For The Record

Submit birth, marriage and obituary records online.

Personal Ads

Meet new friends today!

Advertising

Put your message in front of 33,000 readers.

PDF documents on this site require the free Adobe Reader:

Get Adobe Reader

2008-02-05 issue:

Supportive communities

Mennonite higher education - part 3

by J. Daniel Hess

Print Article

Irene Kanagy, a clinical counselor in Indianapolis, says that some of the best years of her life occurred at Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary (AMBS) in Elkhart, Ind., where, in the context of professors, staff and students, she learned about grace. “I shall never forget Professor Willard Swartley’s praying with me about an impending decision.”

Today there are more than 4,500 students enrolled in Mennonite higher education. If the presidents of those institutions realize a principal goal, current students will learn that “our campuses are part of the body of Christ—supportive communities where knowledge, skills and character are shaped.”

This desired outcome—that students experience community—may be put to the test by asking students and alumni whether in fact they have found on the campuses of our church-related colleges, universities and seminaries a place of fellowship, support and encouragement.

Lydie Assefa (Goshen, 2009) is a good athlete and conscientious student, a graduate of a 3,000-plus urban high school. In her second year at Goshen (Ind.) College, fall sports and a heavy course load more than filled her schedule. One time she worked late into the night to prepare a report for a history class. But the next morning, weary and distracted, she forgot to carry the paper to class, which upset her all the more. The professor gave her permission to bring it to his office at her first opportunity.

After several classes she retrieved her paper and carried it to the office. Unfortunately for her, the prof’s door was open, so instead of slipping it anonymously under the door, she had to hand it to him. As she turned away, the professor said, “Lydie, are you OK?”

The question brought tears and then a calming and encouraging conversation with the prof, who assured her that she was capable of working through the busy time and of completing the class well.

Kurt Horst (Hesston, 1973) is currently the conference minister of Alleghany Mennonite Conference, which means he has pastoral and administrative leadership of 30 congregations, most of them in central and western Pennsylvania.

Kurt remembers Hesston (Kan.) College as a place of personal affirmation, where professors and staff place higher value on who you are than on what grades you make. “I felt that,” he says.

Kurt’s leadership gifts were noticed, affirmed and developed, first as a student and athlete (soccer, basketball, track), then as a “super peer” in dorm supervision and later working with John Lederach, campus chaplain. To this day, college, for Kurt, represents a time of guided leadership development.

Raylene Hinz-Penner (Bethel, 1970) grew up in the Oklahoma panhandle. She was part of a resourceful family and intellectually stimulating congregation but was somewhat alone in the larger community of youth. “At Bethel College [North Newton, Kan.], what sent me on a steep learning curve were the students. The students were good, loved to learn and carried back to the dorm conversations occurring in classes.”



Raylene is now a professor at Washburn University in Topeka, Kan. Her Bethel College experience now influences her approach to education. Raylene says she doesn’t teach subjects; she teaches people. On the first day of creative writing class she asks students to record on an index card their interests and dreams. Several class periods later she brings the cards to class, and with permission of the students, pulls out the cards and reads. Then she says, “Look around you. See your classmates. What an opportunity we have to learn from each other!”

Paul Gingrich (EMC, 1952; AMBS, 1970) is known to the church largely as a missionary to Ethiopia, director of church relations and campus minister at Goshen College, president of Mennonite Board of Missions and peace evangelist for Mennonite Church USA. However, what Paul now sees as his own greatest accomplishment is the mentoring of people who now lead the church.

The fact of his gift of mentoring doesn’t surprise me, because his story of Mennonite higher education is a continuing tribute to those who mentored him. At Eastern Mennonite College, Harrisonburg, Va., Gingrich asked J.L. Stauffer to be his mentor, then discovered that others cared for him and guided him: George R. Brunk, B. Charles Hostetter (“always there for me”), J. Mark Stauffer (“He appointed me assistant director to his chorus”), Dorothy Kemrer; C.K. Lehman (“a great teacher”), R. Ralph Hostetter and others.

In Ethiopia he was profoundly affected by Bible studies led by a visiting professor from Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, Ind., Paul Miller. Later, at AMBS, Paul Gingrich’s mentors were Millard Lind, Howard Charles and John Howard Yoder. At Goshen it was J. Lawrence Burkholder.

Tammy Krause: With guidance of Professor Howard Zehr of Eastern Mennonite University’s Center for Justice and Peacebuilding, Tammy Krause (EMU, 1999) became involved in capital cases in which a federal public defender works on behalf of an alleged offender who faces the death penalty. After having worked in a number of high-profile cases, Tammy was asked to get involved in the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui, who was later convicted of participating in the 9/11 attacks. She went to EMU president Loren Swartzendruber to ask permission to be involved in what could backfire onto the institution. “He asked me to explain what I intended to do. After hearing me, he said, ‘Tammy, you have a responsibility to go.’ ”

Before long, Tammy and federal defender Richard Burr were presenting as partners in EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute.



Tammy, now studying law in England, says, “I can’t overemphasize how important EMU has been to me and to the development of my work. How proud I was that this university was backing me up!”

Sheri Hostetler: First Mennonite Church of San Francisco is a small and diverse community, its members comprised of families and singles, young and old, with contrasting social, economic and political orientations. Sheri Hostetler (Bluffton, 1984), the pastor, aspires to build community with this diversity. To accomplish that goal, Sheri tries to cultivate spiritual disciplines and religious imagination in her own life and in others.

Sheri’s undergraduate years at Bluffton (Ohio) College provided a base for imagination and spirituality. “I loved it. We had a really good class (five of us women still meet regularly). I knew my profs, and they invited me to their homes. I got a lot of writing experience, including a position on the campus newspaper and an internship with the local newspaper. There, in those formative years, I was known, I was in community with wonderful peers and I inculcated the values of my profs. I might have become a pastor without Bluffton, yet I know that Bluffton played a significant role in shaping my sense of myself—a Mennonite and a Christian living in ‘grounded openness’ to seekers of faith.”

We typically think of our congregations as extended families and communities of faith. Many of the people I spoke with use those same terms when recalling their days in Mennonite higher education. I have also heard of many accounts of students maintaining contact with their professors and student groups continuing to correspond and meet together long after graduation. Their words confirm that Mennonite higher education provides “supportive communities where knowledge, skills and character are shaped.”

J. Daniel Hess is a member of Shalom Mennonite Church in Indianapolis. This is the third of six articles on Mennonite higher education.

Reader Comments

Add Comments