SPRING 2013
THE MAGAZINE OF GORDON COLLEGE
STILLPOINT
Found in Translation Communication Retooled 12 Broadening Contexts 18
Also in This Issue 24 In Praise of Edges 28 On Being a 32-Year-Old Paperboy 37 Saluting the Troops
CONTENTS
12 FOUND IN TRANSLATION This issue of STILLPOINT features ten faculty members who are using creative means of drawing students into fruitful conversations, sometimes across disciplines. Some of the magic happens through cutting-edge technology; some harkens back to more ancient forms and practices. Above, Sharon Galgay Ketcham (Christian ministries).
Retooled 12 Communication by Jo Kadlecek Michael Monroe (music), Sharon Galgay Ketcham (Christian ministries), Moises Park (Spanish) and Virginia Todd (“Toddy”) Burton (communication arts) teach in very different disciplines, but share the conviction that the medium of classroom presentations is often as important as the message. Here are some of the ways they’re connecting with a mediasaturated generation of students.
Contexts 18 Broadening by Hilary Sherratt ’12, Mallory Moench ’13 and John Dixon Mirisola ’11 These six faculty members bring to their teaching a nuanced understanding of the contexts of their disciplines. Meet John Skillen (Director of European Programs), Valerie Gin (recreation and leisure studies), Justin Topp (biology), Michael Veatch (mathematics), Janis Flint-Ferguson (education), and Bryan Parys (English).
ON THE COVER When Gordon College senior Sarah Polihrom needs to prepare for an art class or do research for an upcoming project, she doesn’t reach for a spiralbound notebook. In 2013, innovative devices and teaching strategies weave new networks of communication. Cover Photo Rebecca Powell
“They’re all saying the same thing: ‘Welcome home. Where’ve you been?’”
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ARTICLES
ALUMNI
IN EACH ISSUE
Praise of Edges 24 In by Janel Curry
Love of Small-Town 35 For America
2 Up Front
at the Boundaries 25 Music by Mac Gostow ’13 Multiple Universes 26 The of Dr. Brian Glenney by John Dixon Mirisola ’11
on an 27 Variations (A. J. Gordon) Theme by Graeme Bird
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On Being a 32-Year-Old Paperboy by Luke Reynolds ’03
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Why Your Children Should Do Chores by Agnes R. Howard
Professor 32 Remembering David Lumsdaine
Thomas ’59B and Carol (Brown) ’58B Buckley are passionate about small-town churches.
Dog Shellfish: An 36 Fat Alumnus’s Journey into
Sustainable Aquaculture Jason “Jay” Baker ’95 loves seafood—and his work.
37 Saluting the Troops
Sasha (Massand) Moen ’01 took a photo that went viral.
and Theater 38 Politics Go Hand in Hand Alec Lewis ’11 puts his two majors to unexpected uses.
with President Lindsay
3 Inspiration 4 Gordon Life 5 SPORKS
Notes of a young alum
6 On the Grapevine
Student, Faculty and Staff News
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UP FRONT with President Lindsay
A Gospel Perspective on Ambition
“Pull quote goes here. Num veleseq uismodignim zzriuscil doluptat. Cum nos duis nulput digna con volenim ent augait wis nit aut aliqui blan.”
Photo Danny Ebersole ’11
“There is something inherently inappropriate about cherishing small ambitions for God.” —John Stott In recent years, a debate has emerged among American evangelicals: Is it appropriate for Christ-followers to seek powerful positions? After all, the Sermon on the Mount is a clarion call to meekness and humility. And didn’t Jesus prefer the poor to the powerful during his earthly ministry? I have spent years thinking about this question and have come to a firm conviction that much good can come when people devoted to God are in positions of influence. Too much of the evangelical tradition prizes individual transformation—changing one person at a time—and too little appreciates the value of rightly ordered institutions. Those institutions—a large corporation, a major university, or the Oval Office —will not reflect godly purposes without godly leaders. That’s not just a sociological observation; that’s a theological reality. The gospel lays out a robust vision for human flourishing. Jesus’ ministry was fundamentally about
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transformation—not just of individuals, but of communities, of the world. If the presence of Christians does not make society better, then the Christian community is not taking seriously the mandate to love our neighbors as ourselves. I recently gave a Chapel address (you can watch it on Gordon’s YouTube channel!) built around the story of Nehemiah, who attempts the seemingly impossible: rebuilding Jerusalem. People question Nehemiah’s motives, his ambitions, and his strategies. But he persists, and in a matter of eight weeks, the task is completed. After the wall is rebuilt, Nehemiah invites the people to stand on it with him. In this action he elevates—both literally and figuratively— those around him. That’s a good lesson, and it’s my favorite part of the story. We raise people up when we invite them to join us on the wall. That’s what we’re getting at when we speak of Gordon seeking to “elevate the contribution.” You’ve heard
me refer to the Gordon Commission. It’s our institutional raison d’être. We exist as an institution to stretch the mind, to deepen the faith, and to elevate the contribution. That notion of elevating others comes directly from the Book of Nehemiah. We want to elevate the contribution we make to the common good and, in the process, elevate others. Indeed, if there is any assembled group of people who are positioned to take up the mantle of being ambitious for the Kingdom, of devoting their lives to God-sized goals, it’s the young men and women I see in the classrooms, the quad, the dining hall, at Gordon today. The greatest gift they can give the Church is to raise their horizons, set higher ambitions, and commit themselves to honor the Lord every step of the way as they seek to serve him to the fullest extent possible.
President’s Page www.gordon.edu/presidentspage
Twitter twitter.com/GordonPres
IN EACH ISSUE
INSPIRATION
VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2
“At the still point of the turning world.” T. S. Eliot, from “Burnt Norton,” Four Quartets EDITORIAL
CREATIVE
Patricia C. Hanlon Editor
Tim Ferguson Sauder Creative Director
Cyndi McMahon Staff Writer
Amy Harrell ’07 Rebecca Powell Publication Design
Mac Gostow ’13 Staff Writer
ALUMNI NEWS
John Dixon Mirisola ’11 Staff Writer and News Section Editor
Adrianne Cook ’92 Director of Alumni and Parent Relations
Ann Sierks Smith Copyeditor and Staff Writer
ADMINISTRATION
Hilary Sherratt ’12 Staff Writer
Rick Sweeney ’85 Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications
Lindsey Glasier ’13 Intern
D. Michael Lindsay President
ADDRESS CHANGES Development Office gordoncollege@gordon.edu
OTHER CORRESPONDENCE Editor, STILLPOINT | Gordon College 255 Grapevine Road, Wenham MA 01984 stillpoint@gordon.edu
PRINTING
Story Natalie Ferjiulian ’10
Frost Hall “Lobby Queen” Sue Manganiello, Admissions Receptionist Sue Manganiello’s official title is Admissions Receptionist, but the admissions team has properly dubbed her “Lobby Queen.” As the first face prospective students and parents see when they visit campus, Manganiello’s role at the College involves a great deal more than answering phones, opening mail and keeping the coffee hot. On a typical event day she’ll welcome 400 prospective students; over a year, more than 3,000 families approach her desk. “I know that visiting a college for the first time can be intimidating,” says Manganiello. “I do my best to connect with families, make them laugh and let them know that our admissions counselors are truly remarkable.” Manganiello has three teenagers of her own: Nicholas (18), Ann Marie (16) and Gina Beth (16). Her family has prepared her well to be patient with the first-year students who find her in Frost Hall. “Almost every day a student comes to me in a panic because he or she can’t find a professor’s office and needs a pen and stapler to hand in the paper that was due an hour ago,” says Manganiello. “I love helping people.” When she’s not in the Frost Hall lobby, Manganiello and her husband can be found watching their kids play hockey all over New England. Also, doing business as “Sue’s Signs,” she designs and paints banners and logos for trucks, boats and other commercial vehicles. “It’s different all the time and I love the opportunity to express myself creatively,” she says. “But I am always happy to drive onto our beautiful campus to join my colleagues in the important work we do for Gordon College.”
Photo Mark Spooner ’14
Hannaford & Dumas | Woburn, Massachusetts
Opinions expressed in STILLPOINT are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Gordon College administration, or of all members of the alumni community. The College reserves the right to edit for clarity, conciseness and appropriateness. Gordon College is an equal opportunity institution and does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, age, sex, or national or ethnic origin. Reproduction of STILLPOINT articles is permitted, but please attribute to STILLPOINT: The Magazine of Gordon College, and include author’s name, if applicable.
www.gordon.edu/stillpoint
SPRING 2013 | STILLPOINT 3
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GORDON LIFE: Ways to stay in touch The latest news about Gordon can often be found on its social media sites. Read faculty and student reflections, sit in on Chapel and Convocation, and join the open dialogue that has always been a part of the College’s identity. (Opinions expressed in these venues do not necessarily reflect the College’s institutional positions and beliefs.)
Gordon website WWW.GORDON.EDU/HOMECOMING
Gordon’s YouTube channel WWW.YOUTUBE.COM/USER/GORDONCOLLEGE
Coming up at Gordon
Drumming, Chanting and Other Christian Things
Homecoming Weekend has a new date: September 27 and 28 (www.gordon.edu/homecoming). Up-to-date information about this and other great events—from art to music to featured speakers and student life—can be found on the Gordon website.
Monday, January 28: This address by Richard Twiss, founder and president of Wiconi International, was part of the “Beyond Colorblind” focus week. Twiss passed away unexpectedly two weeks later, on February 9.
See upcoming events: www.gordon.edu/calendar
Faculty Central: Faith, Ideas and Scholarship at Gordon College BLOGS.GORDON.EDU/FACULTYCENTRAL
Watch the video: www.youtube.com/user/GordonCollege
Of (P)interest at Gordon PINTEREST.COM/GORDONCOLLEGE
Faculty Central highlights the work—both on and off campus— of the Gordon College faculty, who are innovative leaders in their fields, and also devoted to bringing students alongside them in study and research.
Gordon’s Pinterest site is a virtual pinboard of Gordon life. Alumni will enjoy reminiscing; parents of current students will be interested in highlights of student life. We welcome you to follow along and explore.
