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Mennonite Higher Education Faculty Conference 2012PRESENTATIONS

Main presentationsWhy “diversity” is not a choice, but a gift and responsibility of faithful living as Christians (providing theological and/or “on the ground” perspective).

Page 3 Luke Hartman, Eastern Mennonite University

Page 7 Rebecca Hernandez, Goshen College

6 Walt Paquin, Bluffton University

Page 20 Regina Shands Stoltzfus, Goshen College

Other presentations: Examples from classroom teachingHow does what we do in our classrooms, departments, and campus life contribute to God’s reconciling mission in the world?

Page 23 Jon Sears, Canadian Mennonite University

Page 24 Dorothy Jean Weaver, Eastern Mennonite Seminary

Page 25 Mark Metzler Sawin, Eastern Mennonite University

Page 25 Laura Kraybill, Hesston College

Page 25 Jason E. Swartzlander, Bluffton University

Page 26 Francisca Méndez-Harclerode, Bethel College

Page 27 E. Kent Palmer, Goshen College

Page 28 Troy Osborne, Conrad Grebel University College

Page 28 Daniel Schipani, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Audio versions of the presentations are available on the Mennonite Education Agency website:www.MennoniteEducation.org/MHEFC2012

http://www.MennoniteEducation.org/MHEFC2012

2012 Mennonite Higher Education Faculty Conference Planning Committee:

Rebecca Slough, Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Patricia Shelly, Bethel College

Crystal Sellers, Bluffton University

Owen Byer, Eastern Mennonite University

Anita Stalter, Goshen College

Russ Gaeddert, Hesston College

Elaine Moyer, Mennonite Education Agency

Veva Mumaw, Mennonite Education Agency

Mennonite Higher Education Faculty Conference 2012 PRESENTATIONS page 2

Mennonite Higher Education Faculty Conference 2012PRESENTATION

Luke Hartman, Ph.D. Vice President for EnrollmentEastern Mennonite University

Why “diversity” is not a choice, but a gift and responsibility of faithful living as Christians (providing theological and/or “on the ground” perspective).

Diversity is not a choiceMany conversations that I am a part of as the vice president for enrollment at Eastern Mennonite University have budget implications. Questions arise such as: Do we put additional resources into increasing the discount rate in order to attract additional students? Do we put resources toward a cost of living adjustment to compensate the over taxed faculty? Or maybe resources should be allotted to the renovation of a building to accommodate a new program which will generate additional future revenue. All of these conversations are done in the name of perpetuating our overall mission and creating a new type of individual, one who embodies the values of the Christian faith.

These are tough economic times. Skyrocketing tuition has hit the mainstream media. Mennonite institutions are all clamoring over appropriate discount rates, attempting to make our institutions affordable while emphasizing the values difference compared to our state school competitors. Now the topic of diversity has moved from the peripheral to a more central position within our strategic master plans. This is a time when some universities are asking the question, “How important is diversity?” Many of such universities then reduce the topic to that of resources, political correctness, accreditation, and politics in general. It is at this time that I hear the Mennonite Education Agency saying boldly that the importance of diversity at our Mennonite institutions of higher education should not be determined by affordability or political determination but by a biblical mandate. “If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, “you shall love your neighbor as yourself, “you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law of transgressors. (James 2:8-9). The bottom line is…Diversity is not a choice!

It has been 15 years since Michigan State and Virginia Tech both conducted a study where they surveyed their entire campus communities. Over 50% of faculty and staff and 38% of the student body in both cases responded to the survey. In both studies, nearly all respondents suggested


that diversity was good for their respective institutions and should be promoted. This would suggest that there was, and most likely still is, general and genuine support for the institution’s commitment to a more diverse community (Brown, 1999). I am convinced that, after serving as a faculty member or administrator at three out of the five U.S. Mennonite institutions of higher education, Mennonite colleges and universities would arrive overwhelmingly at the very same conclusion; that diversity should be promoted. We are all for inclusivity and can even document this desire; however, in practice the question must be asked, are we actually doing what we say we support. In most of our college and university settings there continues to be a perpetuation of a colonial education model where a dominant group educates a subordinate group from only the dominant world view. The disconnect begins to appear when the very persons who are in agreement with the principles of diversity in practice are content to leave things as they are or begin to voice in a more passive way the discomfort with the demographic shifts (i.e., “not a good fit,” “this may lead to the lowering of our academic standards” or “faculty are not prepared for the underprepared student”). James Anderson, the chancellor of an Arkansas University (2008), says it like this “those who claim a perceived threat to institutional quality and reputation such as lowered standards, political correctness are only trying to generate anxieties that are misplaced and to maintain the status quo” (p 167).

We all know that historically the original intentions of higher education were for the upper class. This assertion still informs the present social perception of who deserves advanced education. The perception is that some students just can’t cut it in college and if you admit too many of these students to the pool of inferior prospective applicants, it could create an inferior product which would then be detrimental to the reputation of the institution (Brubaker, 1977).

The essential question we face is, “How does a Mennonite college or university preserve a particular campus ethos, rooted in an historical Swiss-German ethnic Anabaptist narrative while providing validity to multiple narratives which can enrich the entire campus community?” Is diversity synonymous with community? Does inclusivity prevent unity?

In a 1997 article entitled “Down with Diversity,” Keith Denton from Missouri State University posited that diversity has the potential to dilute the cultural identity of an organization. It appears that our institutions of higher learning may have that same fear because we sincerely speak political correct rhetoric but seem hesitant to bring in the very students who threaten historical narratives and cultural values. The need to preserve the university’s core values and beliefs makes it difficult for it to fully embrace those who do not look nor believe like the majority of its constituents (Fubara, Gardner and Wolff, 2011). Our emphasis on peace and social justice and living in community ought to position us perfectly in the 21st century to embrace diversity in all its fullness.


