STILLPOINT Fall 2018

FALL 2018

THE MAGAZINE OF GORDON COLLEGE

STILLPOINT

How five student-faculty teams turned scholastic endeavors into sustained mentorships

AlsoAlso in This in This IssueIssue 18 Introducing 7 New Board the Career of Trustees and Connection Chair 8 Celebrating Institute 32 Roger Twenty Green Years 37 of 16,000 Gordon Stories in Orvieto

#GORDONMOMENTS

Finance & Faith Forum OF GO R DO N CO LLEGE

For the flourishing of Boston and beyond Empowering a growing network of Christians in financial services to integrate faith, work and economic wisdom through life lessons shared by industry leaders. www.gordon.edu/financefaithforum

UPCOMING KEYNOTE SPEAKERS OCTOBER 10, 2018

Peter Greer | President and CEO HOPE International FEBRUARY 6, 2019

Tom Cole | Co-head of U.S. Leveraged Finance, Citigroup Global Markets APRIL 4, 2019

April Tam Smith | Managing Director— Equity Derivatives, Morgan Stanley

CONTENTS IN EACH ISSUE

FEATURE

Front with 6 Up President Lindsay An Ecosystem of Support

7 Inspiration

Peter Amadon ’04 Head Tennis Coach

8 Student Spotlight Alana Mann ’19

10 On the Grapevine

Campus news and happenings

14 Faculty Work

Accomplishments, publications, conferences and sabbaticals

How five student-faculty teams turned scholastic endeavors into sustained mentorships

42 Class Notes Alumni news

Kaye Cook and Si-Hua Chang ’16 Bruce Herman and Bryn Gillette ’02

ARTICLES

Angie Cornwell, Courtney Olbrich ’18 and Lisa Spencer ’95

the Permesso 32 Receiving di Soggiorno

Sybil Coleman and Kelly Palmer ’13 Paul Brink and Jordan Bellamy ’20 8 5/29/201 r PO 1/9 try, Deale [Order en 68950 157547

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and 36 Compassion Competence The Center for Balance, Mobility and Wellness celebrates 15 years.

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Two decades of vision, presence and encounter in Orvieto, Italy.

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and Athens 38 Jerusalem Forum Essay Contest JAF students tackle this year’s topic: “Hope in Suffering.”

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Gordon announces the launch of a new initiative that will greatly expand the scope of personal and professional preparation for students.

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On May 19, Gordon welcomed 352 undergraduate and 93 graduate students into its alumni community.

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39 Congratulations, Class of 2018!

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Three Gordon roommates follow their careers and each another from Wenham to Boston to Washington, D.C.

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UP FRONT with President Lindsay

“Pull quote goes here. Num veleseq uismodignim zzriuscil doluptat. Cum nos duis nulput digna con volenim ent augait wis nit aut aliqui blan.”

An Ecosystem of Support More than a buzzword, mentorship is a catalyst for transformation. Whether peers or professors, it’s the people who shape our college experience.

You are the company you keep. It’s a familiar adage, and one that rings especially true during the formative years of college, when character is shaped and career trajectories are set in motion. Be it peers or professors, the people shape our college experience.

My own life has been made richer because of people who have challenged me to take risks, offered courage when I was lacking, helped me identify untapped skills and encouraged me to lean into God’s call on my life—people like opinion researcher George Gallup Jr., son of the famed Gallup poll founder, and my mentor and close friend for two decades before his death in 2011.

As a young seminarian at Princeton I knew nothing about polling or statistics, but George graciously agreed to take me as an intern. And he didn’t stop there. George invited me into his research and named me a co-author on two resulting books.

6 STILLPOINT | FALL 2018

In doing so, he sparked my interest in social science research, sharpened my ability as a public speaker and author, and ultimately catalyzed my career as a sociologist, professor and now college president.

Why? “Because God brought us together,” he told me. “And I try to be open to his leading when that happens.”

There is no doubt that my life would have taken a different path if God had not moved George to become my mentor.

At Gordon, this type of relational impact is evidenced over and over again in what we call an “ecosystem of support”—a web of academic advisors, research partners, peer and faculty mentors and dozens of others who together shepherd students as they pursue God’s call. It’s student support— with lifelong effects. According to a Gallup study, personal support and mentoring are strongly correlated

president@gordon.edu

with overall well-being after college.

Over and over again, Gordon alumni outpace the national average in expressing strong agreement with statements like “My professors cared about me as a person” and “I had a mentor who encouraged me to pursue my goals and dreams.”

Sometimes these relationships come full circle. Take, for example, Gordon’s Vice President for Student Life Jennifer Jukanovich ’94. As a student, she was mentored by Dr. Tim Sherratt (political science), who encouraged her to participate in the American Studies Program, which she credits with helping her land a job working for President Clinton’s volunteer religious liaison immediately after graduation. Jennifer went on to found The Vine (a national gathering for young Christians), work in urban ministry for children and youth, and then move to Rwanda with her husband and two other families to launch Karisimbi Business Partners

www.gordon.edu/president

Twitter: @GordonPres

IN EACH ISSUE

INSPIRATION (the first management consulting firm in the country). Five years ago she returned to her alma mater, where she now helps foster a holistic learning experience that equips students to serve and lead wherever God is calling them.

Or take Andrew Walker ’01, a successful health and wellness leader who recently joined Gordon’s Center for Balance, Mobility and Wellness as wellness director. As a student, he was mentored by Dr. Sean Clark ’88 (kinesiology), who co-founded the Center 15 years ago with his own Gordon mentor, Dr. Peter Iltis (kinesiology).

Together, the three colleagues are in the business of helping aging adults lead active, healthy lives. You’ll read more about their work and the Center’s anniversary year on page 36.

Stories of sustained mentorships abound at Gordon. You’ll explore a few of them in the feature story, beginning on page 20: A 20year artistic partnership. A political science pair tackling affordable housing. Psychology researchers inventing codes. A social work duo offering shalom in innovative ways. And Harvard immunology researchers with layers of Gordon connections.

More than a buzzword, mentorship is a catalyst for transformation. You are the company you keep. I’m continually encouraged that at Gordon we’re in good company—caring colleagues, mentors and friends working together for the cause of Christ and the greater good.

Encouraging the Individual, Forming a Family Peter Amadon ’04, Head Tennis Coach “In tennis, you can’t hide from winning or losing,” says Head Coach Peter Amadon ’04. That’s why it’s so important “for team and family to step in and reassure each other that that’s not what your identity is rooted in.”

A student-athlete during his time at Gordon, Amadon was drawn to the independent nature of tennis—the mental battles, one-on-one competition and character-revealing moments. But with the appeal of a highly individualized sport comes the pressure of responsibility.

Both wins and losses fall entirely on a player rather than on the team.

“The opportunity to succeed presents itself in the way that you respond after you lose a point,” he now tells his team. “I want my players to understand healthy ambition and what their potential can be if they’re fueled by the right source—a desire to glorify God in all that they do.”

An important step in that direction is to foster a familial spirit within the team. On their annual team spring break trip, for example, the players share personal stories; at matches they celebrate victories and sympathize in losses together; and they lift each other up in prayer.

“It’s so much more important,” Amadon says, “that they get a consistent message that they are loved by their ‘family’ who knows them the best, and knows who they are inside and out.”

That familial approach extends beyond the courts. Whether writing a reference or encouraging their faith, Amadon leaves his door open for these players, with whom he spends roughly 500 hours per year.

“It’s such a blessing,” he says, “because I can learn from them and also just be there with them as they walk through four of the most impactful years of their lives.”

D. Michael Lindsay is the eighth president of Gordon College and professor of sociology. He’s forever grateful for George Gallup Jr.’s friendship— and for the many times George treated him to ice cream at Halo Pub.

FALL 2018 | STILLPOINT 7

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SPOTLIGHT

Alana Mann ’19 TRADING IN THE END TIMES FOR A NEW BEGINNING AT AGE 16, ALANA FARLEY WENT UP TO THE AIRPORT COUNTER IN KAUAI, HAWAII, AND BOUGHT A PLANE TICKET TO CALIFORNIA. SHE HAD A ROLLING BACKPACK FILLED WITH HER BELONGINGS AND WAS HOPING TO LEAVE THE ISLAND BEFORE THE MISSING CHILD REPORT CAUGHT UP WITH HER. But this is not where her story begins.

For the first 10 years of her life, Alana lived in her own kind of paradise. On a farm in rural Kilauea, Kauai, she’d wake to the crow of a rooster, ride her bike to the beach, swim in the ocean and tend to her garden. But there was one thing that made her childhood wildly unconventional.

She didn’t go to school. Alana’s biological parents were convinced they were living in the end times and saw education as an adversary. Alana taught herself to read using what she had available. She biked to the local thrift store and found solace in books like Pride and Prejudice, The Chronicles of Narnia and the Nancy Drew series.

Although she wasn’t allowed to go to school or make friends, her parents afforded her one small freedom—she could take riding lessons at a nearby stable. In exchange, she cared for the horses, owned by a couple in California.

The horses kept her sane, especially when things started to fall apart in her early teens.

When she was 14, her family lost their house and joined a commune.

“We were living in a shed made of metal and wood,” she said. “We’d wake up in the morning and try to find food.” And the commune moved a lot, which meant that they didn’t always have access to water, shade, shelter or plumbing.