Read more: blogs.gordon.edu/facultycentral
Search pins: pinterest.com/gordoncollege
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IN EACH ISSUE
Story bryan parys ’04
N OT E S F R O M A YO U N G A L U M
INSTALLATION 16: I HEART BEETS
A year ago, I roasted and peeled some beets, and became a man. I am not certain what that sentence means, but it’s been circulating in my head ever since. My son, Alfie, was four months old (he’s 20 months as of this writing), and I swear he was allergic to sleep. The moment occurred during one of the rare times in the night when he was actually sleeping and I should’ve been too. But instead, I was prepping vegetables.
we seem to know how to do before a storm is buy more food. I think about the positions of trees outside our house in relation to the windows of our bedroom, our son’s bedroom. With a bleeding-red chivalrous heart, I envision this scenario:
THEY SEEMED TO CARRY MUCH MORE POWER THAN COOKED TUBERS TO PAIR WITH GOAT CHEESE AND BALSAMIC VINEGAR FOR TOMORROW’S SALAD.
When I did finally go to bed that night, I peeled the sheets back and climbed under, knowing it was only temporary. Soon, flushed with heat, I pulled one leg out of the covers and laid it over the other, shuffling my torso like a deck of cards until I found the ace.
a limb falls and only hits me, sparing the woman and child. “Save yourself!” I’d yell to Natalie, muttering something about extra batteries and bottles of water.
On any given night, there are a number of reasons why I can’t sleep. On this night, perhaps one was because I’d noticed, after slipping the skin from deep purple vegetable flesh, that a bowl of cooked beets looks like a bucket of hearts waiting to be airlifted.
I keep coming back to that beet skin sliding over the cooling flesh, and it frustrates me that I can’t tell you why this is so important. The meaning is still in the soil of my brain, trying to work its way from the inside out. Sometimes thoughts are just the roots of action, knotting their way underground, Escherlike, and never breaking the surface.
I held each one carefully, still warm as breath. They seemed to carry much more power than cooked tubers to pair with goat cheese and balsamic vinegar for tomorrow’s salad. For someone who often describes himself as 85 percent vegetarian, I’d never felt more powerful and carnivorous. My hands were stained for days. A few nights later, we lost power during an unseasonable ice storm. The ice froze onto branches that hadn’t fully loosed their dying leaves. The ice pulled each branch down, each an eyebrow drooping at the realization that things were ending before they should, before the promised decay of December. We were asleep when it happened, but the darkening woke all three of us up immediately, not because of any noise but because of the complete death of noise that audibly waned inside the walls, a blackened silence taking over that my son had not experienced since the womb. Recently, we found ourselves again under threat of an impending New England blizzard. As usual, I don’t start worrying until someone says, “we might lose power.” Here’s how I respond to this threat: I don’t. The night before the storm, I text Natalie, “Should we be doing anything about this?” “Probably,” she writes. I ask co-workers how they’re preparing. They tell me they’re going to the supermarket. The only thing
Why is it that every discussion of modern manhood inevitably circles around to power?
When beets lack enough of the chemical element boron, they suffer from a fungus that decays from the inside out. We call this “heart rot.” Every night I want to stay up late. Often, sleep feels like giving up, a reining-in of the kind of power that can roast thoughts, can peel them into the slippery, full hearts that I want to save and feed to each one of you.
bryan parys teaches writing at Gordon College. Weirdly, now that his son sleeps through the night, a lot fewer beets get peeled. He would like to recruit Brian Glenney to conduct an experiment on the philosophy of sleep deprivation and its effects on the preparation of local produce. bryan.parys@gordon.edu
SPRING 2013 | STILLPOINT 5
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NEWS: ON THE GRAPEVINE
STUDENT, FACULTY AND STAFF NEWS
Photo Pilar Timpane
Tradition Meets Modernity
“What happens when a new work of art is created is something that happens simultaneously to all the works of art which preceded it.” —T. S. Eliot, “Tradition and the Individual Talent” (1919)
Presence and Absence: QU4RTETS Comes to Gordon By John Dixon Mirisola ’11
Some art endures not just as cultural relics or objects of beauty, but as sources of inspiration for future creations. “Generative art,” as Bruce Herman (Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in Fine Arts, pictured above) calls these works, can live on in the minds of artists for decades, even centuries. Since World War II, few pieces of art have been as generative as T. S. Eliot’s Four Quartets— the inspiration for Herman’s current exhibition, QU4RTETS, a collaboration with renowned New York painter Makoto Fujimura, Yale composer Christopher Theofanidis and theologian Jeremy Begbie. QU4RTETS will be on exhibit through May 1 at the Gallery at Barrington Center for the Arts at Gordon College.
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Herman first encountered Four Quartets in graduate school. In the fragmented unity of Eliot’s cycle of four poems, he discovered Eliot’s unforgettable blend of artistic tradition and stylistic innovation, philosophy and immediacy. Herman was captivated. These were the very elements that he wrestled with as a painter, working to stitch together classical techniques of figure painting with modern abstraction and discerning how to make art as a Christian, but not solely for Christians. In the four decades since, Herman has reread Four Quartets countless times, memorizing large swaths of text and expressing themes from Eliot’s poetry in many of his paintings.
Then in December of 2009, Herman discovered he was not alone in his affection for Eliot’s poetry. His friend and fellow artist Makoto Fujimura had been reading, memorizing, and painting Four Quartets in some way or another for his whole career. Their subsequent conversations laid the groundwork for what would eventually become QU4RTETS: four large works by each artist, accompanied by a collection of smaller ancillary works inspired by the poems, and a four-part musical score, “At the Still Point,” composed by Christopher Theofanidis. Prose by Jeremy Begbie appears in the exhibition catalog, completing the quartet of creative voices in the exhibition. The pieces are
ON THE GRAPEVINE
IN THEIR WORDS
Deep Faith 2013: Loving God with Heart and Mind
“The species that were really great finds for us included Razorbills at Plum Island; two Peregrine Falcons in Gloucester; Pine Grosbeaks in Newbury; six different gull species, and a Merlin zipping around Appleton Farms.” —Dr. Greg Keller (biology) January 26, at “Superbowl of Birding” competition
striking. Herman’s contributions, a series of portraits, address “an old painterly tradition: the Four Seasons and Four Stages of life (implicit in Four Quartets),” says the artist. Gridded with gold and silver foil, the paintings are suffused with light. “The reflective surface of the gold and silver shifts,” the artist explains, “bending the light and invoking that liquid, spiritual light in which we live and move and have our being—the quintessence or presence of God.” Fujimura’s paintings, on the other hand are stark, minimalist, dark. “Bruce’s works clearly define space; mine would erase the boundaries. Bruce’s works introduce human characters and figures of various ages; mine are completely void of figuration,” Fujimura writes in the exhibition catalog. The resulting dialog between the two artists’ approaches mirrors the dualities expressed in Eliot’s poem: presence and absence, time and timelessness, darkness and renewal. Theofanidis’ score works at “reconciling” these dualities through variations in timing and tone, serving as a bridge between the visual aspects of the exhibition, tying the show together as a unified whole. QU4RTETS has been on tour across the U.S. since November 2012, at Baylor University, Duke, and Yale. Following the exhibition at the Gallery at Barrington Center for the Arts, QU4RTETS will continue to tour throughout 2013 and into 2014, visiting additional galleries in the U.S. and venues in Japan, China and the United Kingdom.
Photo Christine Labbe ’14
“The plasticity of the human soul,” writes Dean of Chapel Greg Carmer, “presents us with a most wonderful and terrible aspect of life: that with every moment we give ourselves to forces that slowly transform us either into the beauty of persons made new in the image of the invisible God, or into grotesque distortions of creatures in whom God’s image is defaced.” Gordon’s second annual Deep Faith week, held February 11 to 13, gave students, faculty and staff the opportunity to critically assess what absorbs their time and attention, and to invite the Holy Spirit to inspect their ways. Over these days, the Gordon community prayed specifically that we would “know the hope to which God has called us, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe” (Eph. 1:18–19). Dr. Richard Mouw, president of Fuller Seminary in Pasadena, California, and Rev. Dr. Clive Calver, pastor of Walnut Hill Community Church in Bethel, Connecticut, were among us, opening the Scriptures, leading us in prayer, and directing us towards a renewal of loving God with all of our hearts, souls, strength and minds. Dr. Mouw, who noted that “some of my most serious struggles with faith took place in precisely this kind of context,” led four sessions spanning themes as far-ranging as divine authority, the problem of over-intellectualizing faith, and the need to contribute to the fullness of God’s creation. During his last session, Mouw addressed students’ questions, which included “How can we deal with the exclusivity of Christianity?” and “How does one properly integrate reason with faith?” Dr. Calver shared his experience as one of the first civilians on the scene of the Newtown, Connecticut tragedy. He addressed the inevitable question, posed by members of his church: Why does God allow such catastrophes to occur? Calver counseled that believers must face the realities of this world and through them, God gives us an opportunity to grow closer to Him.
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Back in Boston
New Senior Vice President for External Relations
By Cliff Hersey
Dr. Paul J. Maurer is Gordon’s new Senior Vice President for External Relations. His wealth of experience in fund-raising and higher education includes his presidency from 2009 to 2012 of Sterling College in Kansas, which under his leadership experienced the three largest enrollments in its 124-year history. He directed Westmont College’s capital campaign, and served as senior vice president for institutional advancement at Trinity International University. In both roles, Dr. Maurer led capital campaigns that far exceeded the most successful previous campaigns at those institutions. He assumed his new Gordon College position on April 1. Photo Michael Hevesy
I am not a Gordon alumnus. But I hold two degrees from Boston-area educational institutions, and I know intimately the richness of the Boston educational context. Two hundred and fifty thousand college students call Boston home each year, attending scores of colleges and universities in the area. For nine years, under the able direction of Craig McMullen, Gordon operated a targeted residential program in Dorchester, one of Boston’s most diverse neighborhoods. The program was suspended in 2011 due to declining student interest and loss of leadership. The Global Education Office has been working with the faculty and administration to redefine and re-launch a program for students that will be sited closer to downtown Boston and extend the Wenham campus academic program.
President Michael Lindsay praises him as “a man of great integrity, boundless energy and tremendous leadership.” A political scientist with particular expertise on the moral and religious rhetoric of American presidents, Dr. Maurer earned his Ph.D. from Claremont Graduate University and his M. Div. from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary.