An additional observation is that at times Mennonite colleges tend to be more active in explicitly welcoming and accepting international diversity compared to domestic diversity, which allows the institution to maintain a sense of segregated pluralism (McMinn, 1998). While working at one particular Mennonite institution, I noticed the campus was incredibly enriched by a larger percentage of international students than any of the other Mennonite schools at the time and deserved to be celebrated and yet it did not really equal the full reality of diversity, including all its domestic dimensions.

I want Mennonite colleges and universities to perceive diversity, not in terms of a hierarchical value of cultures, but as creating a culture of acceptance that fosters a sense of belonging among all persons by recognizing and respecting differences and in doing so promoting a sense of loyalty to the college or university (Brown, 1999). Our diversity cannot just be a diversity of assimilation and acculturation, which suggests that as long as one behaves like the dominant campus group, sheds a particular set of values, norms and/or beliefs and especially does not over emphasize individual cultural distinctiveness then and only then will there be a welcoming and acceptance into the larger community.

Diversity as GiftStudies on cognitive development show that critical thinking, problem-solving capacities and cognitive complexity increase for all students exposed to diversity on campus and in the classroom (Smith and Schonfeld, 2000). Diversity leads to the possibility of an enriched and engaging environment where greater learning and skill development is possible (Smith and Schonfeld, 2000). It broadens perspectives, provides increased exposure to alternative viewpoints, and brings more complex discussions and analysis (Gudeman, Marin, Mayurama, and Moreno, 2000). Gurin, Dey, Hurtardo, and Gurin, 2000 state that attending college in one’s home environment or replicating the home community’s social life and expectations in a homogeneous college that is simply an extension of the home community impedes the personal struggle and conscious thought that are so important for identity development.

In the biblical text … It says that a “mixed multitude” came up out of Egypt with Moses. (Exodus 12:27-38). The NIV says “many other people went up with them.” In other words it wasn’t just the descendants of Abraham that came out of Egypt. Many others that the Egyptians had enslaved came out with them. The Exodus passage stands in contrast to Ezra and Nehemiah after the Babylonian exile telling the Israelites to put away their foreign wives and the children they had with them; they cared more about maintaining ethnic purity and racial exclusiveness than they did about being a light to the Gentiles and a life-giving people of God. By the end of the Old Testament story, Israel moved from celebrating diversity and inclusion to an exclusive group with a singular narrative that God could


not work with any more, and thus, we have the coming of Jesus to start over. Jesus celebrates diversity as seen in the 12 disciples he called. Jesus even uses the contextual oxymoron, “the Good Samaritan.” He treats tax collectors and Roman soldiers with respect, and elevates women in a way unheard of in his day. In 1 Corinthians 12:12-22 Paul discusses how the Christian body is composed of a variety of people and that it is this diversity which adds to the effectiveness and giftedness of the body as a whole especially in verses 19-21.

“And if they were all one member, where would the body be? But now indeed there are many members, yet one body. And the eye cannot say to the hand, “I have no need of you”; nor again the head to the feet, “I have no need of you.” (New King James Version)

Acts 10:34-35, states, “then Peter replied, ‘I see very clearly that God doesn’t show partiality.” Faithful living as a Christian responsibility.

What does faithful living look like in an institution that participates in a capitalistic endeavor? I think it has to do with investigating our institutional policies that may perpetuate power and privilege in an unintended manner and naming the invisible barriers which may limit accessibly for students who are other cultured.

“Mennonite affirmative action” is a term that I often use when participating in the financial awarding at our Mennonite colleges and universities. Roughly 12 years ago I read an article in the New York Times that listed academic success by denomination. Mennonites were ranked in the top five. In other words, Mennonite students overall do very well academically in higher education and are a safe student to recruit. At one Mennonite institution the average retention rate of a cohort of Mennonite students entering the fourth fall semester since the year 2000 was 78.5% while 47.8% of students who did not come from a Mennonite background were retained. The disparity in retention rate between Mennonite students and those who are not Mennonite is glaring and speaks to a serious incongruous cultural dilemma, as well as to the connection between dominance and sub-ordinance and retention. Returning to the topic of accessibility, Mennonite students who are predominantly White receive the majority of institutional merit scholarships. On top of merit institutional aid, if a student is a member of a Mennonite church, one usually receives a match of institutional funds. Stacked upon that, if a student attends the university as a “legacy” student, meaning a parent attended the predominantly white Mennonite college or university, then there is additional institutional aid provided, and finally, our very best students who are often Mennonite receive endowed scholarships on top of all the previous listed funds. What one must remember is that every time a Mennonite student receives additional institutional resources, it takes away from the very same pool used to support diversity efforts financially.


I have found that many parishioners in the Mennonite church speak boldly about social justice until it impacts one’s own wallet. Many Mennonite families opt to send their own child to a local state school when the institutional aid is not provided at a disproportionately favorable level, regardless of one’s income level.

In my 16 years as both undergraduate and graduate faculty, I observed that faculties tended to be more supportive of diversity initiatives to the extent that diverse students did not create additional workload or require additional time and energy. After all we as faculty enter the academy in part, for the rewards of time and freedom. When focusing specifically on admissions criteria and the work of admissions committees, the question I often wonder is if the academic criterion for other cultured individuals is the same as what is used for all students in general, without taking culture into consideration. Are non-cognitive factors being considered as part of the criteria? Are resources invested in preparatory summer academies for underprepared students? And are ethnic/racial unions and clubs supported for student cultural respite?

The role of the institution when living out responsibly the Christian life is to commit to developing inclusive communities and placing diversity more closely to the overall mission of the institution. It means moving forward with the seriousness of inquiry like we do with so many other endeavors. We must conduct introspective analysis of the institution. We must incorporate a diversity plan that becomes systemic and transformational. So often we settle for projects, special programs, short-term initiatives, and other efforts that are not sustainable and are difficult to evaluate (Anderson, 2008).