8 STILLPOINT | FALL 2018

The one steady piece of Alana’s life was the horse farm. She spent as much time as she could with the horses and the couple who owned them—Chris and Kriss Mann, two CPAs with no children of their own, who visited the island four times a year. For a long time, the Manns didn’t know what was really going on in the life of the girl who loved their horses.

“In the beginning, I also lied to the Manns because I was told to,” Alana says. “I was told not to tell anyone that I didn’t have an education. I was not to tell anyone about what was happening in my family. I told the Manns that I was homeschooled.”

As Alana got older, she became more aware of the things she didn’t know, and it made her angry. At the same time, her world continued to get smaller, as her family moved to a more remote area and lost touch with family and friends.

It was a simple “no”—a word that, in so many ways, was the mantra of her childhood—that set her off on a journey 2,600 miles across the Pacific. She’d been invited to a birthday party—one that her biological parents had originally agreed to let her go to, and yet, on the day-of, told her she wasn’t allowed.

In that moment, none of it made sense. No friends. No house. No school.

IN EACH ISSUE

So she left. In Honolulu, during a layover, she called the Manns—letting them know she was on her way to California. When she arrived, they took her in as their own daughter. Eventually—after a lengthy legal process—the Manns officially adopted Alana, giving her a life free of neglect and verbal abuse.

That first year in California, Alana Mann had tutors in every subject. She went to an accelerated learning center and got accepted into a small charter school—a miracle, considering she had no official transcripts.

For two years, she took 10 classes at a time, eventually moving into a larger charter school. There, she got on the honor roll, received awards for her academic achievement and, at 19, graduated from high school and applied to college. Out of the dozens she visited, God led her to Gordon.

Today, she’s very much that same person who got on a plane to California six years ago—full of vision and nerve. At Gordon she’s been a finalist in the Social Venture Challenge; a global intern with Jones, Lang, La Salle in Hong Kong; a participant on the Northern Ireland mission trip; and the founder of a new nonprofit called Ticket of Tomorrow, which creates mentor-mentee relationships between college students and underprivileged youth through big events like Red Sox games. In a way, it’s a reflection of the Manns’ care for Alana.

With gratitude and moxie she says, “People ask me how I did it. It can’t be anything else but God, how everything works out. I truly believe that.” www.ticketoftomorrow.org

FALL 2018 | STILLPOINT 9

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NEWS: ON THE GRAPEVINE

CAMPUS NEWS AND HAPPENINGS

SPEAKER

Bringing Forgiveness into the Psychological Canon During the 2018 Franz Lecture, Dr. Everett Worthington, counseling psychologist and professor at Virginia Commonwealth University, came to talk about forgiveness in a lecture titled “Helping People Reach Forgiveness in Every Willing Heart, Home and Homeland.”

Worthington shared about a personal tragedy that gave him an opportunity to use his forgiveness research on himself. He has found that, after decades of psychological research on the subject, forgiveness dramatically improves the health of the mind and soul.

Brand 2.0: A New Direction for Institutional Messaging

SPEAKER

Bishop Claude Alexander Comes to Campus for DEEP FAITH Week In February, DEEP FAITH Week speaker Bishop Claude Alexander, senior pastor of the Park Church in North Carolina, framed his sermon series in response to the popular Netflix original series 13 Reasons Why—a story about a teenage girl who outlines the reasons for ending her life. In examining her struggles alongside those of biblical figures, Alexander reminded the Gordon community of the reasons we have to live. “You’re not here by accident. You are not here by happenstance. You are here by divine intention . . .

God wanted you and God wants you to live.”

10 STILLPOINT | FALL 2018

The College completed a year-long brand project involving market research and feedback from a wide net of alumni, parents, church leaders, students, faculty and staff (a special thanks to all readers who were involved). Notable changes include retiring “Lives Worth Leading” as an institutional slogan and implementing a new “flexible branding” strategy, which doesn’t rely on a single tagline and instead tailors the Gordon story to authentically connect with each audience and underscore the many values of the Gordon experience.

ON THE GRAPEVINE

You don’t need to wait until STILLPOINT arrives to get the latest on Gordon. News and stories are published all year long on the College blog, The Bell (named for the iconic structure that sits just outside the A. J. Gordon Memorial Chapel). stories.gordon.edu

World Vision Canada CEO and Gordon Alumnus Shares Global Insights CONCERT

Grammy Award-winning Rap Artist Lecrae Performs at Gordon Lecrae, the Christian hip-hop artist known for reclaiming the humanity of hip-hop in light of his Christian faith, performed in March as a part of Connect 2018—a college visit weekend for prospective students looking to explore their callings. The concert was open to the wider community and to Gordon students, faculty and staff.

Gordon Launches Graduate Finance Program and Forum for Finance Professionals To make deeper connections with the financial community in Boston and develop a generation of technically proficient and civically minded leaders in the finance sector, Gordon launched a Master of Science in Financial Analysis program in January and the Finance and Faith Forum in May. The forum invites finance professionals in the Boston area who are interested in gathering together to explore the integration of faith, work and economics.

World Vision Canada CEO Michael Messenger ’90 visited campus in March for an installment of “Conversations with the President.” Messenger stressed that forming relationships with people across the world often leads to a better understanding of the policies and decisions that cause poverty. “The world is shifting,” he said, and “we can’t just fix the symptoms of poverty in the developing world; we also have to look at the policies that cause poverty or actually keep people poor . . . that’s become a really critical weapon in our arsenal of trying to fight poverty.”

SPEAKER

How Global Trade Impacts the Developing World During the Center for Faith and Inquiry’s annual John Mason Lecture, Professor of International Economics at Brandeis University Dr. Judith Dean presented a case for the critical role of open global trade in reducing poverty in the developing world. In her talk, “Why Open Global Trade Really Matters for the World’s Poor,” she emboldened listeners to educate fellow citizens about the benefits of U.S. participation in an open global market and to stand up against policies that allow wealthy oligarchies to hoard benefits of open trade.

Students Recognized in National Poetry Competition Kara Applegate ’18 and Christie Clause ’20 were recognized by the National Federation of State Poetry Societies’ College Undergraduate Poetry competition. In April, the poets received first and fifth place honorable mentions among submissions from students at schools like Stanford and Columbia. Mark Stevick, creative writing professor and poetry mentor, encouraged the two to enter the contest. Clause says, “If I were to take every quality that I look for in a professor who is working with me on my writing, I would end up with Mark Stevick . . . he works with his students so closely that you forget he is a professor to many students.”

FALL 2018 | STILLPOINT 11

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SPECIAL EVENT

Founder’s Festival In celebration of those who have been part of building the College’s strong foundation, Founder’s Weekend engaged the Gordon community in a variety of traditions, old and new. The three days of festivities included the Social Venture Challenge; an installment of “Conversations with the President” featuring International Justice Mission’s Chief People Officer Eric Ha; a TED-style speech competition for students; gospel choir performances; and a variety of spring concerts put on by the Department of Music.

SPECIAL EVENT

Findings: A Collaborative, Off-campus Gallery Experience In February, five sophomores and their professional art mentors, comprised of alumni and former faculty, displayed their artwork at Beverly’s Gallery 95 at Porter Mill. Their work was a result of a five-month-long mentorship organized

by Gordon’s Art Department. Chair David West says, “Findings gets our students experience outside the walls of the school and lets them see that a professional gallery is within their reach.”

Retirement Reception and Tribute Program for Dr. Marv Wilson During a night of Fiddler on the Roof parodies, Old Testament one-liners, Yiddish slang, Hebrew prayers and words from friends, the Gordon community celebrated the retirement of Dr. Marv Wilson (biblical studies and Christian ministries) with a tribute program to honor his 55 years at Gordon and Barrington. As a parting gift, Wilson was given a “gold-plated” overhead projector, a custom drawing by Bruce Herman (art) and five enormous scrapbooks containing hundreds of letters and photos sent in by students, alumni, faculty and staff. When reflecting on Wilson’s inexhaustible influence, Roger Green, professor emeritus of biblical and theological studies, said it best: “In Fiddler on the Roof, Tevye sings ‘If I Were a Rich Man’ and imagines all of things he’d be able to do were his dream to come true . . .

If Marv Wilson were to suddenly become a rich man . . . he could not provide any more from those riches than he has already done by simply being Marv Wilson.”

Symposium 2018: A Week with N. T. Wright Gordon welcomed N. T. Wright, one of the world’s leading New Testament scholars, for a week-long visit to campus as the 2017–18 Malcolm Reid Distinguished Visiting Scholar in the Humanities.

Between Chapel talks on Monday and Wednesday, Wright lectured in classes (such as Christian Theology, and Trinity and Christology) and spent time with several student groups. On Thursday afternoon, Wright delivered the keynote address, “Signposts from a Suffering World,” for the 2018 Symposium hosted by the Center for Faith and Inquiry.

12 STILLPOINT | FALL 2018

ON THE GRAPEVINE

CONFERENCE

Students Explore Calling and Career at Second Annual Conference

Gordon Joins MLK50 Scholarship Initiative In early April, to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., the College offered one of 12 spots in the Clarendon Scholars program—which covers 75 percent of the cost of attendance—to a student in the midSouth for fall 2019. This was part of a larger scholarship effort involving 20 other Christian institutions marking the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination by giving $1.5 million collectively for the MLK50 Dream Forward Scholarship Initiative.