This spring, two “City Seminars” are underway. They are crafted as “mini-immersion” weekends, and there will be four during this spring semester. Students use the city as a classroom on Saturday and Sunday, taking advantage of Boston’s tremendous resources in terms of speakers and venues, and they attend Sunday services at urban churches. In the fall of 2013, we plan to return to a full semester-long, residential option that will offer a broad set of options to students under the thematic umbrella of “The Sustainable City.” City Seminars (open to all Gordon students) will be offered in socio/cultural, economic, and political/governmental areas. A group of 12 to 15 students will live full-time in Boston, and their expanded experience will include a major internship, a sustainability seminar, and options to take additional courses at one of the other major colleges and universities nearby (little places like Harvard, BU, MIT and Suffolk.) Offices and classrooms at Tremont Temple Baptist Church across the street from Boston Common will be the launching point for engagement with the urban environment and for a curriculum that uses the city as a classroom. When we talk with folks at Boston institutions you’ve heard about— Park Street Church and First Baptist Church of Boston among them—they’re all saying the same thing: “Welcome home. Where’ve you been?” For additional information about Gordon in the City, visit www.gordon.edu/inboston
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Photo Rebecca Powell
“I am absolutely delighted to join the team at Gordon,” he says, “which I have long regarded as among the finest liberal arts colleges anywhere. This is an exciting time at Gordon, which has a very bright future. I look forward to contributing to its forward progress.” Dr. Maurer and his wife, Joellen, are the parents of a Gordon junior and three other children.
ON THE GRAPEVINE
Matt Horth ’11 Signs with New England Revolution By Mac Gostow ’13
He showed his true potential on the field in Georgia, and as soon as he came off the practice field, the team signed him to a two-year deal. During his time in Atlanta, Matt honed his skills, proving himself a formidable goal-scorer. He racked up 18 goals in 49 appearances and learned how to condition for a long season. Horth continued to push himself mentally and physically, training five days a week to build his stamina and durability.
Photo Richard Orr Photography, LLC
It started out like most great sports stories do: a ball and a dream. For Matt Horth ’11 the journey to Major League Soccer has been a series of small steps, serious sacrifices and unwavering determination. It was as a member of the Gordon Men’s Soccer team that the recently drafted New England Revolution forward cultivated the skills necessary to bring his fantasy career to fruition, and gained the crucial life lessons that prepared him for the long journey to professional soccer. During his time at Gordon, Matt dominated the field with a total of 37 goals and 20 assists over his four years. He was voted Commonwealth Coast Conference (CCC) Rookie of the Year in 2007 and he made CCC First Team All-Conference each of his four years. But for the Gordon team, Matt was more than just an impressive scorer; he was a leader. Jake DeClute, Gordon Men’s Soccer’s head coach through 2011, chose Matt as team captain his sophomore year, and Horth held the position for the next three years. “As much as the team benefited from him, he benefited from them. I think he helped them to compete more, while they helped him to have a better perspective on soccer. Plus, they pushed him,” says DeClute, who also coached Horth’s high school club soccer team and recruited Matt for Gordon Men’s Soccer. Matt blossomed as team leader, encouraging greatness from his teammates on and off the field; he became a role model for both character and conditioning. He took seriously the team’s theme verse from Proverbs 27:17: “As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another.” “We stressed brotherhood. This meant pushing one another hard on the field but also supporting one another off the field,” he says. And on the field Matt led by example. Former teammate Ryan Coil recalls, “I have never seen anyone work as hard as Matt. He arrived at practice early and left late every single day. He was extremely dedicated to the game.” When fall of his senior year came round, Horth and DeClute eagerly contacted a handful of second- and third-tier professional soccer clubs and arranged tryouts. Matt performed well but didn’t receive any call-backs until his final tryout with the Atlanta Silverbacks.
His performance on the field caught the eye of New England Revolution General Manager Michael Burns, who invited Matt to Boston for five days last October. After several weeks of dialog between his agent and the Revolution scout, Horth was signed to the team just after Thanksgiving. “It was so much more than just signing a contract,” he says. “It was 16 years of hard work paying off. It was the culmination of a journey; the sacrifice had turned into dividends.” As he continues to grow as a player, Matt never forgets those who helped him get there. Matt maintains a close relationship with Jake DeClute to this day. DeClute shares, “As good as it was to coach Matty, it has been even better to get to know him as a person.” Horth credits his faith with helping him through the hardest times along the way. Now, with his efforts beginning to pay off, he reflects, “God humbled me to use soccer not for personal gain or popularity, but as a gift that I must respond to by glorifying Him. He has given me a platform, and I must decide how I will use it.” As his accomplishments settle in, Horth stresses the importance of taking things day-by-day and not looking too far into the future. “This entire journey has been a series of stepping stones across a river. It is just one stone at a time. It was this last jump, the one to the other shore, that was the most difficult.”
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Presidential Fellows: Mid-Year Reflections Modeled on the highly competitive White House Fellowship, the Presidential Fellows Program affords six Gordon students per year the chance to work directly with one of the College’s Cabinet officers during a yearlong fellowship.
Henry Hagen ’14
Erik Hilker ’14
Skylar Bareford ’14
Office of the President D. Michael Lindsay
Office of the Vice President for Finance and Administration Michael Ahearn
Office of the Provost Janel Curry
Photo Rebecca Wolseley ’12
Photo Rebecca Wolseley ’12
Photo Rebecca Wolseley ’12
“One of the highlights of my Presidential Fellows experience was meeting Rich Fairbank, CEO and founder of Capital One. He talked candidly about his ideals, leadership expertise, and the challenges of leading a Fortune 500 business.”
“While sitting in on meetings, I am often struck by the insight Mr. Ahearn brings to situations. He has spent many hours helping me understand the financial management of an institution. This exposure is way outside the purview of most students’ college experience.”
“The Presidential Fellows program has provided me with numerous meaningful experiences. From my time spent with leaders who come to campus, to working in the office with Dr. Curry, I am constantly reminded of the wisdom that inspires our institution.”
K. Trey Walsh ’14
Rachel Ashley ’13
Amber Fiedler ’13
Office of the Executive Vice President Dan Tymann
Office of the Vice President for Student Life Barry Loy
Office of the Vice President for Marketing and Strategic Communications Richard Sweeney
Photo Rebecca Wolseley ’12
“The Fellows program has made me more confident in my capabilities and aspirations. The level of investment Mr. Tymann and the rest of the Cabinet have poured into this program—and into us as individuals—is astonishing. I look forward to the future of this program, to future Gordon Presidential Fellows.”
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Photo Rebecca Wolseley ’12
“This has been a tremendously humbling experience for me. By stepping into the professional world as a college senior, I have discovered I still have quite a bit of growing to do. Indeed, this program has confirmed what one beloved Gordon professor always tells us: Life is for learning and learning is for life.”
Photo Rebecca Wolseley ’12
“I’ve really appreciated being part of Mr. Sweeney’s meetings with the College Communications and Design Center staff. From my very first week, I’ve been treated as a team member, and been part of this process where the ideas for publications, external communication, and Gordon’s brand positioning are formed.”
ON THE GRAPEVINE
John Kanas Addresses Business Leaders’ Gathering
Faculty Books Emanuelle Vanborre, assistant professor of French, has edited a book of essays on Albert Camus, The Originality and Complexity of Albert Camus’s Writings (Palgrave Macmillan Publishers: 2012). It extends Vanborre’s research on 20thcentury fiction, literary theory, and Francophone literature, and explores how and why Camus’ writings remain relevant.
Photo Dan Nystedt ‘05
Adorning John Kanas’ desk at the BankUnited headquarters in Miami Lakes, Florida, is a quote from Winston Churchill that captures Kanas’ business philosophy: “Never, never, never give up.” The same might be said of 200 guests who braved an unexpected snowstorm to glean insights and a remarkably candid perspective from Kanas at the fourth Business Leaders Breakfast, at the Marriott Long Wharf in Boston on March 8. Among students attending were the members of Gordon’s varsity baseball team, including Kanas’ son, John Jr., a Gordon senior. BLB events are part of the Conversations with the President series of interviews conducted by President Michael Lindsay. The BLB provides a forum for Christian business leaders in the Boston area to connect with the College and hear firsthand from chief executives of national organizations. Kanas—BankUnited’s chairman, president and CEO—shared humorous stories of his humble roots and his path into banking, and spoke of how his faith sustained him in the darkest moments of his career. He forthrightly recalled his greatest personal failure, when in 1990, the bank he led was devastated by the nationwide real estate collapse. “Our stock price dropped to 35 cents a share,” he remembered. “I had to face a room of 700 employees and tell them my job was to reduce our ranks to 400.” Kanas’ career and professional fortunes rebounded with the economy in the ’90s, yet the experience drove home a lesson he applies to his current position at the head of Florida’s largest bank. “We define our success by financial metrics,” he said, “but also by what kind of culture we have created in the organization. I want my employees to know that everyone’s contribution is important.” As for the future of banking? Ironically, Kanas sees a weakness in size. He said many U.S. banks are “too big to understand, too big to manage,” and noted that bankers are seen as villains (with some cause, he acknowledged). Yet the majority of U.S. banks are community businesses promoting good will and good corporate citizenship locally. “We don’t hear enough about that great story,” he said.
Paul Borthwick, adjunct professor of Christian ministries, has published Western Christians in Global Mission: What’s the Role of the North American Church? (Intervarsity Press: 2012), an urgent report on how the Western church can best continue in global mission. Paul Brink, associate professor of political science, contributed to Walking Together: Christian Thinking and Public Life in South Africa (Abilene Christian University Press: 2012), ed. Joel Carpenter. His chapter, “Negotiating a Plural Politics: South Africa’s Constitutional Court,” offers fresh insights about the South African constitution and how to anchor government authority in radically plural societies. Stephen L. S. Smith and Bruce G. Webb, professors of economics at Gordon, and Westmont College economics professor Edd S. Noell have coauthored Economic Growth: Unleashing the Potential of Human Flourishing (AEI Press: 2013).