ConclusionAs a former student of color, faculty of color, administrator of color at predominantly White Mennonite campuses, my experiences of inclusivity did not come from a project, program or diversity initiative. It came from professors who understood the true meaning of educate: To bring out that which is from within. The legendary psychology and education professors, Judy Mullet and Jean Roth Hawk, became my Caucasian allies, seeing me as a student who brought a unique experience and perspective that could enrich the teaching and learning process. When I experienced constructive criticism through time and relational support, I did not need a program to have others better accept my racial difference. When Dr. Mullet and Dr. Hawk met with me as an advisee and challenged me, I felt valued and encouraged as opposed to being reduced to a systemic chore or one more good deed to be taken care of on behalf of the servant-driven institution. With all that they were, they said, “We are here to assist you on this academic journey; we will be your lantern, your knowledgeable other, walking with you from where you are to where you want to be. Dr. Mullet and Dr. Hawk along with many others in Mennonite higher education recognized the extraordinary value of diversity and saw “me” as a gift and


responded in sacrificial, relational faithful living. Diversity can be synonymous with community, and inclusivity can become unity when we see each student as a gift with something to offer and commit to faithful living as Christians.



Rebecca Hernandez, Ph.D. Director, Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning; and Assistant Professor of NursingGoshen College


BEYOND “HOSPITALITY: Moving out of the Host-Guest Metaphor into an Intercultural “World House”

“We Invited Them, but They Didn’t Come.” If one phrase could sum up the attitude that I have often heard in higher education when it comes to explaining—or asking for an explanation about—why they have not attracted a more diverse student body or faculty, this would be it: “We invite them, but they didn’t come.” An invitation is just fine; it’s a wonderful and needed first step. But just because we beckon others to come toward us doesn’t mean that we understand how to truly welcome them, to make them feel at home, or to share the space we’ve invited them to inhabit. To have diverse campuses does not mean simply that non-White persons are present. Christian colleges and universities must be willing to grapple with the cultural, systematic, logistical, pedagogical, and personal changes needed to create the sense that everyone is living and learning alongside one another, rather than fostering a sense that there are permanent members of the community and then there are outsiders who are welcomed in but are unconsciously asked to fit into existing structures.

While many Christian colleges and universities understand this distinction in a general sense, few make the changes necessary to ensure that all students are welcomed into an environment that allows them to flourish. Few are prepared to accept the critique necessary to do the hard work of examining long-held attitudes and assumptions, to be humble and also open, in the face of broader societal and global change—to make shifts in power structures and understandings of the “new normal” in the classroom and community. As an academic administrator with “change agent” practically written into the job description, I have found the role of bridge-builder to be an exciting one that has its roots in my own experiences as someone who was once a higher education outsider, literally speaking a different language.


Pushing beyond the Host-Guest ModelThe call of Christ is real, and many institutions have taken seriously the implications of Christ’s invitation for transformation as it applies to the way in which the body of Christ can operate within academic communities. Calvin College, Goshen College, and others have built on a foundation of faith and theology to make the case for changes in our Christian institutions toward building a multicultural kingdom of God. Yet while the theological impetus for true change is recognized by many, I question the “host-guest” model, one of the central images used in discussing issues of diversity and inclusion. This image, based in the biblical language of hospitality, is often cited as the ideal model for our engagement of persons and ideas that have not been part of our culture, tradition, or practices. In this model, the host is to open the door and welcome the guests to the comfort of the interior—a home, a church, a campus, a community. This model falls short in several ways.

First, if you are the host, much can be kept at the surface level. We engage hospitality on our terms. The host can make accommodation for differences in some areas without really touching fundamental differences that would mean a significant change in behavior, purpose, or in power and control. Wherever change is made, the host decides how and when that change is made. Having the control to decide how much change, what resources to give to change, and who will do the work of change, is firmly in the hands of the host. The guest, on the other hand, is dependent on the host for any accommodation or adaptation done to make the guest feel welcome. Guests know this is not their house nor is it their home in which to be fully comfortable. They must watch and listen carefully to the spoken words or the behavioral cues of the host to determine their level of comfort and entry into different areas of the space. The guest knows that to enter those spaces requires personal change. In order to make those changes, the guest must know the host well, while the host—who makes no change—never has to truly know the guest. On a college campus, students of color watch and listen to the cues of the leadership, faculty, staff, and others to determine to what level they are truly welcome. The pamphlets that feature smiling students of color engaged in various activities throughout the campus are not always the reality once a student arrives. They find fewer students of color then advertised, and the “welcome” sign doesn’t really extend to the classroom, the dorms, or even the chapel services. All colleges and universities have a set culture, some of which is still deeply rooted in theological tradition. While this is not wrong, it must be understood that as the host, the institution and its leadership are in the driver’s seat. Leaders, who are still predominantly White, are fully responsible for how students and faculty of color read the institution and know their place as the guest in it.

If We Want ChangeWe say we want diversity in our colleges. We want to engage a broader range of students to more fully represent our values and missions. So what


options do we have in light of current realities? Throw up our hands and say there is nothing we can do to change this culture? No, I believe we can start with a new image. In his book Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “Some years ago a famous novelist died. Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, the most prominently underscored being this one: ‘A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.’ This is the great new problem of mankind. We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu—a family unduly separated in ideas, culture and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.” The idea of a world house is a strong model for diversity in higher education. A big house where we live together, where we “work out” our nuanced and not-so-nuanced differences to create a new culture that is large enough for the “other” to become “us,” where we care for the other as we care for ourselves.

In higher education, we live out our faith and ideals together in a place—a campus—where we work, eat, live, and learn together. So this ideal of “the creation of a truly diverse campus requires a commitment to God’s vision of building a World House of Learning.” In the context to higher education, we can see that building such a house demands a process of learning and takes focused effort. It requires a significant shift in our thinking and our approach to creating an intercultural campus where all students and faculty are supported and successful.

Institutional ChangeWhat exactly needs to change in institutions to make diverse students welcome as true members of the community rather than guests—at home in our predominately White institutions? Before we get to the what, we need to talk about why. Why do we need to make diverse students welcome? Several reasons are most often cited. The first is based in our moral call as human beings. We care for each other as a part of living in community with the goal of bettering life for all members. Cesar Chavez once said: “We cannot seek achievement for ourselves and forget about progress and prosperity for our community. . . . Our ambitions must be broad enough to include the aspirations and needs of others, for their sakes and for our own.” In today’s harsh political and divisive environment, this advocacy on behalf of others is important, but we must go further. As Christians, we are called to be like Christ and be his witnesses.