More than 140 Gordon students gathered for the second annual Calling and Career Conference—a weekend of vocational exploration and professional development, organized by the College’s new Career and Connection Institute in conjunction with Student Life. The conference featured guest speakers, discussions with faculty and staff, insights from more than 40 alumni, and practical opportunities for students to develop their résumés, polish networking and interview skills, and discern next steps in their vocational journey.

SPECIAL EVENT

Musicianspace Takes First Place at the Social Venture Challenge As You Like It: Norm Jones’ 50th Production In April, Shakespeare’s comic love story As You Like It marked the 50th production

by Norm Jones (theatre) at Gordon. Jones moved the play’s setting from France to the Smoky Mountains and the American South. Jones says, “In As You Like It there is a distinction between the city and the country.

The people from the city make assumptions about the people from the country. The play feels very contemporary to me. We make these blanket assumptions about other people and it leads to a lack of community and understanding in the world.”

At the fifth annual Social Venture Challenge, Caleb Britton ’21 and Sarah MacHardy ’20 won the first-place prize of $5,000 in seed money for Musicianspace, which gives people with disabilities the opportunity to make music using assistive technology and computers. Britton and MacHardy have been testing Musicianspace at the Northeast Arc day program in Danvers, MA.

National Honor for The Tartan In April, the Society of Professional Journalists honored Gordon’s student newspaper, The Tartan, with a 2017 Mark of Excellence Award. The awards recognize the best collegiate work in more than 50 categories across a variety of media: newspapers, magazines, art/graphics, radio, television, online and videography. The Tartan earned top recognition as the national winner for indepth reporting (small school category) and will be recognized at the Excellence in Journalism conference, September 27 through 29, in Baltimore, MD.

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FACULTY WORK Accomplishments During the winter, David West (art) exhibited work at the University of Central Arkansas’ Baum Gallery in Pathways: An Exhibition of Large Format & Experimental Printmaking. West was also invited to join a small group of artists for the Art Lovers’ Soirée, an event put on by Art Space 86 in Jackson, MS. In January, Bruce Herman and Jim Zingarelli (both art) displayed drawings in 5x5 Small Works Invitational Exhibit at Westmont College’s Ridley-Tree Museum of Art. Zingarelli was also the guest lecturer at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, for the Ockenga Fellows of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in April. Through represented regions, eras and artistic movements, he led the group on a global study of cultural perceptions.

Work by William Franson (art) was displayed at the Soho Photo Gallery International Exhibition in New York City, and at the 13th Annual National Exhibition at fotofoto gallery in Huntington, NY, during the spring.

Jean Sbarra-Jones (art) was chosen to display work in the International Juried Show at Beacon Gallery in Boston, mid-March through late April.

Reconnect with your professors during Faculty Connections September 28–29 www.gordon.edu/ homecoming

David Lee (physics) was recently issued his 19th, 20th and 21st U.S. patents—the 19th in December 2017: #9,856,623, “Methods for Shaping High Aspect Ratio Articles from Metallic Glass Alloys Using Rapid Capacitive Discharge and Metallic Glass Feedstock for Use in Such Methods”; the 20th in May: #9,963,763, “Production of Metallic Glass by Melt Deposition”; and a meaningful 21st in June, co-created with Danielle Duggins ’11: #10,006,112, “Fluxing Method to Reverse the Adverse Effects of Aluminum Impurities in Nickel-based Glass-forming Alloys.”

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John Sarrouf (sociology and social work) facilitated a dialogue, “Guns: An American Conversation,” sponsored by several media organizations at the Newseum in Washington, D.C. Over two days of intensive dialogue and training alongside the March for Our Lives, 21 individuals discussed the culture of guns in the U.S. The discussion toward shared understanding continued on Facebook with a larger group of 120.

In the spring, Bryan Auday (psychology) was named a fellow of the New England Psychological Association for “significant and sustained contributions to NEPA and psychology in the New England region in the areas of research, application and/or teaching.”

FACULTY WORK

Publications

Conferences In January, Jennifer Hevelone-Harper traveled to Rome to present a paper, “Introducing Evangelical Millennials to the Global Church,” at Notre Dame’s World Religions World Church Conference, “The Whole is Greater than Its Parts: Christian Unity and Interreligious Encounter Today.”

Bryan Auday co-edited the eighth edition of Magill’s Medical Guide, published in January. The five-volume set includes over 900 articles on a wide range of topics in medicine, and includes six articles co-authored by Auday and six Gordon students.

Jonathan Gerber (psychology) wrote on “Social Comparison Theory” for the multivolume Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Difference (Springer Reference), available in 2019. His article was published last December and was featured as an article spotlight in APA Journals. Gerber also published a case study on meta-analysis in SAGE Research Methods Cases.

In early 2018, Assistant Professor of Education Mindy Eichhorn (pictured above) published “When the Fractional Cookie Begins to Crumble: Conceptual Understanding of Fractions in the Fifth Grade” in the International Journal of Research in Education and Science.

Amy Hughes (biblical studies and Christian ministries) and her former doctoral supervisor, George Kalantzis (Wheaton College), co-authored 12 essays in the “Early Church Period” section of Reading Christian Theology in the Protestant Tradition (T&T Clark), published in January.

In February, Ellen Ballock (education) published “Towards a More Loving Assessment Practice,” which explores the relevance of loving attitudes in assessing students’ work, in the International Christian Community of Teacher Education Journal. In March, her article “Reflections on Disappointing Student Work” was published in College Teaching.

Ruth Melkonian-Hoover and Paul Brink (both political science) contributed chapters to Faith in a Pluralist Age, which was edited by Kaye Cook (psychology) and released in March.

Jeff Miller (theatre arts) published “Review of Berkeley Street Theatre: How Improvisation and Street Theater Emerged as a Christian Outreach to the Culture of the Time” in the April issue of Africanus Journal.

In the spring, Pilar Pérez Serrano (languages and linguistics) published En el sotobosque de su ser, a poetry translation of Christine Weeber’s In the Understory of Her Being (Finishing Line Press). She also wrote “Ser humano y ser en crisis: la involución del personaje en el teatro de Juana Escabias” for Juana Escabias: estudios sobre su teatro. Una investigación transoceánica (Editorial Benilde).

In March, Lynn Marcotte (English) and student writing tutors attended the Northeast Writing Center Association Conference at College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA. They presented a workshop on “The Transformation of Writing Tutor Training: An Internship Model in the Digital Age.” Janet Arndt (education) presented the paper “Early Childhood Educator Preparation: Teaching UDL with Technology for Equal Access” at the Society for Information Technology and Teacher Education 2018 Conference held in Washington, D.C., in March.

Kaye Cook (psychology) presented a paper in April at the Christian Association for Psychological Studies Conference in Norfolk, VA. “Understanding self- and other-forgiveness in context: Religion, relationships and the media” was based on Cook’s research with Grace Chiou (communication arts), Carter Crossett ’18 and Adila deSouza ’18 and funded by the Provost’s Summer Research Fellowship Program.

In the spring, Ute Possekel (history) presented a paper at the “Arguing Against: Logical Reasoning and Arguments in Religious Controversies (Eighth–Tenth Centuries)” conference in Vienna, Austria. Possekel’s paper was titled “‘If your truth is better than mine, enlighten me!’ Argumentative strategies in the correspondence between Eliya and Leo of Harran.”

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Spring Semester Sabbaticals

Oleksiy Svitelskiy

Mike Jacobs

Oleksiy Svitelskiy (physics) kickstarted two projects funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF). The grant also provided opportunities to develop capabilities of his laboratory to enhance teaching and learning.

Assistant Professor of Political Science Mike Jacobs (pictured above, left) explored the potential for a seminar in the Baltics during his sabbatical. Establishing contacts abroad, Jacobs met with government agencies and U.S. Embassy officials to lay groundwork for the program, which he hopes to launch in 2020.

In collaboration with Towson University on the first project, Svitelskiy explored properties of electronics and photonics materials when their dimensionality reduces from bulk to thin films and thin wires—for example, fiberglass in the form of wool for thermal insulation, versus as brittle window glass. Gordon students are using Svitelskiy’s lab in the Ken Olsen Science Center to study elasticity of ferroelectric films and structures.

An NSF grant of $203,000 over three years is a reward for the long-term efforts of Svitelskiy and his students on developing this Gordon laboratory.

Svitelskiy also pursued his ideas on sorting microparticles, which can have applications in medicine, biology and engineering. “The sorted particles can be, for example, drug particles that have to be delivered to the necessary part of the body at the right time,” he says. Students from Gordon and Boston University will work together in this collaborative project under the second NSF award, of which Svitelskiy’s portion constitutes $326,000 for three years.

Svitelskiy also planned future projects, including one with David Lee (physics), studying fundamental properties of metallic glasses fabricated on campus. This project attracted the interest of colleagues at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory, earning Svitelskiy one week at their lab with top-ofthe-line scientific equipment. The experiments, which revealed a new physical effect yet to be described, offers the potential for Svitelskiy and the College to take leadership in a research project.

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Students would use the Baltics as a setting to examine international business and geopolitics: Estonia’s e-government and encouragement of start-ups; U.S. diplomats’ work with Latvian investment promotion officials to build commercial bridges between the two countries; and Lithuania’s ascension to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development, which is spurring the country toward reining in corruption.

As former Soviet states and NATO partner countries, the Baltics are fertile territory for the study of geopolitics. “One can’t understand the Baltic countries without delving into their communist past,” Jacobs says. “Overall, the Baltic states are youthful, optimistic countries yearning to demonstrate their developed political institutions.”