SPRING 2013 | STILLPOINT 11
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Meet four Gordon faculty members using innovative ways of drawing students into fruitful conversations. Some of this creative teaching and learning happens through cutting-edge technology, some through more ancient forms and practices.
COMMUNICATION RETOOLED by Jo Kadlecek
Thirteen years into the new millennium, what do teaching and learning look like at Gordon College? How are faculty and students using the ever-emerging array of information technologies? Are educators are communicating differently, crafting new strategies for connecting with this generation of young adults? Michael Monroe (music) remembers the frustration of cueing up cassette tapes—then rewinding or fast-forwarding—for his music history classes. Now Monroe clicks his mouse and projects a group of three dynamic images on the screen behind
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him, a tool he developed that displays and synchronizes a musical score, instructional notes, and a video of the piece being performed. Across campus, when Sharon Galgay Ketcham and her Christian ministries colleagues began developing a new Core theology class, they decided to offer some sections online. Known nationally for her scholarship on the role of community in shaping young people’s faith, Ketcham began using Facebook to help students engage better in theological reflections. She
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“There’s a tension in filmmaking, because to do it well, you need to be embedded in a history that is millenia old— it’s storytelling, after all, and that includes going back to Aristotle, the Bible, and other great narratives to master the form.”
discovered they often open up more in the virtual community than in a “real” classroom. Students over in Moises Park’s “real time” Spanish class open up, too—especially when he yells at them. In fact, they laugh when he hollers out a question in Spanish. They have learned not to hold back; they respond with whatever Spanish words pop into their heads. That’s exactly what Park wants. He believes that such improvisational methods can be more effective than memorization for teaching language skills.
When teaching the language of today’s storytelling, Toddy Burton (communication arts) grounds her filmmaking classes in traditions of craft and narrative while preparing for the new digital age. Where 35mm film once required moviemakers to methodically plan each shot because film was so expensive to develop, Burton sees digital video as freeing young artists to experiment with new approaches to old story forms. Their disciplines vary, but there’s a common denominator in all these professors’ classrooms: exceptional learning opportunities for Gordon students. Read on to find out more.
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“It’s amazing what one can hear that one doesn’t actually hear.” mmusing.blogspot.com
3D Music Lessons No stranger to the Internet as an instructional tool or to social media to enhance his scholarship, Monroe was an early believer in the power of technology. He found time between piano instruction and theater productions to familiarize himself with existing programs. He began following music critics and other educators on Twitter and was one of Gordon’s first professors to blog regularly about his work. Still, he knew he wasn’t fully harnessing technology’s power for his Music History or Arts in Concert classes. So he began to tinker. He taught himself how to write software to blend musical scores with audio performances. When he posted them online, he quickly began to see how effective they could be for students. “Not long ago, it was incredibly cumbersome to project a score for students to see in class while they tried to follow along, then cue up the tape and start again,” Monroe said. “Now this integrated technology allows me to talk about the score without the distractions, circling things in red as we go through the piece in class and listen at the same time.”
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Monroe has created eight online listening guides— which he calls Musical Manipulatives—for classics including Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony in C Major and Mendelssohn’s Violin Concerto. Each includes his “three-dimensional” approach: Monroe synchronizes the audio with the score, and also with his notes about each movement. In class or their dorm rooms, students can access the links, click on any of the themes, and hear the music as they’re reading Monroe’s instruction while also following the score. “The goal is to help students, when thinking of a big piece of music, to have a bird’s eye view of it—understanding how the structure unfolds—all while they’re involved in the piece,” said Monroe. He plans to explore the implications of such technology on his sabbatical next fall. (Visit www.thedoctorinspiteofhimself.com/mmsample.html to see how it works.)
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“Many voices, old and new, press us out of our self-focused paradigms and into the truth that we are really corporate beings, living always in dynamic relationships with others.” “Go Communal: A Lenten Reflection,” by Sharon Ketcham
Theology on Facebook While Monroe saw technology as an immediate tool for instruction, Ketcham initially had her doubts about going online for Gordon’s new Core theology course. But she’s always regarded innovation as engaging an active imagination for better educational outcomes, so when the Core Committee in 2009 charged her department with crafting the new class, she and her colleagues took a fresh approach. “We wanted to teach theology in a way that shaped how we lived,” she said. “I knew that we could not simply bat around abstract ideas. Instead we had to look more closely at the link between belief and living, to create a lived theology for our students.” As the course supervisor, Ketcham asked teacher and students alike to do something they’d not seen before: to look anew at the study and discipline of theology and remain open to its academic and personal implications. Through the framework of
theological reflections, her goal with each topic was to discern God’s activity in matters of faith and life—and then participate. “Theology asks big, probing questions—questions not always easy to consider in a classroom with other people staring at you, waiting for your answer,” Ketcham said. “But theological reflection requires engagement, and so we decided to offer it during May Term online, in a ‘safe space,’ using Facebook as a virtual classroom.” The results delighted her: more students engaged more thoughtfully, tackled hard questions more honestly in their class journals, and took their faith and the material to a deeper level. The results came in part, she said, because students and professors had to comment online, and as they typed, they had more time to form their thoughts and consider what they were saying and thinking. The experiment was so successful that now Ketcham is asking, “How can we use Facebook as a tool to help stimulate better face-to-face conversations? How can these virtual discussions move our students toward the outcomes we hope for, for this class and throughout their lives?”
SPRING 2013 | STILLPOINT 15
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“I’ve begun to see poetry as a means to something beyond proficiency and fluency: the ability to guess.” “Reading Poetry as a Second Language,” by Moises Park
¿Eres tú inteligente?
¡Sí, MUY inteligente!
Screaming Questions It’s good for Ketcham’s students to have more time to think about theological questions. Park, on the other hand, hopes his students in Spanish class won’t think too much, and instead react “in the moment.” Part performer, part literary guide, Park often uses acting methods, shouting out questions in Spanish and urging students to respond quickly, even if that means their answer in Spanish will be incorrect. His pedagogical strategy helps his students relax and have fun, while recognizing that there is more to language acquisition than memorizing words. “In some ways learning a language requires the discipline of avoiding technology (like getting a tutorial app), and letting go of some of the resources available, so you can study it yourself,” Park said. “There are some things only a human can help you with, like writing a poem. So I try to do things in class that are creative, and beyond automated feedback—helping students have the flexibility that children have, so that they’ll have the confidence to answer with whatever is in their mental word bank.” While he hopes his students will be able to interact in an increasingly Spanish-speaking world, Park’s ultimate goal is for students to learn Spanish well enough to write a poem or 16 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2013
a short dialogue in the language, so they can experience the creative process. That’s why he has students write a composition in Spanish and then takes phrases from each to compose a song he’ll play in class with his guitar. So far he’s composed six songs for six classes, using lines directly from each student’s essay that he sings first, and then has the class sing together. “Because of the limited amount of things (new) Spanish learners can say, it becomes very poetic,” he said. For instance, one student wanted to write that on Tuesday mornings she studies in a class called the Sociology of Death, and on Thursdays she learns in the Examined Life course. But because she didn’t yet know many of those words, what she wrote in Spanish translates like this: “Tuesdays I study death and then I study life.” “That became a great verse, and the title of a song,” he said. “Students get very excited to see their own writing in a Spanish song. And the activity is a favorite of mine, because it forces me to think better about meter and synonyms, while teaching the students that even a limited amount of language can help them create something meaningful.”
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“We need these technological tools if for no other reason than to remember the world beyond our desks and chairs. They can be powerful tour guides, and equally effective tutors.” “Writer’s Life: The World Standing Beside Me,” by Jo Kadlecek
Moving Stories Because Park’s creative pedagogy also includes film, he often turns to Burton for her expertise. (The two regularly discuss movies and are collaborating on a short film.) Whether tracking the latest trends in Hollywood, connecting the impact of historic films to today’s work, or introducing her students to professional filmmakers and festivals, Burton’s work relies heavily on such collaborations. Like Park, Burton tries to steer students through a creative process that requires freedom and confidence. But the award-winning filmmaker describes the language of visual storytelling as a tightrope, where she needs to “hammer home” the traditional three-act structure for communication arts students while being vigilant about how technology is changing the art. “There’s a tension in my field, because to do it well, you need to be embedded in a history that is millennia old—it’s storytelling, after all, and that includes going back to Aristotle, the Bible, and other great narratives to master the form,” she said. “At the same time, there’s the famous saying in the industry that ‘everyone wants something different.’” Whether teaching video production, screenwriting, directing or criticism, Burton suggests the most innovative films are rooted in good storytelling; they’re authentic, vulnerable, personal and often messy. Knowing that, today’s filmmakers must also study the growing impact of the digital age and engage the strengths of video, which Burton calls a “no-excuses medium” because there’s no excuse not to make a movie. Consequently, her students experiment with the camera, improvise, and explore different angles and light to see how each shot can best communicate—or change—the story. She recruits top students to collaborate with her on her own productions, and pushes each class on to new projects quickly and honestly so as to keep perspective. But they also study how business details such as film distribution are changing the modern art of the film. Filmmakers today are less focused on a theatrical release, Burton said, and more on building a following online, using social media to create their platform or network, and seeking non-conventional contracts such as video on demand. Each
aspect of the industry requires constant attention: what movies make it to major festivals like Sundance, independent movies, or why certain films get the attention they do. Burton sees each as a tool. “In some ways, it’s easier to be rigorous in teaching form and structure, because it has a right and wrong,” she said. “What is harder . . . and ultimately more rewarding is to provide that creative space, to help and come alongside the students as they’re trying to create something new. But in a Christian college environment, we have an opportunity to create that place—whether it’s heartbreaking or hilarious—because that’s what life is.”
Jo Kadlecek is the College’s senior writer and journalist-in-residence, and founding editor of the Gordon College News Service Fellowship Program. She has published numerous nonfiction and fiction books, as well as feature stories and investigative articles for publications including PRISM magazine and The Huffington Post. She lives in Beverly, Massachusetts, with her husband, Chris Gilbert, a video journalist and filmmaker. Jo.kadlecek@gordon.edu | www.lamppostmedia.net
SPRING 2013 | STILLPOINT 17
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BROADENING CONTEXTS Context (con•text) noun: the interrelated conditions in which something exists or occurs: environment, setting. In the following pages you’ll observe just a few such contexts at Gordon College: The Umbrian hill city of Orvieto, where contemporary students worship in a 14th-century cathedral. The Jenks basement office of Valerie Gin, where student-
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athletes first began telling their stories. From the fertile ground of Massachusetts’ famed “biotech corridor,” a North Shore Biotech Consortium. A Gordon-MIT collaboration, in which math informs and aids humanitarianism. An innovative book club for teachers in the trenches. A literary memoir class that begins with doodles, sketches—even Microsoft Paint.