And so in addition to our basic human responsibilities, our second reason for embracing diversity as part of our collective identity is our Christian


witness. The words of Christ reflect his call for diversity as described in the New Testament. Specifically, consider Revelation 7:9–10:

After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.”

This idea of being a family together means we must care for one another and that, in caring, we grow in understanding of and appreciation for the similarities and the differences we bring to one another. Some would say that our responsibility to support the call for greater diversity in all aspects of campus life lies in our biblical calling to more accurately reflect God’s kingdom here on earth. The call for biblical justice is described by Professor Tom Thompson as he reflects on the extent to which even sincere Christians can become witting or unwitting carriers of racism. He concludes that “if we in the Christian church are ungraceful about affirming others because we stumble over distinctions of race, ethnicity, or culture, then it is quite possible that we have too tight of a grip on our lives, a false (i.e., insecure) image of ourselves, which we may have to learn to ungrasp.”

In response, Thompson suggests that multicultural encounters should be seen as “an imperative of basic Christian discipleship,” rooted in the life of Christ, “who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant.” The third reason is much more pragmatic, with demographic issues raising issues for strategic planning and resource allocation for certain colleges and universities. I point out these issues with caution, as some have happened in the past with no alterations to our structures. However, it is important to identify, for those not aware, the dynamic changes happening across the United States. The contemporary shifts in our country clearly demonstrate the growth of diverse populations in the school systems across the country, bringing new market opportunities for our colleges and universities. The U.S. Census Bureau’s 2010 Census brief on the national Hispanic population reported that “the Hispanic population increased by 15.2 million between 2000 and 2010 and accounted for more than half of the total U.S. population increase of 27.3 million. Between 2000 and 2010, the Hispanic population grew by 43 percent, or four times the nation’s 9.7 percent growth rate.”7 The growth among Latino school-age children is also expected to grow. According to the Pew Research Center, these are the future college students we must prepare for: Strong growth in Hispanic enrollment is expected to continue for decades, according to a


recently released U.S. Census Bureau population projection. The bureau projects that the Hispanic school-age population will increase by 166% by 2050 (to 28 million from 11 million in 2006), while the non-Hispanic school-age population will grow by just 4% (to 45 million from 43 million) over this same period. In 2050, there will be more school-age Hispanic children than school-age non-Hispanic white children.8

We know that for our own survival, we must change to welcome these new groups, not as guests but as full members who share in the creation and lives of our institutions at every level, as students, faculty, and administrators. But are these reasons enough to compel us to change? Some would say yes, but the evidence of change is not there . . . yet. Why are we so slow to change? The challenge of institutions is that at the same time we want to make change, we also feel a desire to keep things the same. We hold onto traditions, processes, and systems even when they aren’t working in the new realities facing today’s colleges and universities. This holding on and letting go at the same time brings frustration and undermines our efforts as we also lose energy. We want to be welcoming but somehow miss the boat as our efforts lack sustained results. If we are to make changes, perhaps we ought to take a step back and look at what we want in our institutions. Most institutions have statements that articulate their overarching vision and mission. These vision and mission statements, while forward-thinking, are coupled with traditions that hold onto the past. The long-term vision we cast and the identity we hold must be renewed and flexible enough to allow for new symbols that encompass the vision and provides a space for the diversity of people to come together. We don’t seek to destroy the old but to allow a renewal of ways to express the vision and the mission of a Christian institution. Dr. Vincent Harding, friend, colleague, and former speechwriter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., spoke recently at Goshen College. He was asked about the concern some individuals had regarding the potential loss of Mennonite identity “if we open our doors too wide or are too open to change.” Dr. Harding replied:

Identity is not something that is most valuable to us when we are grasping it and saying, “Don’t lose it!” Identity is most helpful and useful to us when we are saying how do we join what we have with what others have. Yes, you might have to do something different in order to open this space so that someone else can come here, but we must be ready to look at the possibility that something new needs to be born. And what we call Mennonite identity cannot, must not . . . be a block of stone that is set down and we are told this is Mennonite identity and will not be anything else ever! NO! . . . if we are alive . . . life is always going through transmutation, changes, development that we did not expect. I think that all of us that have “identities” must recognize that identities are meant to be engaged with other identities in order to create new


identities. Mennonite identity is not as something to grasp and therefore almost choke to death but something to open up and say and see this is what I have, what do you have? What can we make new together?9

Creating a World House of LearningA few Christian colleges and universities have a burgeoning awareness that as the country and the church diversifies; we too must be prepared and in fact convivial to diverse students if we are to be relevant. These colleges have taken on the challenge to recruit diverse students and provide intentional support to them. But many more institutions have experienced the frustration of recruiting diverse students, only to lose these students as they fall away after a semester or two. The reasons vary but usually students report “not feeling at home” and not feeling “connected to the institution.”10 Since we know the growing diversity is coming, how do we prepare? How will we survive and be relevant institutions? We must change, and the time for change is now.

So how do institutions enact change? Many institutions start by looking for a leader to help them move toward becoming the diverse and intercultural campus they want to be. They look for and hire a change agent, the person whose job it is to lead diversity change. This position is called many things—diversity officer, multicultural director, inclusion specialist, etc. Whatever the name, the work is similar. An individual—usually a person of color—is hired to lead change, to work with diverse students, to engage in activities that will expand the learning of all students across campus and to engage change within the institution. They are tasked with “making us welcoming so that [diverse students] will come and partake in what we have to offer.”

This sounds like a worthy goal; however, some fallacies need to be addressed.