Continuing the research he conducted for his dissertation at the University of Nevada, Reno, Jacobs worked with his former Ph.D. advisor on an article about bilateral investment treaties, analyzing the international treatment of treaties’ terms and conditions.

And, after months of research, Jacobs attended the Christians in Political Science conference at Covenant College to present a paper on “Two Kingdoms Theology.” His work considered the nature of Christians’ engagement with politics in light of this theology, which says that Christ separately rules over creation as creator and sustainer, and over the Church as savior and redeemer.

FACULTY WORK

Jennifer Hevelone-Harper

Elaine Phillips

Mark Stevick

The main objective of sabbatical for Jennifer Hevelone-Harper (history) was a book on medieval spirituality.

On sabbatical, Elaine Phillips (biblical studies and Christian ministries) trotted the globe.

True to his discipline, Mark Stevick (English language and literature) spent much of his sabbatical writing.

Cloud of Witnesses: Spiritual Parents from the Early and Medieval Church tells the stories of eclectic Christians throughout history, expounding upon the significance and influence of their eras— Augustine of North Africa, ascetics of the desert and Celtic monks, to name a few.

The centerpiece of her time was research at Tyndale House in Cambridge, England. She tapped into the wisdom of international scholars and utilized world-class resources at the University of Cambridge Library to complete two articles for Volume II of the Geography Commentary (Lexham Logos) dedicated to the book of Acts.

The highlight was researching and beginning to draft a play about migrant farmers in Texas during the late 1970s and 1980s. To capture the larger issues they faced, Stevick focused on a case involving ill-treated onion harvesters who were sued for protesting their work conditions. The workers were charged with “attempting to extort minimum wage.”

She was intrigued by Tyndale House’s maps of Israel from the British Mandate period. Studying an old map of Jerusalem and an arcane Latin source from the 17th century “opened another small window of our understanding of the location of the pool of Siloam (John 9),” she says. “I’m hoping it will coalesce into an article.”

Because Stevick anticipates that it will be a verbatim play—using direct quotes from those involved in the episode—he spent time locating individuals to interview.

“The vision of the Church universal—the body of Christ, comprised of believers dispersed both throughout time and across the globe—must be reclaimed by contemporary Christians,” she writes.

Because a number of her chapters focus on figures and events in Italy, HeveloneHarper tested her work on students in the Gordon in Orvieto program.

There, she taught Art and Spirituality in Medieval Italy, based on the content of her four “Italy chapters.” Delving into the worlds of Francis of Assisi, Benedict of Nursia, Catherine of Siena and the development of early Christian art and iconography in Rome, the students previewed her book, examined primary sources and visited the sites related to each topic.

Hevelone-Harper also developed a presentation for the Conference on Faith and History’s 50th anniversary, hosted at Calvin College in the fall. She formed a panel on teaching Islam that consisted of Cana Short ’17, who is a student in Notre Dame’s early Christian studies program, and faculty members from other schools.

Onsite in Israel, Phillips explored the country’s main regions as she taught three intensive field study courses on the historical geography of the Bible.

“In every location,” Phillips says, “we unpack the relevant biblical texts as they have been shaped by the land in which God chose to plant his people.”

In her rare free time, she began research for an advanced field study course in Bible geography.

Phillips also developed and taught a weeklong course for students in Chesterton House, Cornell University’s Center for Christian Studies, for which the students received Gordon credit.

Stevick also worked on publishing a book of poems, many of which revisit aspects of his childhood in Lancaster, PA. “My earliest memories are of the clop and rattle of horse and buggies, and the stink of cow manure, and, in my church, of head coverings and cape dresses and a capella singing,” Stevick says. “For a long time all of that seemed unremarkable, but as I grow older those particulars and commitments seem worth attending to, and perhaps worth reckoning in poems.”

Stevick’s other pursuits included presentations at the Palm Beach Poetry Festival; performances as Nathaniel Hawthorne in The Marble Flock; telling a story for The Moth; developing a narrative storytelling course for the Gordon in Orvieto program; and publishing two poems and an essay—which was a finalist for the Earl Weaver Baseball Prize.

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SPECIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Launching the Career and Connection Institute: Preparation for Life

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Who am I? How can I know—and live out—God’s call for my life?

What does life hold after college?

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These are questions perpetually on the mindsD of college students—questions that Gordon hopes its students will be better prepared to answer. With the launch of the Career and D.2 Connection Institute, the College is deepening its commitment to and greatly expanding the scope of opportunities for personal and professional preparation.

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The support of a caring, connected Christian community guides students through their discernment and preparation process, and plugs them into a global network.

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Diverse work experiences—in various roles, industries and workplace cultures—help students grow and discern their place in God’s redemptive work around the globe.

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McLellan earned his B.A. and M.B.A. from the University ofOFFIC2 E 23 OFFICE 231 Virginia and his M.Div. from Princeton Theological Seminary.

He is married to Pamela (Britton) McLellan ’98.

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An experienced corporate manager, pastor and entrepreneur, McLellan brings more than 20 years’ experience that includes church planting, launching and selling a software company, working inside large multinationals like Accenture and Engie, and running his own management consulting and deal advisory business.

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Corey McLellan joined Gordon in March of 2018 as the inaugural executive director of the Career and Connection Institute.

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How five student-faculty teams turned scholastic endeavors into sustained mentorships

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SHAPING THE EXPERIENCE

Mentor: A character in Homer’s Odyssey. A coach and confidant.

A sage, seasoned guide.

In academia, mentors are often faculty members who take students under their wings, inviting them to participate in shared scholastic endeavors. As mentors and mentees examine petri dishes and paint masterpieces, they share not only knowledge but pieces of their lives—a new perspective on a challenge, a nugget of relational advice, a nudge to take a risk. By weaving these threads of their personal and faith journeys into their joint academic pursuits, they form a deeper bond—one that often outlasts graduation and carries into a collaborative future.

For College founder A. J. Gordon, it was Dr. John L. Lincoln, professor of Latin language and literature at Brown University.

“Johnny Link,” as he was affectionately called, encouraged Gordon’s voracious appetite for reading, deepened his appreciation for the classics, and enriched his knowledge of Latin and ancient history. Lincoln’s indelible impact was later apparent in Gordon’s widely published books.1 What was true for Gordon and Lincoln remains: Threads that weave together over time are not easily undone. As such, the mark of good mentors endures on their mentees, and mentees on mentors—an inseparable shaping of character and conviction.

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Kevin Belmonte ’90, A. J. Gordon: An Epic Journey of Faith and Pioneering Vision (Bloomington, Indiana: WestBow Press, 2017), 24–25.

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The Art of Seeing the Subtext There comes a time when mentee and mentor meet their antagonist.

For primatologist Jane Goodall and her Ph.D. advisor, Robert Hinde, it was Jane’s lack of formal education and tendency to anthropomorphize. For Helen Keller and her teacher, Anne Sullivan, it was the initial impossibility of communicating. And for Professor of Psychology Kaye Cook (pictured left) and Si-Hua Chang ’16 (pictured right), a psychology and philosophy student at the time, their antagonist was enigma itself.

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SHAPING THE EXPERIENCE

Over the course of three years, Chang and Cook created ways to classify their research—on topics ranging from how the Church has changed to whether women should be ordained to national laws that potentially undermine church practice.

They did so without tools to measure their research or check it for errors. They couldn’t synthesize their data with a universally accepted method or algorithm.

No Periodic Table of Elements, E = mc², graduated cylinders, pipettes, litmus tests or microscopes.

Their data was qualitative—an amalgam of opinions, testimonies and experiences from the people they’d surveyed.

Because these opinions and experiences can’t be quantified, Chang and Cook came up with a way to map them, with the help of other student researchers.

They invented codes—not computer codes or cryptographs, but structures to help them make sense of their data. They looked closely at the words and phrases, trying to identify patterns that might point to something salient about the human experience.

Chang learned to code qualitative research under Cook’s guidance during his first year at Gordon. For the next two years, he continued working as her research assistant—connecting classroom learning to hands-on experience by mapping things like the conservation of old ideas and the integration of new ones, and debating whether and when integration is good.

“It was good to have this experience as an undergraduate, especially as an underclassman,” Chang says in retrospect. “I was taking classes on research methods and statistics. It was much easier to understand a concept because I had something I could map it to in the real world.”

Alongside others like TaylorMarie Funchion ’18, Isabelle Skillen ’18 and Adam Vogel ’13, Chang and Cook would take turns at the white board, picking apart word definitions and pinpointing subliminal themes buried beneath the surface of human speech. They each would argue for codes of their own. Then, together, they would try to come up with a code that transcended their personal biases.

Chang’s exceptional skills in reading the subtext and connecting data points to construct a bigger picture stood out, Cook says. His involvement in her research didn’t just shape the coding process, it also influenced her own theoretical work.

“Si-Hua’s thinking is virtually in everything I did at the time he was around here,” she explains. “Everything he touches he makes better. He’s a very good listener. He has a real ear for subtext. He understands the context for ideas.”

For Cook and Chang, coding is all about the art of subtext—of reading between the lines to find what’s been there all along but is not said explicitly. And like the very human experiences they’re coding through qualitative research, their mentee-mentor relationship is full of subtext.