One of the best conversational contexts on the Gordon campus is the Fowler Rotunda seminar room in Ken Olsen Science Center, overlooking Coy Pond.
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John Skillen’s vision for global education brings moments in early European culture to bear upon the present cultural moment.
Picking up the Thread By John Dixon Mirisola ’11
Trendy education can be brittle. It can break and rearrange beneath every step of modern progress. The real challenge, says Director of European Programs John Skillen, is to establish an educational model that can be applied over time. When he founded Gordon IN Orvieto in 1998, Skillen hoped the program’s unique approach to learning in situ—rooted in context—would stand his own test. And in fact, 15 years later, the program continues to offer an uncommon opportunity to set down roots. Students—mostly artists, writers and aesthetes—spend their months in Orvieto immersed in a different world. They worship in the Duomo even as they research its 14th-century façade design or sketch its Gothic windows. Unplugged from the whir of American college life, they become more than spectators of a bygone culture; they become heirs to the ongoing tradition. Virgil wrote with Homer on his desk. Dante wrote with Virgil on his desk. Joyce wrote with the prior three all jostling for position in his spectacles. “Innovation can only occur when we respond to what’s come before us,” says Skillen. “We are trying to reconnect a post-history generation to fabrics that have unraveled”—not in an attempt to recreate what’s already been, but so they might pick up the thread and weave something powerfully new.
SPRING 2013 | STILLPOINT 19
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Some 60 percent of Gordon students enjoy intramural athletics; 23 percent are on intercollegiate teams.
The Storytellers By Hilary Sherratt ’12
A few years ago, Valerie Gin, professor of recreation and leisure studies, invited a group of student athletes to squeeze onto the couches in her office and share their stories: of mistakes, triumphs, failures, confusion and lessons learned across multiple sports. Not only did they resonate with each other’s stories, but the stories sparked the question: “What would I do in that situation?” Before long Gin’s office wasn’t big enough for all the students clamoring to join the group. And it wasn’t just Gordon athletes who had stories to tell! Gin took some students with her to Athletes in Action camps across the country to record other athletes’ stories. Eventually, they put together a DVD. After each story, questions are posed to the viewers concerning pervasive attitudes and moral dilemmas in sports—from trashtalking to cheating—providing a new framework for discussion and reflection. Like news, stories travel, and it wasn’t long before the DVDs were in wide circulation, including at major sports camps. That inspired Gin even further. “Coaches need stories, too,” she said. 20 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2013
“That role can feel especially isolated and lonely.” So she and her students began to record coaches’ stories, too. To reach a wider audience, Gin, her coaching friends and her students created a website— wired4sport.com— so sportspeople could share their common experiences, learn from each other’s stories, and promote “the value, integrity and love of sport.” Much more than a collection of stories, wired4sport became an online community, where athletes support and encourage each other and celebrate sport. “It’s easiest to do what others have done, but it’s definitely not as fun,” Gin says. “Innovation is about the freedom to think in a new way, and bring people alongside you in a kind of synergy. It is about doing something creative, something that is invigorating and life giving. I think the truth is, God is innovative, and I was in the right places at the right time. God is creative in who he brings together, and how.”
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Gordon’s biology grads go to medical school, enter the biotechnology and healthcare fields, and work in global nonprofits, along with other career paths.
The Consortium Connection By Hilary Sherratt ’12
Justin Topp, associate professor of biology, knows that getting students involved in biotech innovation calls for more than just having the latest equipment on campus—though that certainly matters. Topp, who has collaborated with local biotech companies to create a Google map of E. coli protein expression, is the College liaison to the recently formed North Shore Biotech Consortium, a network of colleges and universities that now also includes nonprofit and for-profit companies. Although this collaboration is in the nascent stage, the hope is it (and others like it) will be horizon-expanding for students, who will benefit from increased opportunities for cross-registering at consortium schools for advanced training in microscopy, proteomics, NextGen sequencing, high content screenings, and bioengineering. And students from other colleges will be attracted to Gordon’s resources in advanced microscopy and drug screening. Beyond expanded course options, the Consortium will afford Gordon students significantly expanded internship opportunities, and essential experience with the “day-to-day of the biotech environment,” Topp says. With this kind of exposure and collaboration, students can go wherever their ideas lead.
Mathematics Meets Logistics Math professor Mike Veatch watches the field of operations research and logistics constantly reinvent itself. “The field is always tackling the next problem—whether that is online marketing, financial derivatives, delivery of health services, or big data,” he says. But it is humanitarian logistics—how to plan and deliver humanitarian aid—that most fascinates and excites him. It’s an incredible feat, he says, to organize logistics when dealing with human uncertainties. “You have to live with a lack of control. The question is how to deliver needed aid effectively in light of changing variables, and a certain amount of unpredictability.” Working with collaborators at MIT, Veatch has researched the logistics surrounding the disastrous earthquake in Haiti in 2010. Assessment of past relief efforts, and what did and didn’t work well, lays groundwork for mathematical models to guide future disaster response. Veatch’s students have worked with a Kenyan nonprofit, researching how to save on travel costs, and then presented their research at a national conference. Veatch has lit a fire among Gordon students about the humanitarian applications of mathematical models. “It excites me, and it excites Gordon students as well,” Veatch says.
Mike Veatch has involved students in projects ranging from network troublehooting to the delivery of humanitarian aid.
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The Book Club Before Oprah By Mallory Moench ’14
The top shelf in the book-crammed office of Janis FlintFerguson, professor of English and education, is full of popular young-adult novels, all signed by the authors. Flint-Ferguson began her career teaching middle school while working towards a Ph.D. in English studies before her passion turned towards training future teachers. For almost 36 years she has been introducing future teachers to literature, helping shape how literacy is taught and learned. One way Flint-Ferguson does this is by facilitating a young-adult book study gathering for teachers which, when she started it 20 years ago, was one of the first of its kind. “We began a book study group even before Oprah had a book club!” she says. Teachers new, seasoned, and even retired still gather monthly to “talk about what’s going on in the schools, and read some really great literature coming out that they might want to incorporate into their classes.”
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John H. Ritter and Chris Crowe have been especially favored authors since they have both come to Gordon College to share about their writing. So has Gary Schmidt, Gordon’s own (class of 1979), another favorite of the book group; two of Schmidt’s 12 books, Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy and The Wednesday Wars, have been named Newbery Honor Books. Other authors popular with Flint-Ferguson’s book club have included Lois Lowry, J. K. Rowling, Laurie Halse Anderson, Christopher Paul Curtis, and Suzanne Collins, as well as firsttime authors Michaela MacCall, Candy Moonshower and Elizabeth Atkinson. “As teachers, we are always searching for the next idea,” FlintFerguson says. “Innovation is looking at the needs in front of us and not relying just on the way we’ve always done things. It’s looking at what might be a better fit for what’s going on now.”
Gordon’s education major emphasizes researchbased reading instruction; alumni are making significant contributions to this field.
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Gordon English majors have become journalists, editors, lawyers, teachers, professors and clergy—among many other careers.
Drawn In (or, How Not to Be a Hero) By John Dixon Mirisola ’11
“You’re not writing about yourself. You’re writing about a character that happens to be you.” This is what Bryan Parys ’04 tells his Literary Memoir class at Gordon. It’s this self-reflective detachment that sets high-caliber memoir apart from the supermarket pulp tell-alls we’ve come to associate with autobiography. “We want to be the heroes of our own stories,” Parys says, and he considers that a prideful and uninteresting approach. “What makes the writing ‘literary’ is what pushes you to the outsides.” But how to remove young writers from the centers of their own created worlds? Parys, who asked himself the same question while earning his M.F.A. in creative nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire, thinks illustration helps. So with
help from artist and graphic designer Grant Hanna ’06, Parys will teach his students to interpret the scenes from their writing visually in order to better understand themselves as characters in their own stories. “It’s about interacting with the material,” Parys says, “rather than how realistic the noses look.” The medium doesn’t matter; students are welcome to submit sketches, doodles, collages, or Microsoft Paint printouts. What does matter is that Parys’ students work to set themselves among all the other characters and objects within their story’s visual frame—to become an engaging, imperfect subject, rather than the polished lens.
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In Praise of Edges Story Janel Curry
At one time the estuary was diked and drained for farmland, which destroyed the edge region that allowed for the mixing of fresh and salt water. Today the dikes have been breached, allowing the fuzzy boundary to return, along with its birds and wildlife. And where you find fuzzy boundaries you find avid birders! Leaving Space at the Edges
My father taught all of his children and grandchildren to fish. These fishing lessons mostly occurred at dusk, between day and night, in the small boat he kept in a strip-mine lake near his home. And we all learned that the best place to cast our lines was along the edges of the lake where brush and trees had fallen into the water. It was my father who first taught me to pay attention to the edges. Many Edges
So as a scholar I have been drawn to the regions at the intellectual edges of disciplines. But my curiosity extends to many types of edges, like the urban edge along which a city melts into the rural landscape. When my daughters and I moved from a small town in Iowa to a moderate-sized city in Michigan, my daughters struggled with the concepts of rural and urban. The first few weeks, as we drove from our house to various places they would constantly ask: Are we in the city now? And now are we in the city? Cognitive psychologists will tell you that we have an inherent need to categorize, just as my daughters were trying to
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do. But emphasizing distinctions and building concrete boundaries between entities keep us from discovering the richness that we find at the edges. Recent scholarly discussions have moved toward describing reality as hybrid—part social, part natural—in order to grapple with the meaning of these edges. Key to understanding this hybridity is the role of boundary organizations, organizations that operate “between” the human and natural components of a natural resource. These organizations, such as irrigation districts or regional planning agencies, usually mediate multidirectional information flows among various governmental units that operate at different scales. Understanding “Fuzziness”
The richness of edge regions is dependent on allowing the boundary between “types” to be fuzzy, allowing the mixing of everything from ideas to nutrients, creating very rich ecosystems for plants, animals, and intellectual thought. Last fall, for instance, I visited the Nisqually National Wildlife Refuge on Puget Sound.