First, no diversity officer can make an institution what it is not. Change must be internal, deep, far-reaching, and the work of everyone in leadership and on the ground. For the change agent, this is not a new concept. Their job is isolating; they are asked to make changes but not call out too much—don’t touch the “sacred cows,” stubborn loyalties to long-standing traditions or processes, even when those traditions and processes impede progress. They are familiar with being labeled “oversensitive” and “troublemakers,” people who don’t understand the whole but rather are focused only on a small minority. These labels and minimizations are often applied by some who are resistant to change, who might say, “We don’t want to lower our standards,” “We are fine as we are,” and “Why do we need to worry about engaging diversity?” and finally, “We are all humans and that should be enough.” The implications are that we are aiming for the wrong things. Others in the institution, however, are eager to change but lack the knowledge they need to do so. They may also fear what the


institution will look like in the end, and this holds them back. If they can see a new and compelling future, they will move forward a bit more.

Second, many people think this change is a finite process. That is, if we address certain areas, moving around pieces and hiring diverse people that will be enough. We will be diverse, and we can move on to other things. The reality is that this work is ongoing, challenging, and demanding.

In order to make the changes we want, for the reasons we articulate, we must get the right people working on this. Who are the right people to help make colleges and universities the kinds of places we want them to be? It’s all of us, from the leaders at the top to the staff person in the back room. All of us together must work to change how we “have always done things” to how we “will operate today.” Organizations are not replacements for people and interpersonal relationships. Those interpersonal relationships inside organizations will determine how we live and work out our beliefs together.

Goshen College StoryIn taking seriously the mandate to model God’s kingdom in all of its rich diversity, perhaps some lessons from one story can be helpful to others. Goshen College has a deep commitment to the idea of diversity. Like other colleges and universities, having a cross- cultural commitment has meant work around the world and at home. Most recently, Goshen College developed the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning. The goals of the Center are to (1) recruit and retain local Latino students into our private Christian college; (2) transform of our curriculum and faculty development to better meet the needs of all students, preparing them to live in an intercultural world; and (3) research the regional demographic shifts and document the experiences of the Latino students we recruit for program improvement and success.

This initiative is still a work in progress, but we have learned some things since launching in 2006 that we believe can help other institutions. The creation of the Center, funded by a generous Lilly Endowment grant, resulted in fast changes—hiring new staff (several being people of color), the creation of a leadership program, new academic center space, advertising to a new market, and the development of a research agenda with a large team and the resources to engage faculty and staff in training and continued education. In fact, large changes were made quickly. And we have been successful, but these changes represented what might be called gathering the “low-hanging fruit”; that is, while intensive, they were fairly easy to create when there is a significant budget (as some critics point out). However, the changes that are deep and long-lasting—marking a significant change in the way we view the other and ourselves—and those changes are harder to make. This kind of change is starting at Goshen, but after a long period of time, challenge, and struggle. Are we


there yet? No! But I am cautiously optimistic and can say that many faculty and administrators are willing to engage in the hard work of transformation to a new model of diversity, that of a world house of learning that requires a change in the campus culture, a new way of thinking about who we are and what we do, and changes in the relationships and stances we take with each other and the local community.

Some of the lessons we have learned thus far in our journey include the following:

1. Decide if this vision is tied to the mission.The first lesson is perhaps the most important and is directed to key leaders individually. Why are you doing this? Is there a deep commitment and agreement to the biblical mandate of justice and reconciliation? Without this personal commitment on the part of the leadership, little will be sustained and few will follow. This is hard work and leaders must believe this is the right thing to do. Personal work must precede the public work. At Goshen College, like many other colleges in our CCCU fellowship, our leaders believe in and hold to God’s call for change.

2. Recognize the critical role of leaders.Essential to establishing an environment that encourages the shift from a host-guest to a world house perspective is a close look at the mission, vision, and desired outcomes of the organization’s work. The leadership—its board of directors, president, and other key administrators—needs to take the organization through a strategic plan that specifically details what the institution will look like when its mission and goals are reached.

Throughout the process, all participants must be willing to be learners and open to hearing what areas of the institution need to change so that all students have the opportunity to become equal participants.

3. Take stock.Institutions need to invest in a professional or in-house audit to take stock of the current environment. But if we’re honest, we know that sometimes it is easier for an outsider to communicate the truth than those inside the organization. It is often difficult to hear about current practices across the institution that continues to uphold historical and cultural perspectives. Taking an open rather than a defensive stance throughout this process will help colleges and universities reach their goals.


4. Examine internal policies, procedures, and practices.One of the challenges in this work is that we had perfectly sensible reasons for the existing policies and procedures that guide our institutions. They were created to resolve specific and immediate issues at the time they were created. The question we have had to face is, are these still the right policies and procedures to help us in the current environment, or are they now simply tradition? The practices have developed over time to make work processes easier. So we also have to ask, for whom do they make things easier? Many times, we fall into habits that have served a particular group of people well but represent barriers for other groups and need to be reviewed. The holding on and letting go process is a challenge, filled with emotions that wise leaders must recognize and embrace.

5. Focus on hiring.One area where we know change is needed is in hiring diverse faculty, staff, and administrators. Many colleges want diverse faculty, staff, and administrators, but few know how to attract candidates who bring diversity. Many institutions try advertising in targeted newspapers or journals, but we need to start changes closer to home. What does the job description really ask for? One area is that of qualifications required and preferred.

We describe the person we want and it turns out be that we want someone just like us, only in a different color! I’m not saying we don’t have essential requirements for the job, but we must look at the intangible and additional skills that we need, as well—skills that include understanding and competently moving between majority culture and particular types of communities: immigrant communities, Latino, African American, or Asian subcultures, specific faith traditions, etc. These are skills that can help organizations thrive and students flourish. We do not value such skills often enough, yet in reality; they are exactly what we need. Institutional leaders need to remember that even though they are successful in recruiting persons of color, additional work needs to be done to retain them. Engaging in ongoing conversation and support plans is invaluable to the retention of faculty and staff of color.

There are many other recommendations that we could list, but the most critical element doesn’t take new money to implement: it is leaders’ honest and critical self-examination, which is necessary to lead into change at all levels.