During the summer research season, Chang and Cook left the lab for a shared lunch each week. They talked about research, but conversations often went beyond that—to things like the challenges that the field of psychology often raises about the Christian faith. In one another, they not only found a fellow researcher or academic, but someone they could bounce ideas off of in the future.

tradition would have it, they met over lunch to catch up.

“We’re very much still sharing ideas,” says Cook. “We talk about perspectivechanging kinds of things.” And, of course, they talk about ongoing research. Chang listens intently and, Cook says, “Lets the ideas wash over him.”

Looking back, now over two years past graduation, Chang says this mentorship experience with Cook gave him exposure to many aspects of professional academic life—a peek behind the curtain that moved him deeper into the world of academia and graduate study.

His plan is to continue on to a Ph.D. program where he can apply his knack for subtext reading and big picture thinking to the real arena of abstract thought: philosophy.

Although the future is still largely uncertain, Cook has every confidence in him.

“I don’t know that Si-Hua learned how to think while he was at Gordon because he was a good thinker when he got here,” she says. “I think he gained direction, clarity or maybe even an ability to carry ideas forward. He’s such a complex person. He has a niche out there, and he’ll find it.”

Chang, now a Master of Philosophy student at Virginia Tech, visited Cook during his spring break last April. As past

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For the Craft and the Creator When Professor of Art Bruce Herman (pictured left) assigned his first-year students to sketch a human torso, his expectations were modest.

But Bryn Gillette ’02 (pictured right) had other plans, returning to class with a seven-painting series inspired by the Book of Ezekiel.

“I was pretty blown away that a student—a freshman—would want to take on such an ambitious project,” Herman says.

“I went way over and above,” Gillette says with a laugh.

Twenty years later, the mentor and mentee are now both ambassadors of artistic knowledge—Herman as Gordon’s Lothlórien Distinguished Chair in the Fine Arts, in his 35th year on the faculty; Gillette in his ninth year of teaching, currently as a visual arts teacher at Charlotte Christian School in North Carolina.

Yet Herman and Gillette still find themselves pursuing the perennial question they discussed in their very first meeting following the torso assignment: What does it mean to be a Christian who is an artist?

As an art major and biblical studies minor at Gordon, Gillette struggled to justify the role of art in a world of suffering. “I want to do good in the world,” he recalls telling

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Herman. “I want to care for people, but I just see art in our culture so often as being for the rich and famous.”

The dilemma was one that Herman had encountered, too. He resonated with the earnest student, and their common endeavor sparked a meaningful connection. Herman attempted to model what he calls “righteous priorities”— instead of worshiping the muse, he says, an artist should align his priorities with those of Christ.

“You put your relationships first; you don’t put your art first, and the irony is that you do better art as a result,” Herman says. “If you get your priorities mixed up, you may attain some kind of worldly success, but what does that mean in the long run?

We’re playing for much higher stakes.”

With Herman’s encouragement and a shift in perspective, Gillette continued to pursue art. “It was obvious to me almost from day one that Bryn was in a very small percentage of students who not only were very gifted, but also highly motivated, so I worked him over pretty fiercely,” Herman says.

Herman’s most poignant critique came when he challenged his naturally talented student to genuinely labor over his craft rather than to cavalierly and effortlessly produce nice work. “There will be a season of your life where you don’t just scatter seeds across the top and see what sprouts naturally,” Gillette recalls Herman telling him, “but you take the plow and you dig up this ground and go as deep as you can. And you plant seeds and you water them, and then you see what kind of harvest it produces. Only then will you really know what you’ve been created for.”

SHAPING THE EXPERIENCE

Convicted by Herman’s words, Gillette was again challenged to pay his due respect to art while earning a Master of Fine Arts. Over the course of two years he painted for nearly 40 hours per week, learning to be faithful to his craft. His capstone painting was of a farmer plowing his field.

“I remember sitting on my bed at one point . . . holding my newborn daughter, my three-year-old son running around, my master’s degree finished, with all these paintings about my family, and it hit me,” Gillette says. “‘Bruce called this.’”

Today, Gillette takes seriously his roles as a follower of Christ, husband and father.

In addition to educating high schoolers, his passion for synthesizing art and faith has manifested in myriad ways—for example, in live painting, which he describes as “visual worship.” In settings

like church services and concerts, Gillette prays, “Lord, what are you doing right here, right now in this space of time, and can I capture that?” Another outlet for his work is commissions, in which he captures spiritually meaningful themes to encourage clients.

A particularly significant project for Gillette was developing his Beyond the Ruins series to benefit Haiti, a country close to his heart. To raise awareness about its natural disasters and raise money for its restoration, Gillette produced 12 door-sized paintings that creatively depict the nation’s seven spheres of influence: government, religion, education, business, family, the arts and the media.

traditions of the icon and the portrait in what he describes as “a conversation.”

Although they no longer live close by each other, the two “Kingdom-hearted artists,” as Gillette termed them, remain in frequent communication to discuss everything from their careers to their personal lives.

“I think Bruce and I so resonated because I could see in him so much of my own future and who the Lord was calling me to become,” Gillette says. “He became an archetype who I could very easily follow because of who he was.” www.bruceherman.com www.bryngillette.com

Practicing what he preaches, Herman’s most recent project, a series of portraits entitled Ordinary Saints, explores the liminal space between the artistic

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An Experiment in Multilayered Mentorship The research team stayed in Boston the night before to be sure they were on time to begin the experiment at 7 a.m. sharp. Sixteen hours and only a few 10-minute breaks later, they closed the doors of the Allergy and Inflammation Lab at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center behind them and headed back to Gordon. Road construction delayed their drive and narrowed the short window of sleep they’d get before returning to work.

But Assistant Professor of Biology Dr. Evangeline “Angie” Cornwell (pictured right) and Courtney Olbrich ’18 (pictured center) shook off the sleeplessness, poured an extra cup of coffee and slipped their lab coats back on. Why? “There are patients on the other end of it,” says Olbrich. “This is helping people.”

Cornwell and Olbrich work in the lab of Dr. Lisa Spencer ’95 (pictured left), assistant professor of medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, a teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School—Cornwell as visiting scientist and Olbrich as research assistant.

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The team studies a type of white blood cells called eosinophils, which help fight infections.

“They have roles in healthy people as well as in disease, and we don’t fully understand what their roles are,” explains Spencer. Her lab investigates the function of eosinophils in the rise of allergies, specifically food allergies.

The Cornwell-Olbrich-Spencer team met just a few years ago when Cornwell and Olbrich were both in their first year at Gordon as a new faculty member and first-year student, respectively. As a biology (pre-health concentration) student, Olbrich was searching for outlets to apply what she was learning in the classroom. As a new faculty member, Cornwell was searching for collaborative research opportunities. And Spencer was looking for Gordon students and faculty to join her research.

Thus began a multilayered mentorship of people helping people help people. “I’m mentoring my

SHAPING THE EXPERIENCE

mentor a new crop of Gordon student interns as well as graduate students and post-docs as they navigate experiments in Spencer’s lab.

“It’s really trickling down,” Olbrich says.

“It’s a neat and unique experience for everyone that’s involved.”

For Olbrich, the work always comes back to the people—the ones who helped her, the ones she’s helping and ultimately the ones benefitting from the research. With a long-term goal of becoming a medical doctor, Olbrich says this stint in clinical research is helping her understand an important aspect of medical advancement so she can better serve future patients.

students,” says Cornwell of Olbrich and others, “but Lisa is also mentoring me, and then Lisa has had many mentors as well.”

“I encountered the same type of faculty devotion while I was there,” says Spencer of her time at Gordon. “I had many mentors at Gordon—that’s what made Gordon stand out,” she continues, citing Drs. Dick Wright and Russ Camp in biology, Dr. Jack Haas and Professor Irv Levy in chemistry, and Dr. Valerie Gin in kinesiology (“Coach Gin,” as Spencer, a former softball player, calls her).

For Spencer, these relationships were about integrating faith “straight through to every aspect—in and out of the classroom, on and off the field,” she says. “Being able to see people who are living out their faith in all aspects of

life is empowering. You call upon those memories later on, when it becomes a little more real.” And today, “those connections continue to grow.”

Likewise, Spencer and Cornwell are modeling that same faith-in-action approach for Olbrich. “I see them both as mentors for different things,” says Olbrich.

Spencer has modeled what it means to be “a woman of faith in an environment that’s very much non-Christian.” And “Dr. Cornwell really taught me all the basics of research. Had I not worked with her first, I would never have been allowed to go into Dr. Spencer’s lab,” she laughs.

Now Olbrich—who started in Spencer’s lab as a student intern funded through the Provost’s Summer Research Fellowship at Gordon, and was hired full-time as a research assistant after graduation—will

Between the research and the patient lie many papers, presentations and conferences. Earlier this year, the team published a paper about one outcome of their research: “We discovered a new subset of eosinophils in the small intestines,” explains Olbrich, “which plays a role in colitis and Crohn’s Disease and celiac and all these diseases that we are trying to figure out how to cure.”

They have also presented their research at the International Eosinophil Society’s meeting in Sweden; Sigma Xi (scientific honor society) meetings; the American Chemical Society conference; and the American Academy of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology conference.

“I see this as a way to better bridge the gap between academic learning in the classroom and actually being able to transition into being a productive member of the workforce,” says Cornwell.

Spencer adds, “Mentoring is absolutely invaluable for their experience.”