We have something to learn from nature, especially as we observe what it means to restore fuzzy edges that leave space for nature to thrive. These fuzzy edges allow for the mixing of nutrients and the movement of creatures like snow geese to come and go across seasons and ecosystems. As we try to create boundaries that are inflexible we leave no room for risk, for change, and, ironically, for safety. Hurricane Sandy surely reminded us of this lesson most recently. Can we learn to leave space at the edges so that we might become wise? Can we leave the edges for fishing?
Janel Curry is the Provost of Gordon College, and a twotime Fulbright Scholar with an academic background in geography and political science. She blogs frequently at Reflections on Place and Cross-Cultural Encounters. blogs.gordon.edu/curry janel.curry@gordon.edu
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Music at the Boundaries Story Mac Gostow ’13
The audience, of course, erupted in laughter. “We have never performed for a more enthusiastic audience in our lives,” notes Ben Bowden ’16. When the choir finished, several inmates took the stage and gave a lively, passionate rap performance. “It opened my eyes to the use of rap and the power of true humility and authentic gratitude. It showed me what it means to have your world changed,” says Bowden. Connections
From left: Jamie Hillman, Andrew Lewis ’16, Nathaniel Stowe ’16, Joel Estes ’16, Benjamin Tuck ’16, Kenny Ling ’14, Samuel Pereira ’16, Aaron Horton ’15, Seongmin (David) Jang ’16, Colin Bradley ’16, Ben Bowden ’15, Dalton Weaner ’16.
“I didn’t have to explain the ‘why,’ the ‘gospel reason’ for going to sing to prisoners.” —Jamie Hillman, Men’s Choir director
Eleven members of the Gordon College Men’s Choir waited to get through the extensive security-clearance procedures at MCI Norfolk, a juncture known as “The Trap.” Soon they’d be on the other side, presenting a concert for about 200 inmates. Few of the students had ever been inside prison walls, and, adding to the unfamiliarity, MCI Norfolk is a medium-to-high-security facility. Passages
“When I stepped inside the prison after all the security checks, I wasn’t exactly fearful, but I was nervous,” says Seongmin (David) Jang ’16. Conductor Jamie Hillman led the men into the auditorium. Hillman, a Boston University Prison Arts Scholar and faculty member of BU’s Metropolitan College/ Prison Education Program, was wellversed in prison etiquette, having worked
with the inmates of MCI Norfolk for the past several years. He has developed a comprehensive choral program that is offered in two large Massachusetts prisons, sharing the freeing potential of music. “It’s great to perform at, for example, the Christmas Gala,” he says, “but I also want to go to people who can’t come to us. I want us to be at prisons, homeless shelters, psychiatric hospitals.”
“One man walked up to me and said, ‘I know it doesn’t look like it, but I was crying on the inside,’” says Bowden. Joel Estes ’16 explains how the experience affected him: “I had the opportunity to see real men, with real stories and real grief, humbly unfold their hearts, faults and all, through their own medium. This was the heart and soul of rap music, I think.” “They had so many emotions inside and no way to get it out,” says Ben Tuck ’16. “And who did they share this with? Us. A men’s choir from a small Christian college. They just wanted to be heard, and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that they were.”
Reactions
The Men’s Choir sang a range of music, from Biebl’s “Ave Maria” to the chain-gang song “Rainbow ’Round My Shoulder.” Before the latter, Hillman turned to the inmates and quipped, “This song really requires chains to be dropped and sledgehammers to be hit, but for some reason we couldn’t get these items past clearance!”
Mac Gostow is a communication arts major, co-founder of ScotRadio, and performer with the Sweaty-Tooth Madmen improv troupe. He has interned with CBS News and been a radio host in Istanbul, Turkey. mac.gostow@gordon.edu
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The Multiple Universes of Dr. Brian Glenney Story John Dixon Mirisola ’11 Photo Antony Ohman ’16
They have, in fact, just taken the very first successful photograph using the fish-eye camera: a distorted and surreal portrait, now Glenney’s Facebook profile picture. A long-time vegetarian, Glenney is interested in compiling a photo book exploring our world through the unique perceptual equipment of a fish. Active Accessibility
“Multiple Universes,” because anybody who has more than two conversations with Brian Glenney would be unsurprised to discover that the assistant professor of philosophy could only be just who he is, do just as he does, with the help of some metaphysical gymnastics. Dr. Glenney is, it seems, every potential version of himself, all at once. Street Artist
Young Brian is a well-known Seattle area graffiti artist, convinced that art must be subversive, must “defamiliarize the familiar.” So he defamiliarizes. Decades later, Glenney finds legal places to paint: indoor skateparks, children’s bedrooms. It’s rebellious expression reborn through the eyes of a family man. Skate Evangelist
He starts two West Coast “skate churches.” Imagine youth group with more bruised shins (and, significantly: more punks, skate rats, and vandals than would ever find reason to attend a normal church service.) Academe
Glenney earns his Ph.D. from USC, where he works with Dallas Willard. He becomes a published philosopher, specializing in the study of perception, philosophical
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psychology, and the early work of Adam Smith. In 2012 alone Dr. Glenney publishes five scholarly articles, and he has nearly completed a new book. Hearing Colors
Dr. Glenney, David Botticello ’12 and Zach Capalbo ’12 wander Harvard Square zombie-like, wearing special blacked-out ski goggles—self-built sensory substitution devices that convert visual stimuli into sound. After they overcome the windowbumping, elbow-bruising learning curve, they can navigate crowded streets, climb stairs, and follow a path. They hope the device will one day give sight to the blind.
“It’s time to rebrand the wheelchair image,” Glenney declares in a Huffington Post blog. “Visual representation matters. When I consume images about objects, ideas, and other people, I generate unconscious attitudes about them.” So with Boston artist Sarah Hendron, Gordon creative director Tim Ferguson Sauder, and the advocacy group Triangle, he’s been updating the icon, focusing on the active, embodied person using the chair, rather than the chair itself. Churches, cities, businesses and nonprofits (including Gordon) are making the switch. Perception, art, advocacy. These are the common forces that govern Dr. Glenney’s many worlds. How we see things matters, how we respond creatively matters, how we take care of what’s around us matters. This is the gravity that pulls all Glenney’s efforts into orbit.
Fish
“Neal,” Dr. Glenney says to a former student on his cell phone. “Check Facebook in an hour to see brilliance.” He and Gordon staffer Jean-Paul Disciscio have been experimenting with a camera made using lenses from actual fish eyes.
John Dixon Mirisola ’11 is a communications specialist in the Office of College Communications at Gordon. john.mirisola@gordon.edu
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Variations on an (A. J. Gordon) Theme Story Graeme Bird Photo Michael Hevesy
way, it provides a way for me to express my God-given creativity. In a humble way I am imitating God’s own creativity. In fact, in the Old English poem Beowulf, lines 86–90, the singer is described as a “shaper” of his song, and a few lines down (106) God Himself is described as the “Shaper” of the world. What an evocative image of the singer/performer imitating his Creator!
My Jesus, I love Thee, I know Thou art mine; For Thee all the follies of sin I resign. My gracious Redeemer, my Savior art Thou; If ever I loved Thee, my Jesus, ’tis now. —First stanza of the poem “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” by William Ralph Featherston, 1864
About 120 years ago A. J. Gordon wrote music for the well-known poem “My Jesus, I Love Thee.” It became a much-loved hymn, one we still sing today. More recently, my love of jazz piano improvisation led me to “play around” with the hymn. The original version has a “catchy” melody, but lends itself to alteration, both melodically and harmonically. New Places
At the heart of jazz improvisation is creativity, the delight that arises from coming up with a “new” version of a piece of music on the spot. My new version (www.gordon.edu/bird) is unmistakably still “My Jesus, I Love Thee,” and yet it is being embellished, enhanced, recreated, in ways that reflect both the performer’s love of the original, and also his enjoyment in taking the original to new places, musically speaking. These “new places” might shock a traditional
congregation. For a Christian musician playing in church (and perhaps for Christian artists in general), there can be a tension between playing for the Lord and playing for one’s own enjoyment. I used to struggle with leading and enhancing worship on the one hand, and on the other hand trying to play the greatest-sounding licks as I could.
If I really meditate on the words of this hymn while I am playing, I can express musically the joy and thankfulness I feel at the thought of loving and being loved by Jesus. This can lead to a feeling of exuberance that spills over into my playing, and I may go off into completely unexpected directions. This is more likely to happen when I am alone—it could be risky in a church service! So, what does it mean to improvise “My Jesus, I Love Thee”? It means to take a great hymn, to internalize its melody (and if possible, its words), and then to explore it, run with it, use it as a springboard to jump off and express my creative energy and joy, to create something good enough to offer up to Him as a sacrifice of praise.
Yet the two need not be contradictory. One’s ego is not inherently a bad thing, and of course it is God who gave us musical and other artistic talents in the first place. The key in a worship situation, I think, is to keep in mind Who it is that I am primarily playing for. The Shaper
When I am alone, improvisation is a way to relax, to enjoy making music for its own sake, to just sit down and create something spontaneously—either a brand-new piece of music, or else a new version of a song I already know. Either
Associate Professor of Linguistics and Classics Graeme Bird has been described as “quiet, self-effacing, and perhaps a little mysterious.” A native New Zealander, he is Gordon’s resident polymath, an accomplished pianist and mathematician. He received the Junior Distinguished Faculty Award in 2011. graeme.bird@gordon.edu
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On Being a 32-Year-Old Paperboy Luke Reynolds ’03 tells how his family provided hope and a reminder of God’s promises on a snowy morning in York, England.