The ChallengesThis work is hard, and it takes effort to sustain people to keep moving forward. In reality, moving forward uncovers more areas that need to be addressed. The challenge is to create short-term wins that are celebrated genuinely and then build on the changes one-by-one. Additionally, we must anchor changes in the culture so that despite changes in personnel or priorities, we don’t forget where constructive changes have occurred.


Institutional memory must include these changes so we don’t slip back into old patterns.

Finally, how do we do all the great things we want to do as an institution? There are plenty of good ideas, new interest areas, and initiatives proposed by creative people. These new ideas, coupled with old programs and initiatives, make the field of opportunities and possibilities too crowded. People don’t know what to focus on. So we may need to give up some things from the past in order to be more effective with the resources and the people we have available now. The idea of “planned abandonment” that was proposed by leadership guru Peter Drucker suggests that if we say yes to one thing, we are saying no to something else.11 Frankly, there are good things we have been doing that may need to be released in order to move forward with something better.

ConclusionWhat have we learned? For leaders, this work is personal and internal as much as it is external. Leaders must commit to constant humbling, letting go, and sharing the work of change. Because the work is ongoing. Goshen College is like other colleges, trying to respond to the social and demographic shifts in this country by preparing students to live and thrive in a global world. We are not alone nor are we always successful, but we are working on it. There are no quick solutions, no hard and fast changes that colleges can employ and “be done with” this process. We must stay committed and know that the work

Of engaging each other is never finished. We do this because we know that it’s the nature of higher education institutions to change and respond to the needs of the community. It’s slow but necessary, important work.

David’s StoryDeveloping and maintaining a commitment to diversity on any campus required organizational ownership at all levels. But the joy in this work is found in the lives of students who benefit from our commitment and efforts to this worthy cause. One such story belongs to David, a Goshen College graduate who was a middle schooler when he came to the United States with his parents. His first experience in a U.S. public school was a painful one of feeling like an outsider, lacking the language skills to engage in his education. His English class consisted of students who wanted to learn Spanish in exchange for some English instruction. David felt powerless and decided then that he wanted to be a teacher so that other non-English students would have an opportunity to learn, feel a part of the classroom community, and experience success. In coming to Goshen College where he was encouraged to explore his identity, to connect that identity to others, and to develop himself as a servant leader, David realized his dream. He stated, “I always felt that since I came to the States that I needed to give back or somehow be that person that I lacked in teaching me English, I needed to be that person, that support somehow. . . . I felt


that teaching would be the most immediate support. And now coming through college, through CITL [the Center for Intercultural Teaching and Learning] and helping me evolve as a leader, I knew my purpose and what I wanted, and now I know how to do it and how to be that person of support!”

By providing a place for David to excel, to connect his purpose with his education, he was able to reach his goal to serve others through his vocation and life. This is not unusual for students; this is what Christian institutions of higher learning do. But the reality for David was, as a first-generation immigrant student, he was welcomed in and found barriers removed and programs in place that made him feel at home and connected to this college. This was his house—he was not here as a guest but as a member of the family, where his unique identity was honored and he was able to bring that as a gift to the campus and was given the gift of other’s uniqueness in return. This story is more an exception than the norm. The tragedy for leaders in higher education today is that they too often miss the changing diversity in our communities and deprive promising students of the opportunity to excel at our Christian institutions.

In conclusion, consider this passage from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? Nothing could be more tragic than for men to live in these revolutionary times and fail to achieve the new attitudes and the new mental outlooks that the new situation demands. In Washington Irving’s familiar story of Rip Van Winkle, the one thing that we usually remember is that Rip slept twenty years.

There is another important point, however, that is almost always overlooked. It was the sign on the inn in the little town on the Hudson from which Rip departed and scaled the mountain for his long sleep. When he went up, the sign had a picture of King George III of England. When he came down, twenty years later, the sign had a picture of George Washington. As he looked at the picture of the first President of the United States, Rip was confused, flustered, and lost. He knew not who Washington was.

The most striking thing about this story is not that Rip slept twenty years, but that he slept through a revolution that would alter the course of human history. One of the great liabilities of history is that all too many people fail to remain awake through great periods of social change. Every society has its protectors of the status quo and its fraternities of the indifferent who are notorious for sleeping through revolutions. But today our very survival depends on our ability to stay awake, to adjust to new ideas, to remain vigilant and to face the challenge of change. The large house in which we live demands that we transform this world-wide neighborhood into a world-wide brotherhood.


Together we must learn to live as brothers or together we will be forced to perish as fools.12

Notes to Chapter Eleven

1 From Every Nation: Revised Comprehensive Plan for Racial Justice, Reconciliation, and Cross-cultural Engagement at Calvin College.2 Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here? 177.3 (CITL video, 2006).4 Qtd. on the website of the United Farmworkers of America, http://www.ufw.org/_page. php?menu=research&inc=history/09.html .5 Thomas R. Thompson, “Ungrasping Ourselves.”6 Ibid., and Phil. 2:6.7 “2010 Census Shows Nation’s Hispanic Population Grew Four Times Faster Than Total U.S. Population,” U.S. Census Bureau.8 Richard Fry and Felisa Gonzales, “One-in-Five and Growing Fast: A Profile of Hispanic Public School Students.”9 Vincent Harding, “Martin Luther King—Servant Leader.”10 (Collegiate Psychological sense of community; need citation).11 Peter Drucker, Management.12 Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here? 180.Thriving in Leadership



Walt Paquin, M.S.W., Ph.D.Assistant Professor of Social Work Bluffton University


I am a racial minority, I am a racist, and I am white. As it relates to the issue of race, I must acknowledge all three things about myself. I am a racial minority, in the world more people do not look like me than do, although in most parts of the United States this is easy to forget. I am a racist, I think this is an admission that virtually every “white” person in the U.S. could claim. However, we live in a county where these things are, if not acceptable, at least used to allow me privileges that others, who do not look like me, are not allotted. To be white in the U.S. is to have access to privileges and advantages virtually all white people take for granted even though we did not earn them. So why is a “racist” talking this morning about the richness of diversity? I think if we are to overcome our racism the best way is to acknowledge it and fully engage and interact with people who do not look “exactly” like us.