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Reimagining Shalom Kelly (Connolly) Palmer ’13, LMSW, is making welcome mats. They say things like Howdy, Hi there and The Colemans. It’s a big change, given that just two years ago she was in Lesvos, at the epicenter of the refugee crisis in Greece— working alongside the very people once nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize for rescuing, feeding and offering shelter to thousands of shipwrecked refugees just off their shores.

It was in Lesvos—after months of distributing hot meals to refugee families, cleaning up debris from refugee boat landings and prepping short-term mission teams to work in the refugee camps— that Palmer (pictured left) hit the “red zone”: what she describes as one of three professional burnouts that happened in the five years following her graduation from Gordon.

The other two burnouts were triggered by secondhand trauma experienced during her Master of Social Work internship with International Justice Mission and her work resettling refugees in the area around Fort Worth, TX, with Catholic Charities. Although the work was deeply fulfilling, the grave injustices and trauma Palmer witnessed on a daily basis took a significant toll on her.

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After years of heartbreak, Palmer decided to take a yearlong soul sabbatical and pour her time into founding a lettered goods company, Palmer Lettering Co. Although she now spends much of her day calligraphing and painting watercolor place cards, thin-lined Moleskine notebooks and welcome mats, she’s still participating in God’s redemptive narrative. In an age of conflict and crisis, Palmer is furnishing front doors with warm welcomes and an invitation to community.

Palmer’s choice to swap her spot on the front lines of social justice for a world of paintbrushes and welcome mats was largely influenced by Professor of Social Work Sybil Coleman (pictured right), her longtime mentor, professor and friend.

The two met in Coleman’s Intro to Social Work class. At the time, Palmer was a sophomore at Westmont College and had come to Gordon for a semester through the Christian College Consortium exchange program. “I can still see where she sat,” Coleman says. “She came in with a passion to learn and care for persons at risk. I saw it immediately and was interested in what the Lord had in mind for this woman who I thought I was never going to see again.”

When Palmer returned to Westmont the following semester, she felt God calling her back to Gordon. So she transferred, took all of Coleman’s courses and worked as Coleman’s teaching assistant for three semesters. Then, seven years after that initial social work class—when Palmer was resettling refugees and finding herself in the red zone for the third time—she

SHAPING THE EXPERIENCE

consulted Coleman, who had so often been “a true north for me in places of confusion,” Palmer says.

“Social work often came at the expense of the rest of my life,” says Palmer. “In having Sybil’s life to look back on, I had this model of someone who was engaged in the work of serving people but could still be whole. I knew that I had to step out completely in order to start tending to and healing the parts of me that had been neglected along the way.”

One part of Palmer’s healing came from Coleman’s help in reframing the whole idea of service—that freedom in Christ didn’t come from embodying the “martyr/savior complex” that she had held onto. In order to serve in a way that didn’t feel so heavy, Palmer had to learn to let a few things go.

“I think part of our learning is to look at what we’ve carried as survival tools and put the ones we don’t need away,” says Coleman. “We get to an age or a stage in life when what served us earlier no longer serves us. We keep carrying it with us when we should be abandoning it. I saw Kelly’s willingness to look at what tools she would carry with her.”

Even though her tools have changed, Palmer is still working toward God’s vision of justice—something she likens to shalom, the act of bringing everything into right relationship with one another, where everything is given the space for maximum flourishing.

Shalom is something others are noticing, too, when encountering Palmer’s artwork.

Palmer shares, “A friend of mine told me, ‘It’s so interesting that in a world

where there is so much division, you’re engaging in this prophetic act of laying out welcome mats in front of all of these peoples’ doors.’”

As her soul sabbatical nears an end, Palmer plans to keep her paint brush in hand while also pursuing a Master of Divinity. “Social work gave bones and gave a skeleton to my faith,” she says. “And now I’m wanting more of the theological underpinnings.” Along the way, she’ll continue to consult Coleman, both the one that exists in her mind—whispering “Sybil-isms” into her ear like an angel on her shoulder—and the real one who’s only a phone call away. www.palmerletteringco.com

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The Theory of Thriving Growing up in Washington, D.C., Jordan Bellamy ’20 (pictured right) witnessed a cultural shift. As housing prices increased, the socio-economic makeup of her community evolved. What was once a dwelling place for people from many walks of life became less diverse.

These unsettling observations stuck with Bellamy, and eventually fueled her college trajectory. A Clarendon Scholar at Gordon, Bellamy is full-speed ahead chasing her vision for justice that was cultivated at an early age.

When Bellamy arrived at Gordon and met her advisor, Professor of Political Science Paul Brink (pictured left), his immediate reaction was, “Wow. Get out of her way. She’s on a mission.” And he says he’s done a lot of running to keep up since.

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SHAPING THE EXPERIENCE

The self-proclaimed “implementer” chose an academic curriculum that would prepare her to tackle matters of political science with not only the practical tools to fix the how, but with the theoretical framework to understand the why. So, taking advantage of Gordon’s Kenneth L. Pike Honors Program, Bellamy is pursuing a custom-designed major in culture and political philosophy.

“I wanted to see how theory can be applied in a very concrete way,” she says.

Bellamy eagerly pursued the opportunity to explore some of the questions she had encountered growing up when the Center for Public Justice (CPJ) awarded her and Brink one of three Shared Justice StudentFaculty Research Prizes. During the spring 2018 semester, the research duo investigated the effects of the increasing housing prices on the North Shore of Massachusetts, specifically in the city of Lynn. They asked, “What helps make communities thrive?”

On assignment from CPJ to study the effects of a local “social safety net program” through a public justice framework, Bellamy chose to research the housing choice voucher program within Section 8 of the Fair Housing Act of 1968. The voucher program is an opportunity for low- and very low-income families, the elderly and the disabled to afford housing in the private market, using vouchers provided by the federal government.

“The ability to participate in a private market is vital,” Brink says, “because that’s the key to allowing and enabling diversity, allowing mixed-income neighborhoods.”

In light of housing prices, though, the need for vouchers has outstripped the supply. Moreover, as rents have increased, the value of the vouchers has become insufficient. Housing remains out of reach for many of the city’s most vulnerable. Meanwhile, Lynn is faced with an additional challenge: spillover from Boston. New development in Boston is encouraging many to look to Lynn for housing, resulting in the displacement of local residents. And because vouchers are based on cost of living, Boston vouchers hold more value than Lynn vouchers, and longtime Lynn residents frequently find themselves outbid.

To gather original research, Bellamy spent hours in Lynn interviewing apartment complex landlords and property managers; members of Lynn Economic Opportunity and CenterBoard; and representatives of civic institutions like churches and the Salvation Army. In addition, Bellamy interviewed the first preservation officer for Washington, D.C., Ana Lopez Van Balen, who leads efforts to preserve the District’s existing affordable housing stock.

As Bellamy’s advisor, Brink has served as a sounding board and editor, helping her find ways to integrate the CPJ’s vision into the study. With a Ph.D. in political science from the University of Notre Dame, Brink’s expertise lies in political theory, especially theories of justice, faith and politics.

Brink directed Bellamy to back up and consider the larger questions that lead to a healthier community rather than applying quick, one-size-fits-all solutions. What does development mean? How should Lynn approach the

issue of economic development in a way that encourages economic diversity?

“There has to be more understanding that each community is going to need a different thing,” Bellamy says. “And unfortunately, to my knowledge, Section 8 as a whole program is using a very one-size-fits-all model.”

Once their project concluded, Brink and Bellamy’s research was published as a scholarly article, “Reframing the Safety Net: The Housing Choice Voucher Program in a Changing Economy,” by Shared Justice. Bellamy also presented her research at the national meeting of Christians in Political Science in Georgia.

Bellamy’s project with the CPJ was not her first exposure to housing policy— the summer following her first year at Gordon, she had interned with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Research with the CPJ, though, provided a unique opportunity, which she describes as “the actual melding between faith and works. It offered a solution of how I could bring my faith into politics, allowing me to live out the grace and truth of the gospel in a way that pragmatically pursues justice.”

“Jordan is clearly a student who has a lot of passion and a lot of drive,” Brink says. “The longer you’re working with a student, the more the role of the professor becomes less of actual content and more of guiding and nudging.”

In turn, Bellamy says her greatest takeaway from Brink (so far) is “to listen more and to be a person who receives information so I can understand the why of a situation in order to identify good questions.”

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Stop by the art gallery reception for Gordon in Orvieto’s 20th Anniversary Exhibit September 28–29 www.gordon.edu/ homecoming

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Receiving the Permesso di Soggiorno 20 YEARS OF GORDON IN ORVIETO Photo Stephen Dagley ’08, Creative Director

As professors in the humanities and arts in the ’80s and ’90s, John Skillen and Bruce Herman (along with friends and colleagues) began noticing a trend: allusions to tradition, in art and in literature, were no longer resonating with students. The need for a renewed understanding of history—an encounter, an experience, with touchstones of the past— became increasingly apparent. To achieve this historical sense, students would need to immerse themselves in a place and culture where history and tradition were still very much alive.

Over a decade of conversations, including during a sojourn in Italy, Skillen and Herman thoughtfully gave shape to an innovative study abroad program, which piloted in 1998 in the small, historic Italian hill-city of Orvieto. The goal was to renew students’ discovery of relationships between the past and the future—mediated by a robust grasp of tradition as a living thing. Skillen served as the inaugural director, establishing trusted relationships with the city and building the curriculum, with help from Herman and Jim Zingarelli (art).