Exactly 22 years ago I earned the first job of my life: I would deliver 18 newspapers to our neighbors on Alcott Drive and nearby Brewster Road in Windsor, Connecticut for the now-defunct Journal Inquirer. I was ten years old. I was excited. After all, I’d be making my very own money for the first time, able to ride my bike to the local gas station and purchase obscene amounts of candy without asking my mom for money. In the life of a 10-yearold, this is huge. In the life of a 32-year-old? Not so huge. Three weeks ago, I got a phone call from the corner store near the home we currently rent in York, England. Twoand-a-half years earlier, when we gave away all our possessions, left our jobs, switched roles, and relocated across the
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Atlantic Ocean (how’s that for subtle, slow change?), I’d seen a sign in the window: BOYS AND GIRLS NEEDED FOR PAPER ROUTES. We were newly expatriated, broke, confused, and I saw the need for a little money to help the cause. I figured I could deliver the newspapers before Tyler woke in the mornings. The thing is, the corner store never called back. Until two-and-a-half years later. And so, on my first day of being a 32-yearold paperboy-man-dad-writer-teacher, I loaded 30 newspapers into a brightly reflective yellow bag on which the words THE DAILY TELEGRAPH were splayed. I walked the route that first morning with a sense of hope, even fun. And then, pushing the crosswalk button after I’d finished, I saw a teenager finishing
her route too. She even had a matching reflective yellow bag like I did! The Disconnect
Cool! Thinking we’d have that instant job-sharing connection, I smiled wide and tossed a hearty, “Morning!” her way. She smirked first, then looked towards the ground in utter disbelief. I realized then what I must have looked like to her: a guy in his thirties with a stubbly beard working as a . . . newspaper carrier? There are moments when all of our lofty goals and assertions turn back towards us and become our accusers. Moments, even, when our dreams turn to face us, lift their fingers, and say, You really thought so? But then something amazing happened. It snowed. It snowed massively, so that a
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week into my new paper-route job, I had to drag a cart with triple-sized Saturday morning papers from door to door amidst freezing temperatures. Was I grumpy? Yes. Was I wondering what it was all for? Yes. Until I looked back along the sidewalk and my wife and my son were walking towards me. I mean my wife and my son. There they were, holding hands, walking towards the third door of the route, 27 papers to go. My 4-year-old boy grabbed that metal cart alongside my own hand, and my wife grabbed the other side. “We’ll do it together today,” Jen told me, with a look in her eyes that blew every notion of failure to smithereens. That Saturday, we did the paper route as a family. We dragged that cart through the ice and the snow of the roads, yes, but also through the ice and the snow of my own heart. Perfect in Weakness
Brene Brown writes in Daring Greatly that when shame strikes we need to say in reply: “This hurts. This is disappointing, maybe even devastating. But success and recognition and approval are not the values that drive me. My value is courage and I was just courageous. You can move on, shame.” God says in 2 Corinthians 12:9, “My grace is sufficient for you. My power is made perfect in weakness.” And my 4-year old boy says, “We can do it, Daddy! Come on!”
different than the 10-year-old boy who still sometimes makes his voice known inside of me. The trajectory of this character arc could, possibly, be seen as a marked failure. If this life were the stock market? Forget about it.
A REYNOLDS BIBLIOGRAPHY
That Which Endures
But when I examine what this experience has been about—what it’s taught me and my wife and our son—there’s no way I would trade these last two and a half years for anything. Because, see, there are many other moments like that snowy Saturday morning. There are so many other moments when everything seemed lost or impossible, and then Hope would break through and prove that despair and criticism and fear have no permanent place. They’re squatters.
As a long-time middle school teacher, Luke Reynolds constantly
With six months to go on this crazy England journey, I think it’s possible to characterize one of the biggest lessons I have been learning in a single line: what matters more than anything else is the way we embody love towards one another. It’s more important than all our credentials, all our achievements, and all our significance.
found himself struggling with teens’
This essay originally appeared in Luke’s blog, Intersections: One Writer’s Journey through Parenting, Living Abroad, Faith, Publishing and Social Justice.
College Press, 2011) and, with
perceptions of what society tells them they “must do” in order to have a successful life. Break These Rules, forthcoming from Chicago Review Press in fall 2013, is his anthology of essays by young-adult (YA) authors. Reynolds has co-edited Burned In: Fueling the Fire to Teach (Teachers his wife Jennifer Reynolds ’04, Dedicated to the People of Darfur: Writings on Fear, Risk, and Hope (Rutgers University Press, 2009). He is the author of A Call to
The beauty of all of these words is that they are not results-driven. They’re not about the end product of success or failure. They are about the singular decision to get up and keep going.
Creativity: Writing, Reading, and
Three years ago, I used to wake up and put on an ironed shirt and tie, ironed trousers, and grab a leather satchel filled with student essays and notes for important upcoming meetings. I used to have a binder with Ph.D. coursework for a program at Boston College.
Publishing, January 2012); and A
Growing with Students in an Age of Standardization (Teachers College Press, January 2012); Keep Calm and Query On: Notes on Writing (and Living) with Hope (Divertir Luke Reynolds has taught in public schools in Connecticut and Massachusetts, and at the college level. He, his wife, Jennifer (Reynolds) ’04, and son, Tyler, live in York, England. www.lukewreynolds.com
New Man: Reclaiming Authentic Masculinity from a Culture of Pornography (Stonegarden Publishing, 2007). www.lukewreynolds.com reynoldsluke.blogspot.com
Today, this morning, I did a paper route. I passed by teenagers who aren’t much SPRING 2013 | STILLPOINT 29
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Why Your Children Should Do Chores Many parents allow their offspring to take a pass on housework, but here’s why it’s so important—to the whole family—that kids grab a sponge and get busy.
Every year, busloads of schoolchildren take field trips to the mills at Lowell National Historical Park. While chaperone mothers tote tankards of iced coffee and admire the charming red-brick factories that date from the 1820s, students examine spinning and weaving machines operated by “mill girls” as young as 10 and envision the roar and sweat of fiber-saturated rooms in full production. Properly horrified, young visitors draw the conclusion that only mean, bad people make children work. Then they retreat to their own world of school and play. Children do not belong in factories; it is good that American children no longer toil in mills. We are embarrassed to realize how much of our industrial world was built by nimble little fingers, embarrassed that our own sneakers and plastic toys 30 STILLPOINT | SPRING 2013
now made elsewhere may be assembled by children. But good insights can come from imagining mill life in Lowell and other New England cities: that children can do meaningful work, and their labors can contribute to the well-being of the family to which they belong. For most kids, the most obvious place for them to do that work is at home. Housework may seem like a trifling thing. It isn’t. Anyone who judges housework unimportant might revisit decades of “chore wars” over work and gender roles for men and women. It may seem like a no-brainer to assume kids should do chores, but as a matter of course, U.S. children do very little. In analyses of timeuse studies, professor Sandra Hofferth and her colleagues at the University of Maryland Population Research Center
estimate that, at last count, kids aged 6 to 12 do less than a half-hour of work a day. School is sometimes presented as the “work” we expect of our kids, and when homework is done they’re free to play. That arrangement is problematic. Housework, real work, still remains. Children should take it up because they enjoy the goods of the household, because they probably have more time than their parents to do it, and because they gain competence and responsibility in the process. Here is a partial list of household tasks an able-bodied, steady-minded 10-year-old should know how to do: load and unload the dishwasher or wash dishes by hand; dust; sweep or vacuum floors; clean a bathroom; put away groceries; set the table; cook a meal; clean up after a meal;
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take out trash; wash, dry, fold, and put away laundry; change linens and make beds; water plants. Devoting an hour or so a day to these chores would not pose a danger to children’s schoolwork or health or sociability. Comparing U.S. children with those in other parts of the world gives perspective, since parents elsewhere send young children alone on errands, up trees to pick coconuts, or into forests to haul firewood. In a 2009 article in Ethos, anthropologists Elinor Ochs and Carolina Izquierdo introduce a 6-year-old girl from the Peruvian Matsigenka people who fishes for crustaceans and cooks them up to serve to guests.
in best cases, before their parents lie cold in a tomb—our offspring will do these domestic tasks competently on their own. Parents might protest that they already do expect chores of kids. Some unusual families actually have functional children doing the real work of household management. In plenty of cases, though, those expectations are minimal. In surveys analyzed by Hofferth, children’s time spent doing housework dropped 25 percent from 1981 to 2003, coming in at an average of 24 minutes per day. In the Ochs and Izquierdo study, none of the American children surveyed performed chores routinely without being asked.
Parents might think domestic skills beneath their children’s worth, a waste of their precious time. But parents — also characters with worth and precious time—usually end up doing those tasks instead. And we, a democratic people, are not ones to assign some the caste of cleanup while others simply play. Learning to do chores helps children mature, helps orient them to the common good.
The beauty of mastering ordinary, unglamorous housekeeping tasks is that after they are complete, the frivolous, rewarding ones may await. Children are probably better at making hand-stamped wrapping paper and Thanksgiving centerpieces than their mothers are. Kids earn the right to be centerpiece designers after they have set the table. These garnishes to mundane housekeeping are important because they make evident to children that one might do common chores as an expression of love. It may be obvious to mothers and fathers when they serve dinner or sort soccer socks that love is the reason they do these things. But links between trash cans and love might not be so clear to youngsters. Children with the opportunity not only to accomplish common tasks but also those directed to beauty, comfort, and celebration in the home may better grasp the connection between the two sorts of work.
A practical objection is that teaching kids to do household jobs takes more time than it does for the parents simply to do the jobs themselves. This is true. That time devoted to instruction is important, though, an apprenticeship of sorts. We should hold out the hope that someday—
Upping expectations of one’s own children is tricky when it is countercultural. Youngsters will howl in protest. Parents should persevere. Kids who sign up for soccer, ballet, gymnastics, and Scouts all in one season should be greeted with looks of concerned dismay and asked
It is not abusive to teach children to do this kind of work and expect it of them. Indeed, when children are young they enjoy being trusted to contribute. When kids are older they may be more able but more ornery. So what? Telling children that they cannot live happily if they do not take care of their messes is telling the truth. Keeping kids confined to school and play construes them as dependents, or else as autonomous pleasure seekers parents are obliged to amuse.
when they will find time to get dinner on the table. Parents who sign children up for all those activities should be accorded the glances we give people who don’t put their toddlers in car seats. I’m ready for a competence revolution. It has to be just the right day and just the right time, but sometimes when I drive home from work I catch sight of a young man, maybe 12, who hops off the school bus and onto his driveway. If it is trash pickup day, there will be two empty cans waiting there. He will grab their handles and drag them toward the house. Maybe it’s not a big deal. But it looks like a big deal to me. First, because he appears to do it nonchalantly, without even thinking about it, hardly breaking stride. The fact that he sees the cans there is sufficient to remind him to take them in. Second, he does it before the bus pulls away, so the other kids on the bus observe the doing of this little job. Then he goes on his way, plenty of time left to tackle homework and shoot baskets in the driveway. This essay was originally published in the Boston Globe Magazine (March 3, 2013). Reprinted by permission.
