Yoder Public Affairs Lecture
December 2, 2021
Yoder Public Affairs Lecture features Endah Setyowati
Endah Setyowati, a visiting global scholar from Indonesia, spoke Tuesday about living out Goshen College’s core value of compassionate peacemaking in Indonesia as part of the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture series. At the well-attended event held at College Mennonite Church, Setyowati conversed with Study-Service Term director Jan Bender Shetler, about working on conflict resolution in Indonesia. Shetler guided the conversation with Setyowati before the event was opened up to audience questions. Setyowati grew up in Surabaya in East Java, Indonesia with a unique family background that proved useful for her peacemaking work later in life. Learning from a Christian mother...
October 15, 2020
Elizabeth Bennion teaches students how to be politically active
Elizabeth Bennion, professor of political science at Indiana University South Bend conducted a workshop and lecture on Zoom Tuesday, Oct. 13 and Wednesday, Oct. 14 for Goshen College students on what voters should know before casting their ballots in the upcoming election. Wednesday evening’s lecture was sponsored by the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture Series. Bennion led with the goal of making citizens politically and civically engaged, emphasizing how to practice engagement in a time that needs it most. Bennion addressed the election and acknowledged that it is not about the presidency alone. The governor, secretary of state, congress, state house,...
November 29, 2019
White House correspondent to speak at Goshen College
On Nov. 25, Katie Rogers, an Elkhart native and current White House correspondent for The New York Times, is coming to campus to present a Yoder Public Affairs Lecture titled “Covering the White House in an Age of Misinformation, Mistruths and Mistrust.” Rogers began working for the New York Times in 2014 as a breaking news reporter. As a White House correspondent, she has been covering the Trump Administration since the inauguration in 2017. She has written several groundbreaking pieces, uncovered sexual harassment in Congress and written an exclusive story about a congressman who used federal funds to settle a...
October 9, 2019
Good presents Yoder Public Affairs Lecture to kick off Homecoming
Dr. Byron Good, GC alumnus ‘66 and professor of medical anthropology at Harvard University, presented this year’s first Yoder Public Affairs Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 3, as a part of Goshen College’s Homecoming weekend. The lecture addressed, “Global Mental Health Policy — Indonesia and China.” “I’m sure you will agree...by the end of the lecture, that this evening’s topic, relating to global mental health policy, is a timely and important issue,” said Del Good, chair of the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture committee and brother to Dr. Byron Good. In Rieth Recital Hall, Dr. Byron Good shared his story; from studying...
January 31, 2019
Tom Gjelten presents the 2019 Yoder Public Affairs Lecture
Tom Gjelten, NPR religion and belief correspondent, traveled from Arlington, Virginia to Goshen, Indiana on Monday to present the 2019 Yoder Public Affairs Lecture. The Yoder Public Affairs Lecture Series is an endowed lecture series, started in 1978 by Frank and Betty Jo Yoder, with the goal of bringing well-known speakers to talk about current events for Goshen College students, faculty, as well as community members. Gjelten arrived around 4 p.m. to meet with the Globe Media leadership. Gjelten talked about how he became a correspondent at NPR, his involvement in reporting on 9/11 from the Pentagon the day of...
November 2, 2017
Eboo Patel visits GC
Eboo Patel made it clear that he believes that Goshen College has the potential to become a thriving interfaith community during his visit to the campus on Oct. 26 and 27. During his 24-hour visit, Patel, founder and president of the Interfaith Youth Core and author of “Acts of Faith,” visited with students, engaged with classes, roamed the campus and gave to formal speeches. On Thursday evening Patel presented a Yoder Public Affairs Lecture titled, “Interfaith Leadership: Engaging Faith and Philosophical Diversity in the 21st Century” in the Goshen College church-chapel at 7:30 p.m. The sanctuary was filled to capacity,...
September 14, 2017
Theologian Miroslav Volf to present
College Mennonite Church will serve as host for the next installment in the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture series on Friday, Sept. 15 at 7:30 p.m. During the upcoming lecture, author, professor and theologian Miroslav Volf will present the topic of “Humility and Joy: What We Can Still Learn from Martin Luther.” This lecture is free and open to the public. Volf will be speaking as part of the Believer’s Church Conference in light of the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation. He will discuss Martin Luther, an influential figure during the period of the Reformation, and how Luther’s efforts continue...