In 2008, Matthew Doll became director, bringing fresh leadership and building on the program’s solid foundation. He strengthened relationships, expanded the pool of visiting faculty, enriched the curriculum and fostered an unparalleled community experience for students in the context of the ancient city.

In the 20 years of its existence, Gordon in Orvieto has welcomed more than 700 students and 50 guest faculty from nearly 30 different institutions. Together, the program founders, shapers and participants have earned the permesso di soggiorno (“permit to stay”) and set the tone of Gordon’s presence in the city—not as tourists but as sojourners committed for the long term. www.orvieto-mostra.com FALL 2018 | STILLPOINT 33

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Vision, Presence and Encounter in Orvieto

By Matthew Doll, Director, Gordon in Orvieto

Sometimes the walls that divide us are five feet thick.

Others, more commonly, do not have a single stone. At the start of every semester at Gordon in Orvieto, Italy, we—incoming students, faculty and staff— stand inside our courtyard at the threshold of the next four months to say, “This here, us together inside this convent, is our community and our classroom. Past our gate, outside in the town and beyond, is our community and our classroom.”

The Catholic Servite order was founded in the 13th century by individuals of wealth and distinction who decided to leave everything behind to serve where they were needed in society. It was a mendicant, or begging order. They surrounded themselves with walls to form a physical structure for sheltered communal life and hospitality. But the walls were never intended to limit the greater call to participate in the society and to be servants.

Twenty years and four locations since the beginning of Gordon’s international study abroad program in Orvieto, we are living as a community inside a Servite convent, with the same motivation of gaining strength and insight inside so that we may go out to become more engaged and “more in communion with the world,” as Thomas Merton said, outside the gate.

Ostensibly, students come to Orvieto to learn how to draw, paint, sculpt and write, and to study art history and literature.

Students are taught by professors from Gordon, scholars from other Christian colleges and universities, and working artists.

But imagine what study and community life might also look like in a new country far from home. Imagine taking only one month-long course at a time, discussing lively historical subjects and traveling to see original works of art in person. In our setting, students have the enormous benefit of learning in context from

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the ubiquitous examples of art and history that surround Orvieto in every direction.

Likewise, imagine de-emphasizing constant social media connectivity in favor of direct communication person-to-person, and working on shared research and collaborative projects rather than pursuing solely individual works. Imagine participating in the daily maintenance of the place where you live, walking as your only means of transportation and expressing empathy and care each day with the same group of people that you have not chosen in advance. Such is the life of students, faculty and staff at Gordon in Orvieto.

Becoming Neighbors

One of our Orvietani neighbors pushed past the convent gate and raced me to the front door with every intention of going in. “We need your students,” she said. “We need their beautiful work.

I know it’s down there. If you don’t go and get it from the art studio, I will.” And she did.

Every spring, numerous holidays and town events allow the city to roll out the colors of each medieval quarter. The civic spirit is unchanged, alive, hundreds of years in the making. One such event is Orvieto in Bloom. Our determined neighbor, who is the unofficial diplomat of our part of the city, rounds up all willing participants to decorate the windows, doors and the piazza (square) in front of the convent with flowers. After discovering how much artwork is made by our teachers and students, the town has called upon us to join for the past several years. It may seem like a simple thing, but more than ever before, we are neighbors. We are expected to participate accordingly, and this represents the degree to which we have earned good friendship in a town where relationships are formed over generations.

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Attend Matt Doll’s Scot Talk September 28–29 www.gordon.edu/ homecoming

From Jerusalem to Orvieto

In 2008, my family relocated from Jerusalem to Orvieto because we valued Gordon’s educational model that integrates art and belief. In Jerusalem, discussing matters of faith is expected, alongside issues of conflict, reconciliation and social justice.

Knowing firsthand, as we did, that in most parts of the world “community” is simply how most people live as a means for survival, we were inspired by the idea that genuine community could take shape each semester while engaging in a serious curriculum that explored possibilities for understanding art, language and history in context.

What we discovered were young people filled not with a superficial understanding of this place or their relationship to one another, but with wonder for the possibilities of being here. They wanted their education and their lives to have continuity, and they expected to encounter it here as much as at home. Today, just as before, students respond to classes that are demanding in material and invite conversation. They open up to the local culture whenever they have the opportunity, and they make remarkable work—translating the hospitality of the town with their own visual and verbal language of description. What has emerged over the years has been the centering of the community life in the curriculum. The students are the heart of the program, and they are blessings to us, to one another and to the community outside our doors.

It is an oft-repeated cliché about study abroad that you have “the opportunity to see the world.” Too often, the most vital component of that statement, “seeing,” is neglected because the opportunity is not charged with any greater intention than academic tourism in a foreign setting. Little is at stake, and few tools are provided to distinguish active and passive vision or

the challenge of sharing life in a culture that is not your own.

Studying abroad is a monumental privilege that has never felt more vital to us than it does right now.

Jean Vanier writes in Tears of Silence, “When we remain locked into our own cultures and certitudes, and our need to become more powerful and wealthy, we also remain oblivious to the weak of our world. It’s not easy to move out from the closed realities of our groups to discover the beauty of our human family, which in so many ways surpasses all the differences of culture and religion . . . Where do we find the courage to let ourselves be challenged and transformed so that we might rise up as messengers of peace and unity?”

At this pivotal moment, we need to be educated by the shared dignity of others and learn from the narratives of their lives to understand our common humanity. At best, the arts and the humanities have always been positioned to counter the shrinking of the imagination and the use of words to diminish others. When living abroad, the awareness of mutual dependence defines nearly everything. It impacts our understanding of more than just our own needs. It is an amplification of vision and one has the sense of being more aware, lucid and vulnerable. In Orvieto, we have taken this to mean that being here, in the fullest sense, requires us to be completely present in every area of our program. When this occurs we see young people “rise up,” ready to depart from this place, “challenged and transformed.” 

Matthew Doll, MFA, is a painter and graphic designer, and the program director of Gordon in Orvieto. A graduate of the Rhode Island School of Design, Doll previously taught drawing at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem and did graphic design for organizations that serve the diverse population of Israel and the West Bank.

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Compassion and Competence: THE CENTER FOR BALANCE, MOBILITY AND WELLNESS AT 15 YEARS

Hear Sean Clark’s Scot Talk September 28–29 www.gordon.edu/ homecoming

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This is what the LORD says: “Stand at the crossroads and look; ask for the ancient paths, ask where the good way is, and walk in it, and you will find rest for your souls.” —Jeremiah 6:16 As the Center for Balance, Mobility and Wellness celebrates its 15th anniversary, “it feels in many ways like we have hit a crossroads,” says Center and Research Director Dr. Sean Clark ’88. He resonates with the passage from Jeremiah: “We’re at this point where God says, ‘Stand at the crossroads and look.’”

When Clark joined Gordon’s faculty in 2000, the College was seeking a flagship program hosted by the Natural Sciences Division. Drawing from the model of a program used in his doctoral studies, Clark proposed what would become the Center for Balance, Mobility and Wellness (CBMW).

The Center launched in 2003 with two goals: provide experiential learning for students (from Gordon and the Boston area) and serve the physical needs of the elderly community. Now, their unique outpatient specialization in neurological and vestibular disorders, such as dizziness and vertigo, engages over 30 students annually and draws over 100 new evaluations and 700 treatment visits per month.

“It’s being a good neighbor,” Clark says. “It’s caring for a part of the population that is growing but is also being kind of shuffled out of society in some ways.”

Clark’s compassionate approach to healthcare infuses the CBMW with what many call its special sauce. “What does it mean for us to provide care that’s different,” he muses, “that’s compassionate, that shows Christ’s love in the moment?”

Reminding his staff and students that patients are not necessarily visiting because they’re having a good day, Clark encourages them to exemplify the fruits of the spirit. “How do you love patients?” he asks the students. “How do you carry the fruit of the spirit into a clinical context?”

At this crossroad of 15 years, the CBMW looks to the future with ambition. Some aspirations are tangible, like acquiring more office space and broadening the existing “Adopt a Grandparent” program, which pairs students and members.

Others are spiritual—deepening students’ theology of suffering and doctrines of hope. Most importantly, Clark says, he aims to extend the Center’s reach in the community.

“There are neighbors around Gordon who have literally been touched, cared for, healed and made better,” he says. “If what you’re doing is not impacting lives, if it’s not having a positive effect, what are you accomplishing?” 

CBMW BY THE NUMBERS

250 referring physicians 100 new clients every month 3,600 monthly wellness direct-care visitors 30+ Gordon students involved annually 7 wellness membership options SERVICES Physical therapy Wellness classes Personal training Comprehensive fitness/wellness assessments Community fall-risk assessments Member engagement programming

IN THEIR WORDS “Through volunteering, I have been able to engage with the community around Gordon and meet many amazing people. Being able to help them achieve their fitness and balance goals, and seeing how much progress is made with each person makes my time spent at the Center worth every minute.”

—Alexandra Minasian ’20 Student volunteer “Through evidence-based, research-driven and student-involved care, we support our community in a peaceful environment by promoting healthy and active aging, independent living and strength for life—for the glory of God and the care of our neighbors.”

—Andrew Walker ’01 Wellness Director “The people are terrific. They make you feel part of the family—even to the degree that if I’m not there for three or four days, I get a call or email to check up. That’s beyond incredible. They have the untrainable qualities that you can’t teach people. The character, integrity, determination—you can’t teach that stuff.”