Agnes R. Howard teaches in the English and history departments at Gordon, and is the author of essays in publications including Books & Culture and FIRST THINGS. She has already appreciated hearing from parents of Gordon students about their outstanding domestic abilities.
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Remembering Professor David Lumsdaine Gordon lost a scholar, friend and mentor when Dr. David Lumsdaine died unexpectedly in February. His Political Science Department colleague Ruth Melkonian-Hoover remembers him as a brilliant man who “elected to invest himself first and foremost in remarkable ways in our students’ lives.”
Professor David Lumsdaine passed away February 27 following a heart attack. An international relations and foreign policy specialist, he had broad interests in other fields: poetry, classical music, theology, history. In his political science classes he encouraged student participation and writing, and students speak with deep appreciation for a beloved professor and mentor to many. “David Lumsdaine passionately loved God, others, and God’s world,” recalls Ruth Melkonian-Hoover, chair of the Political Science Department. “We have been richly blessed by him, and his passing represents a tremendous loss to our department and to all of us in the Gordon community.” Dr. Lumsdaine was a regular discussant at the Jerusalem and Athens Forum, one of Gordon’s honors programs. “For you,” writes Ryan Groff, JAF program coordinator, “there was life to be found in ancient texts, and our cohorts kindled their own fascination with the life of the mind and Christian faith by reading at your side such great works as St. Athanasius’s ‘On the Incarnation.’ We will forever miss your evident and deeply felt appreciation for the beauty of Christian thought and life.” He leaves two brothers, and extended family, on the West Coast.
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These remembrances are among those delivered at Dr. Lumsdaine’s funeral, held March 2 at at Christ the Redeemer Anglican Church in Danvers, Massachusetts. Timothy Sherratt, Gordon College professor of political science
Could it be just about six years ago that I met David Lumsdaine for the first time, when we brought him to interview at Gordon College? The Wheaton political science chairman who urged me to consider him for our open position described David’s demeanor as pastoral; he said that in one short year many students had beaten a path to David’s door for advice and counsel. And in the subsequent years, more than I could ever have expected to, I gained a new purchase on the meaning of loyalty in
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friendship. I got closer to humble genius than I ever expected to, and I saw teaching and scholarship practiced with passion and care from one who loved God and neighbor with unguarded enthusiasm. We mourn the loss of our friend. The suddenness of his departure is shocking. We will feel the full weight of it over the weeks and months ahead as we grieve. And yet I believe we will witness something else, too, something even weightier. We will witness the fruit of the good seed David cultivated in the lives of students and colleagues and church family alike. Genius can be breathtaking. Genius mediated through humility can only be a blessing. Why? Because humility allows genius to serve the community, and I can give our late friend no higher compliment. Extraordinarily gifted as David was, he thought others were better than he. He routinely began recollections of his own life and career with a litany of his failures (describing them more colorfully than “failures”). There was nothing false about these claims. He thought he failed a lot. He was contrite in seeking forgiveness. “I’ve really blown it this time,” he confessed to me on more than one occasion as he came by my office to apologize. Our mutual friendship also came to life on Wednesday mornings, in a circle of friends who meet regularly for breakast. Politics, art, theology, the college where we teach: one by one David brought his humility, his erudition and his enthusiasm to bear on them all. Little by little, the sheer scope of his learning and his delight in life emerged: his love of the Book of Common Prayer and the Anglican way; his deep knowledge of Asian art (well, of everybody’s art, really); the poetry that enlivened his being, so much of it committed to memory. And then there was the joy he took in recitation— highbrow or lowbrow verse, it didn’t
matter. I recall offering up the opening lines of that ditty about the Gunpowder Plot: “Remember, remember the Fifth of November/Gunpowder, treason and plot…,” the only lines I could recall. Lumsdaine, of course, didn’t miss a beat and gleefully picked up where I had left off, reciting every one of the additional four or five stanzas of the original, and printing out a copy for me later in the day! I close my reflection with this thought. I, and we, have been loved. We have witnessed a life lived in unapologetic enthusiasm and unguarded service to the Body of Christ, to the Truth, to the Christian Hope, and to our God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Let us grieve and give thanks together for the life of our friend. Thanks be to God. Stan Gaede, Gordon College scholar-in-residence
David was unlike anyone I have ever met. He was one of the most intelligent fellows that I’ve encountered anywhere, at any time. There’s a downside to that, of course; I found myself perpetually arguing with David about all kinds of things, and learning (thereby) the significant deficits in my own line of reasoning. This education came with no small degree of intensity and emotion. David was quite willing to not only show me the error of my ways, but do so in a manner that made evident the profound consequences of my stupidity to everyone who was in the room . . . or restaurant . . . or wherever. He spoke his mind, in other words. And we all learned, in the process. But here’s the rest of the story, the part that few people in the room ever heard, unfortunately—the part that told me something about David that was even larger than his brain. Call it his heart. You see, after the debate, there came the man. Sometimes he would follow me out of a restaurant asking me if we could continue
our discussion the next day; sometimes he’d apologize for his tone (if not his conclusion!). But always, he let me know that he wanted to listen: to learn more about what I was thinking, to read what I was reading, to continue a discussion rather than letting an unresolved matter drop, to pursue the truth that we were both seeking. We separate truth and love these days, thinking they have nothing to do with each other. David knew better. He loved the Lord with all his heart, mind, soul and strength. And for that reason, he loved his neighbor, his students and his colleagues as himself. That is why he shared what he learned with us. Without guile. Without pretense. Without hesitation. How could he do otherwise, with those he loved? Thanks be to God, he did not!
Timothy Sherratt recently published “Political Symbolism and Elevated Political Discourse” in the Center for Public Justice Capital Commentary series. timothy.sherratt@gordon.edu
Stan Gaede is president of the Christian College Consortium, and the author of many books and articles. stan.gaede@gordon.edu
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Where There’s a Will There’s a Way
GORDON COLLEGE
By Dan White
Planned Giving Options
Uncertainty. As people of faith we do not have to allow such a word—or circumstance—to cause us undue concern. That does not mean uncertainty isn’t real; we experience it all the time. The key is to face it. For the sake of our family members who depend on us financially and otherwise, we should be intentional about caring for their future. Regardless of our station in life—as a young professional just starting her career, a recently married couple with a new baby, a middle-aged husband and wife with college-aged children, or a senior citizen enjoying retirement—life can surprise us. We need to make a plan. Gordon College (along with your attorney) offers resources to help you get started. You can learn how planning for your family’s future may include tax benefits if you make Gordon a part of your plan. With foresight and faithfulness, many alumni, friends, faculty and staff are making a lasting contribution to the mission of Gordon College by choosing to leave part of their legacy to generations of future Gordon students through scholarships and programs. It is easy to do.
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Here are a few options. »» Create a simple will to help protect your family when you no longer can. This is typically the easiest way to ensure your family’s security while also directing assets to the College and other organizations of your choice. »» Establish a charitable trust that is more legally substantial than a simple will—and often provides additional tax benefits to you. »» Set up a charitable gift annuity that results in predictable payments to you for life—a way to supplement your retirement income while also supporting the College. »» Gift retirement funds to Gordon, via an IRA charitable rollover—a simple process that may provide you with additional tax savings. We invite you to visit Gordon’s website and discover its resources about gift planning. Take steps today to join the many who are supporting Gordon’s future while also planning for their own.
The future of Gordon College is being planned today by people like you. We have an increasing number of alumni, friends and faculty at Gordon who are now benefiting from life income gifts, gift annuities and other plans.
BEGIN PLANNING TODAY! Visit www.gordon.edu/legacygiving or contact Dan White, Director of Development at Gordon College. Dan White Director of Development 978.867.4843 dan.white@gordon.edu
“The diverse denominational representation among the Gordon community—students, faculty, staff, administrators, and alumni—honors Jesus Christ. At Gordon, unity in Christ is more than a concept—it is lived.”
TRUTH-SEEKER. NETWORKER. BODY (OF CHRIST) BUILDER. BRONWYN E. (“BONNY”) LORING ’87 Living just a few miles from campus, Bonny Loring first noticed Gordon as a 30-year-old new Christian. She has now experienced the College as an older student (class of ’87), parent, and trustee. A tireless advocate for the school, she personifies the Gordon Commission: To stretch the minds and deepen the faith of young men and women, elevating the contributions they will make to the world.
Ways to give www.gordon.edu/giving
255 Grapevine Road, Wenham MA 01984-1899 www.gordon.edu
CHANGE SERVICE REQUESTED
MARK YOUR CALENDAR! NEW DATE
SEPT
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27–28
20
Homecoming and Family Weekend 2013
Business Leaders Breakfast
Homecoming will take place on new dates this year and will feature exciting new events, including a brand-new Alumni Awards Reception.
Featuring Craig E. Weatherup, Lead Director, Starbucks Corporation; Director, Macy’s Inc.; former Chair and CEO, The Pepsi Bottling Group, Inc.
www.gordon.edu/homecoming
www.gordon.edu/businessleaders
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14–16
Protestantism? Reflections In Advance of the 500th Anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, 1517–2017 A conference sponsored by the Center for Faith and Inquiry at Gordon College in partnership with the Boston Theological Institute and Refo500. www.gordon.edu/protestantism
6–16
Hong Kong Alumnae Trip 2014 Travel with co-leaders Provost Janel Curry and Alice Tsang (economics and business), along with Ambassador for the College Rebecca Lindsay, for a broad range of cultural experiences in Hong Kong, Shenzhen, Zhuhai, and Macao. For women graduates of Gordon and Barrington. provost@gordon.edu