simulation of what is called the “crunch” method, where deadlines and adrenaline mix with a “secret theme” to produce a rush of creativity. The event, which will be held in the Umble Center, begins on the evening of Friday, January 23rd and goes from 6:00 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. It then...
November 8, 2012
This winter, geothermal unit heats three buildings
Last spring, Goshen College partnered with Chillit Chillers, a local business that designs and manufactures geothermal monitoring systems, to install an efficient heating and cooling system for Umble Center, the Good Library and parts of the Union Building. Glenn Gilbert, GC sustainability coordinator, said that geothermal, though expensive to install, was a good option for the college. “We have a desire to get away from steam," said Gilbert, "which is a wonderful [heat] source but is not very efficient.” The project came at this time because several buildings needed heating upgrades anyway. But why should students care about a utility...
November 1, 2012
Spooky campus folklore: Alice, the friendly ghost
There is a light in the Umble Center that never goes out. And it’s there to keep the ghosts away. The haunter in residence is Alice, a friendly ghost who is rumored to have been heard tiptoeing around when students are alone in the theater. She is named after Alice Umble, the wife of John S. Umble, the building’s namesake. Their picture is kept in the box office. Her son, Roy, was the first theater professor to use Umble Center after it was built. Melanie Hertzler, a sophomore, once thought she heard Alice when she was studying around suppertime and...
September 12, 2012
“Aphasia: Hope is a four letter word”
Carl McIntyre spoke to students and faculty at an Umble Master Class lecture on September 11. McIntyre, an actor and former salesman, suffered from a severe stroke 7 years ago. The stroke left him with aphasia, a communication disorder that impairs speaking, writing and reading. To chronicle his story, McIntyre produced a film titled "Hope is a Four Letter Word." McIntyre screened his film during the Master Class and spoke on his journey with aphasia. McIntyre, who speaks slowly but passionately, inspired the crowd, saying, "Every day is hard. But every day is good. Never quit. Without hope, no...
March 25, 2009
‘The Gondoliers’: More than a play on words
Two newlywed brides have only been married to their husbands for 30 minutes when they are hit with the news: one husband has actually been married to a foreign woman since he was an infant. To complicate matters, there is no way of knowing which one of the husbands has become this unintentional polygamist! On Friday, this spiraling plot will begin to unfold as the spring semester operetta, "The Gondoliers" opens at 8 p.m. The operetta – characterized by an operatic style dispersed with dialogue – by Gilbert and Sullivan, a 19th century duo best-known for such works as "Pirates of Penzance,"...
January 28, 2009
Oratorical contest participants seek peace in speeches
Six students will compete for a cash and, more importantly, to get their message out to the Goshen community about issues of peace and justice, during the annual C. Henry Smith Oratorical Contest. The contest will take place on Tuesday, Feb. 3 at 7 p.m. in the Umble Center. "Goshen College has a history of campus engagement of critical themes and of servant leadership and activism that arises from our core values, and this year's speech contest participants are boldly adding their names to the list of those who are willing to take a stand for those values," said Rachel...