Growing up my parents told me to treat everyone the same; I am sort of a literalist so I mistakenly thought they meant EVERYONE, not just the people in my “group”, as I am sure they intended. So that is one beginning point in this journey to interact with others and try to understand people who are different than me. During my senior year in college, I worked in a transitional house for formally homeless men seeking to rebuild their lives. I remember one resident in an angry outburst exclaiming, “You will never know what it is like to be a black man in America”. For some reason that stuck with me and began to change how I viewed myself and those around me. Could I know what it was like to be a black man in America? NO! He was right I would never know what this was like. Although I have lived and worked in many diverse communities, I will never know what it is like to be black. I always have the option, of claiming my “whiteness”. However, I attempt to live in situations where I am not in an exclusively white community. I have developed many friendships although meager with people of different backgrounds; African American, Portuguese, Jewish, African, and Asian. However, this is not an easy task and requires some effort; it is always easier to remain in a closed circle of people who look like me. Furthermore, there is the struggle to ensure these are not token “friendships” for the sake of saying, “look I have a black friend or a Hispanic friend, so I must be okay.”


Part of my struggle is also asking how I can be an ambassador for people who look different than me, to people who look like me. When I teach a diversity class, I ask my students why a white, middle class, apparently able bodied, male is teaching a class that will cover issues of, race, social class, disability and gender. My answer is this, if someone who “looks like most of them” is an advocate for people who look different, then my students may actually listen to what I say since I do not, “have a chip on my shoulder.”

Often students will go through extreme gyrations to prove that discrimination and segregation do not exist or are only issues brought up by people like me. Both are denials and cost us dearly. Obviously, if people are not willing to acknowledge the ongoing impacts past negative actions and current racial discrimination, there is no opportunity for reconciliation. Furthermore, if people say there is no issue, “nothing to look at here” or that it is only an issue because “we” keep raising it, this ignores the ongoing discrimination in education, housing, and criminal justice to name a few. These approaches do not allow people to experience real diversity only the Americanization of people, similar to food. Let me give an example.

My wife who grew up in Taiwan and then spent two years in China, she hates eating at “Chinese” restaurants. Her assessment is that the food is not authentic but is prepared to appeal to American tastes. She prefers to eat at places where there are ducks hanging in the window, you are offered fried chicken feet and a gooey bean paste that is revolting to my “American” tongue but she loves. We are often the only non-Asians in these establishments. Although I do not enjoy all of the things she gets at these authentic Chinese restaurants, I have grown to appreciate and enjoy foods I would otherwise have not experienced. Similarly we are glad to have people of color in our circles, classrooms and institutions provided they act “white, middle-class, educated, etc...” This is not diversity but an attempt to interject a little difference so we can say we have done something and move on.

What is Christ’s call for us? We see in Ephesians 4: I urge you to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to one hope when you were called; one Lord, one faith, one baptism; one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

And then later in the chapter to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the


knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.

Is this not what Christ calls to do as educators to equip our students? It would be easy for us to say well, let white faculty train white students at white institutions, Hispanic faculty teaching Hispanic students at Hispanic institutions, etc. However, we are not a divided body in Christ.

I think we can understand the scriptures about the body of Christ as applying to more than talents but also to race. We must acknowledge our African, Caribbean, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, African American, brothers and sisters are part of Christ’s body and their contributions to the wholeness of Christ. Furthermore, we can understand and take Paul’s words to heart from Galatians 3 beginning in verse 26:

So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, [black or white, yellow, beige, cream, brown, tan, etc.] for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

When we pray the Lord’s Prayer, we ask “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” What does the kingdom of heaven look like? From John’s description in Revelation 7:9, we hear, “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and in front of the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands.” The picture that John describes is one of unity, of all people coming to worship God as one; we have a picture of the unity of Christ in Heaven. If we are serious about God’s kingdom coming on earth as it is in heaven, we must begin the process of racial healing and connection.

Racial healing is not just an academic exercise or something the planning committee for this conference dreamt up. Earlier this year the Mennonite Church USA published its agenda for the next decade, Our Purposeful Plan, in that document one of the seven priorities was “Undoing racism and advancing intercultural transformation” Here is what they/we say:

Racism, antipathy and alienation between different cultural groups stand in the way of Christ’s kingdom of love, justice and peace. As missional communities we will seek to dismantle individual and systemic racism in our church, develop intercultural competence, heal racial divisions, and value all the gifts of God’s diverse people. We envision people of many nations, tribes, people and languages as participants in the kingdom of God. [The desired outcome is] to overcome antipathy and alienation among different cultural groups through dismantling of individual and systematic racism in our church. Making the way for every Racial/Ethnic group to have just


and equitable access to church resources, positions and information as manifestations of the one new humanity we have in Christ.

This is not merely for Mennonite USA churches but also its institutions including the colleges and universities represented here. How do we begin to create diversity, not simply for the sake of having different people on our campus but to create living and active institutions where we all experience God’s kingdom. This is not easy, nothing worth doing usually is. What is easy is staying in our comfort zones with people who look, think and act like we do.

When I have worked at inclusion in my life and I must admit I do it rarely and often with some feelings of discomfort, the results are good. I get to know people whose lives are different than mine, who have to think about things differently than me or my family. It also makes me more sensitive, not emotional but aware. So, I am not able to hear the news about Kenneth Chamberlin Sr., killed in his apartment by White Plains police and dismiss it or the killing of Manuel Diaz and Joel Acevedo in Anaheim and not think about what life is like for people who do not look like me. Then I have to face the questions, so what am I going to do about it?

One thing I am going to do is advocate that my intuition and the Mennonite institutions of higher education expand our outreach to students of color. Not just as bodies in classroom seats but as integral members of our community. When people hear Mennonite, they often tell stories about the “good work” we do in the field of disaster relief or care for the needy, and as a Social Worker, this makes me proud. However, what would it look like if we were also known as places where racial integration defined the Mennonite Church? For those of us who are white that would mean giving something up.