December 1, 2016
Visiting scholar speaks on sustainable economies
Ellah Wakatama Allfrey helps “authors write books and readers read them.” Young and old filled Reith Hall on Tuesday to listen as Jan Bender Shetler, professor of history, interviewed Allfrey, visiting professor of English and communication. The Yoder Public Affair lecture, titled “The Development of Sustainable Creative Economies: Telling Stories and Making Culture” focused on Allfrey’s work helping non-Western, specifically African, writers share their stories to wider audiences and get the recognition they deserve. Allfrey has spent much of her career “creating a body of work that challenges our single view of African people as victims worthy of our pity...
September 15, 2016
Claassen examines religion and politics
Believe it or not, most Republicans are not pious, nor are most Democrats godless. Well at least not according to Ryan Claassen, a Kent State University professor and Goshen College alum who delivered the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture on Tuesday night. The lecture, titled “Godless Democrats and Pious Republicans? Party Activists, Party Capture and the ‘God Gap,’” is a condensed version of Claassen’s book, which reviews past views of the Republican and Democratic parties and analyzes the idea that frequent church visits can influence one to identify with more Republican ideals, otherwise known as the “God Gap.” The lecture hoped...
March 20, 2013
Simran Sethi speaks on agriculture, consciousness and Big Macs
Simran Sethi, a journalist, strategist and educator, spoke in Reith Recital Hall on Tuesday evening about the intersections of faith, food, science and business as they relate to eating well--both for personal and global health. Sethi came at the request of the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture Committee, which invited Sethi to share on the theme, “Our daily bread: Food, Faith and the Environment.” Sethi’s presentation also came as part of EcoPAX’s Earth Week celebrations, with a special event each day of this week. Other EcoPAX events include a field trip to a landfill today, Dorm Floor Shower Olympics on Friday...
March 13, 2013
Simran Sethi to speak on food and faith
Simran Sethi, an award-winning journalist and educator, will explore the intersection of food and faith at the Goshen College Yoder Public Affairs Lecture on Tuesday, March 19 at 7:30 p.m. in Rieth Recital Hall. Sethi's lecture, titled “Bridging Divides through Food, Faith and the Environment,” will explain the evolution in farming and look at how transgenic seeds and food relate to Christian tenets of fruitfulness, life-affirmation and distributes. Sethi's reports on sustainability, environmentalism and social media for social change have been featured in such venues as Vanity Fair, NBC Nightly News and “The Oprah Winfrey Show." Her lecture on Tuesday is...
February 7, 2013
Philpott re-forms ideas of peace in politics
Daniel Philpott, author, professor, peace advocate and lecturer for this year’s Yoder Public Affairs Lecture Series, began his discourse in Reith Hall on Tuesday night with a light anecdote on the topic of his lecture—titled “Reconciliation in Politics? On the Meaning of Justice in the Wake of Massive Injustice”—in the context of a Mennonite-affiliated university. “I must admit,” said Philpott, “speaking about peace in front of so many people in the Mennonite community feels like being a beginning medical student lecturing to the American Medical Association.” In actuality, Philpott’s credentials in peace work are extensive. Philpott received his master’s from...
January 30, 2013
Philpott to discuss reconciliation in politics
Daniel Philpott, associate professor of political science and peace studies at the Kroc Institute for Peace Studies at University of Notre Dame, will be visiting campus for his lecture “Reconciliation in Politics? On the Meaning of Justice in the Wake of Massive Injustice” on Tuesday, Feb. 5, at 7:30 p.m. in Reith Recital Hall as a guest of the Yoder Public Affairs Lecture Series. The event is free and open to the public. Philpott will be visiting Joe Liechty’s Reconciliation course on Tuesday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. to discuss his book “Just and Unjust Peace: An Ethic of Reconciliation,”...
September 14, 2011
Smith presents the power of listening
The Goshen community got a lesson on the power of listening with an open mind last Tuesday by visiting actor, playwright and teacher Anna Deavere Smith. Smith came to Goshen College to present this year’s Roy H. Umble Master Class and Yoder Public Affairs Lecture. Her campus visit was split into two sessions, one in the afternoon and the other in the evening. The afternoon session, which took place in Umble, had a theme of peace and justice and focused on a conversation with students. Smith started the event with a few of her performances and some personal commentary. Her...
September 7, 2011
Anna Deveare Smith preview
Anna Deveare Smith will present the Keynote Address, “Glimpses of America in Change,” on Tuesday, Sept. 13 at 7:30 p.m. in Sauder Concert Hall. The address will be part of the Roy H. Umble Master Class and Yoder Public Affairs Lecture, which will be one event this year. The event is open to the public and free to all audiences. Smith is an actor and playwright best known for her works “Fires in the Mirror”and “Twilight: Los Angeles,” both produced in the early 1990s. In these dramas Smith documents her subjects’ ideas through a style in which she is the...