—Ray Stecker CBMW participant, brain cancer survivor Author of Cancer, Courage and Collateral Damage www.gordon.edu/balance

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Jerusalem and Athens Forum Essay Contest This year’s contest shared Symposium’s theme of “Hope in Suffering”—the transforming power of hope in an earthly home filled with brokenness and pain.

Winning essay Suffering in Hope The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.

—Lamentations 3:22–24 Following my mother’s passing, I cannot remember the number of sympathy cards I received with these words. They were usually emblazoned in nearly illegible script over a photo of flowers or a sunset. It felt like a cheap Band-Aid of sentimentality that sought to hide, rather than heal, my grief. Too often, the call to hope during suffering is presented as a command to ignore or to get over suffering. But hope and suffering are not opposing forces; rather, they exist together, concurrently bringing glory to God. Ten months after my mother’s death, the initial shock had faded.

I felt commanded on every side to hope, but my soul cried out to lament. I needed to feel the loss I had experienced, not hope it away. I had never read through Lamentations before, but as I read, I found a language I had never encountered in the Bible— diametrically opposed to the cliché verses I had seen on cards.

Lamentations is filled to the brim with raw emotion, unmitigated by the muddy hopeful language I always saw paired with any expression of suffering. The author doesn’t try to lighten the weight of suffering, but says he has been brought “into darkness without any light” (3:2). He also doesn’t shy from wrestling with God about his pain—he says that “God has walled me about so that I cannot escape” (3:7). He compares God to a bear tearing him to shreds, a hunter piercing him with arrows. His grief is full and overpowering: “my soul is bereft of peace; I have forgotten what happiness is” (3:17). Here were words digging deep into suffering, validating pain rather than masking it.

Join JAF’s 15th reunion September 28–29 www.gordon.edu/ homecoming

him; let him put his mouth in the dust—there may yet be hope” (3:26–29). This hope was not a call to escape suffering, to ignore and fight it. Rather, hope and suffering occur here concurrently, existing in a paradox which God declares as good. In other words, this passage says it is good to endure the crushing weight of suffering quietly with God, waiting for hope to appear.

The Hebrew word used for hope in verse 29 is different from the other Hebrew words used for hope in the book of Lamentations. ‫ הָוְקִּת‬can be translated as “hope,” but also as “cord.” Its first use in Scripture is in the book of Joshua, describing the scarlet cord Rahab hung from her window as a signal to the approaching Israelites. That cord was Rahab’s only assurance that she and her family would escape the destruction of Jericho even as they lived within its walls—it was her hope. Hope is the rope we fling from our cities doomed to destruction by the hand of God. We cling to this rope believing in God’s faithfulness even as we feel assaulted by him. In this context, the famous passage pasted on sympathy cards is not a platitude but a battle cry. It is not the words of someone who has gotten over his suffering to find hope, but one who is overwhelmed by suffering and still grasping out for hope.

For so long, hope had been a concept that chastised my suffering, telling me “everything is going to be okay” when my world was falling apart. But now hope came alongside me and sat in the darkness with me, pointing quietly to the faithfulness of God. Suffering is not something you hope your way out of, but rather something that you bear with hope. The yoke of suffering that God put on me was good; my need to lament was not to be escaped, but God-given. Abiding in the perfect will of God is not a place that is free from suffering, but one where you gain a fuller vision of God’s faithfulness. In all our suffering, let us sit with the author of Lamentations in our condemned cities, clinging to the scarlet cord of Christ, our hope.  Meredith Free ’20 (Pike double major in art and the history of ideas in fine arts) enjoys

When reading, I skimmed past the sympathy card verses, and came instead to three verses that drastically altered the way I viewed suffering: “It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for a man that he bear the yoke in his youth. Let him sit alone in silence when it is laid on

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reading dead philosophers, swing dancing and exploring garden centers. Over the summer she was an intern for the Carving Studio in West Rutland, VT, helping teach sculptural techniques, and in the spring she will study abroad with Gordon in Orvieto.

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Congratulations to the Class of 2018!

On Saturday, May 19, 2018, Gordon College celebrated its 126th undergraduate and 21st graduate Commencement. There were 352 baccalaureate degrees presented in the arts and sciences, and 93 graduate degrees in education, music education and leadership. Honorary doctorates were presented to Kenneth G. Elzinga, the Robert C. Taylor Professor of Economics at the University of Virginia; Richard Stearns, president of World Vision; and Gordon alumna Pauline (Berfield) Wilson ’57. Distinguished faculty awards were given to Marv Wilson (biblical studies and Christian ministries), who gave the Baccalaureate sermon the night before, and Susan Bobb (psychology). Dale Pleticha (physics) was named as Gordon’s newest member of the emeriti faculty and three professors were recognized as retiring faculty—Marv Wilson, Cliff Hersey (communication arts) and Stan Reczek (physics).

As their parting gift, the senior class gave solar panels for Grace Hall.

BY THE NUMBERS

14

26 116

double majors

293,235

12,000+

Traveled miles to Gordon

33,000

Enjoyed sets of strawberry dippers

198

states represented

Collectively wrote pages for The Great Conversation

Played in and shoveled out

215 inches of snow

107

Attended music and theater performances on campus

countries represented

Spent

9,222 hours soloing on La Vida

227

Completed internships and practicums

1st graduating cohort of graduate leadership

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01984 to 02215 to 20001

Every Thursday night, they dial in from Boston, Wisconsin and Washington, D.C. It’s a tradition that Jesse Adams ’11 (left), James Williams ’10 (center) and Joshua Di Frances x’08 (right) have been carrying on for years. The conference call takes priority—they don’t miss it.

“There’s a shared mindset in the way we want to have a greater impact at every level—in our families, our careers and our faith,” says Jesse.

The friends discuss personal and professional aspects of their lives, taking turns sharing new challenges or opportunities they’re facing, and in turn offering wisdom, encouragement and prayer. “We share ideas, advice and relationship networks to help each other better ourselves and grow in our faith and careers,” says Jesse.

Their shared life began with shared street addresses. Jesse and Josh grew up together in Wisconsin. As students, Jesse and James studied abroad together at 40 STILLPOINT | FALL 2018

the University of Edinburgh. (Josh, who transferred to Boston University during his senior year, came to visit.) These onand-off roommates followed each other from Gordon to Boston and, most recently, to Washington, D.C. In 2010, the trio moved to Kenmore Square (Boston), where Josh was leading operations for a biotech company before being recruited to help lead healthcare and technology strategic partnerships and investments at CVS Health. James was working for the Pioneer Institute, a think tank focused on state-level economic development issues, and Jesse was interning for former Senator Scott Brown.

A year later, in 2011, James and Jesse celebrated Independence Day by moving to Washington, D.C., where James started with the Lewin Group (an economic consulting firm) and Jesse joined the Republican State Leadership Committee (one of the five national committees for the Republican Party).

In various capacities at the Committee and ultimately as executive director of the subsidiary group, the Republican Lieutenant Governors Association, Jesse worked with national- and state-level political leaders—lieutenant governors, attorneys general, secretaries of state and minority and majority legislative leaders— in all 50 states. “While I was there,” he says, “we reached the high-water mark— more Republicans elected than at any time in U.S. history.” And he carried a bit of Gordon with him through the journey: a briefcase gifted by his mentor and friend, the late Dr. David Lumsdaine (political science). “David profoundly impacted my life,” says Jesse. “He was brilliant with his ideas and how he viewed the world.”

After four years in the political arena, Jesse moved back home to Wisconsin in 2015 to grow his family business, Adams Electric, Inc. Josh eventually left Boston for D.C. in 2017, when he was recruited to serve as deputy

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director (later executive director) for the Presidential Innovation Fellows—an elite program that pairs talented technologists and innovators from the private sector with top civil-servants and change-makers.

The Fellows tackle some of the nation’s biggest challenges, such as innovating better solutions to humanitarian assistance in disasters, improving care and access to benefits for veterans, and reimagining cancer clinical trials to increase awareness and access for patients.

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Around the same time that Josh arrived in D.C., James joined the White House Council of Economic Advisers as a research economist. He offers objective economic advice—specifically focused on health issues and tax reform—to the president to support the formulation of domestic and international policy. As Jesse describes it, James “is working alongside some of the world’s finest economic minds, and much of his work is making it into white papers and informing economic policy.”

For current D.C.-dwellers James and Josh, their work on informing policy and improving technology for citizens transcends politics. “There’s amazing work happening behind the scenes within the government at all times,” Josh says. “I try to always be aware of the scale of what we do and the potential for positive impact.”

James cites advice he received as student body vice president from Chris Carlson, dean of student success: “You need to work within the system to improve governance.” So, James says, “We need to respect and learn from one another even if we disagree on policy issues; together we can ensure the common good.”  Do you have your own story of alumni friendships and continued connections to share? Send your ideas to stillpoint@gordon.edu

FALL 2018 | STILLPOINT 41

255 Grapevine Road, Wenham MA 01984-1899 www.gordon.edu

“When joy is a habit, love is a reflex.”

—Bob Goff, author of New York Times best-selling books Love Does and Everybody, Always

Celebrate Gordon alumni and hear unbelievable stories from Bob Goff at the 2018 HOMECOMING AWARDS: A CELEBRATION OF FAITHFUL LEADERSHIP

Friday, September 28, 2018 A. J. Gordon Memorial Chapel Reserve your tickets and view the entire Homecoming Weekend schedule at www.gordon.edu/homecoming

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