For many white Americans our response is, “WAIT A MINUTE, YOU WANT ME TO GIVE SOMETHING UP---NO WAY!!!!!” Instead, I think what is called for is an understanding and appreciation for what diversity means and realizing that diversity will expand the pool. It will expand the pool of, college applications, scholarship applications and job applications meaning that the best people get in, not only the “best” white people. If we are willing to seek out more diversity on our campuses, the good news is more college applications, expanding the pool of diverse and stimulating students in our institutions. Think how exciting it would be to know we have the best students in our classrooms; to have classrooms with students from many different economic, racial and ethnic identities. For me I would likely have to change the way I teach, more accurately, I will have to improve the way I teach.

This would be something new for many of us and for our institutions, we would have to listen to people who are different and may think differently. When we do this, we get new ideas for renewing ourselves and our


institutions, not the same “old” solutions to our problems, the same ideas for campus renewal or the same “broken systems” we currently have. This does not mean admitting a few token students, faculty and staff of color but creating institutions where all people are valued and involved (invited to the table). When we have more people who do not look like “us” active in our institutions, we will begin to experience something new, something approaching God’s kingdom on earth. Furthermore, it might also change our institutions!

I was thinking about this at our past graduation ceremony. There is usually some nice statement read about not singling out one graduate but holding our applause until all diplomas are awarded (we all have the same statement read). You know the usual highly formal, highly dignified, academic process that we expect as members of the academy. Then the next thing you know some parent goes and “ruins it for everyone”, by shouting - “That’s my son/daughter!” They are celebrating, breathing life into this stuffy and formal process. Yes, I often want a quiet and dignified ceremony and shouting during these occasions might not always be appropriate but, it might just be what we need, what we long for and I need to let go of my white, middle class, academic biases and shout for my nephew when he graduates. “Giving something up” – to learn to celebrate that is a novel idea. Where else might we learn to do new things that benefit the community?

In the end, diversity as a gift and responsibility of faithful living means that I work not only for desegregation (the absence of a negative) but for integration and social justice (the building of the positive). When we do this, we begin to build the kingdom of God on Earth, we move toward wholeness and healing, not just for one group but for all of us. This is not easy, and we are sinful people living in a broken world. This is only possible when we acknowledge our brokenness before God and one another and are willing to be open, honest and most importantly humble and patient with one another.



Regina Shands Stoltzfus, M.A. Assistant Professor, Peace, Justice, Conflict Studies/Bible, Religion and Philosophy, Goshen College


I have been doing educating and organizing against racism and other forms of social stratification for over 2 decades. I started doing this work when some of us were calling it things like “prejudice reduction” and “diversity work” rather than my current preferred label of anti-racism, or anti-oppression. Although it is the hardest work I’ve ever done, I get deep joy and love from it. I am part of a collective, and these people are the ones with whom I can be my best, authentic, real, genuine self. These are the people that I’ve been through the fire with. It is not because we all come from the same place, or think the same thing or do the same thing in our lives outside of this work, but because we have walked through the fire of getting to know one another deeply together.

For people of the book – those of us who claim the scriptures as our own, we have more than ample biblical and theological justification for doing the work of anti-oppression. Over and over again we read in the Hebrew scriptures about the responsibilities of God’s people as participants in the covenant with Yahweh, and that the measurement of these people, the measure of how well they adhere to the requirements of the covenant is how well the people tend to the most vulnerable and the most marginalized among their own people, and foreigners as well.

It is hardly a vague, generalized instruction to take care of these folks… it’s pretty specific. When Israel desires a king like the other nations, Yahweh eventually relents, but only after telling them ‘you are not to be like other nations – you don’t need a king.’ When the period of the kings begins, God says, ‘Your king is not to be like other kings.’ Kings are to remember that ultimately God is sovereign; they are to trust that God will fight their battles. Leaders are called to administer justice to the people.

Last summer our family spent a week at the beach. Now this beach on the coast of Georgia has a low tide much of the day. It looks beautiful and serene, like all it wants to do is pull you into its lap and love you. But those


of us who have been through storms, who have been on rough waters, know the power of the ocean.

Think about being a very small child encountering that power. Big people see very minor waves lapping up at the edge of the shore, and frolic in the bigger waves when they begin to come in. However, if you are two feet tall, little waves can knock you over. And the waves did knock my three-year-old granddaughter Camille over. The look on her face said clearly “I will have none of this ocean; I am having none of this beach; I am having none of this vacation – thank you very much.”

But… we took her back to the beach again, and showed her there are other things to do there. You can play on the sand. When we go in the morning and the tide is very low, you can go to the edge and it’s a gentler body of water and you can get to know it. You can get to understand it a little bit better. And you can encounter it in your own way, on your own terms.

But the ocean’s not going anywhere. Day by day, bit by bit, little Camille made her peace with the ocean. It’s important to note that she did not turn into an ocean loving dare devil. On the contrary, one of her favorite ways of encountering the ocean was to go way up on the shore, safe from the water, scoop up a little plastic shovel full of sand, and trot down to the edge of the water, watch it for a moment, and then dump the sand into the ocean.

Then she’d go back up on the beach, and do it again. And do it again. And yet again.

Now, the sand did not need Camille’s help to get back in the ocean. To me, this image of little Camille, patiently, methodically, taking her shovelful of sand down to the ocean was an image of what it is to do the work of anti-oppression.

That, yes, it’s big and scary and it does not feel good a lot of the time. It can knock you over when you least suspect it. But, if you take your time, and if you have friends and family who are willing to be patient with you, to walk with you, to take you away when it gets too rough and too scary, but who will also bring you back again and again because even through it’s big and scary, it can be beautiful and joyful as well.

One last story. My other granddaughter, Maya, was four years old. During this same vacation, we went to a restaurant where our tribe of 14 people sat around two long tables that were pulled together, with an adult strategically placed just about every other child. I was sitting next to Maya. There was lots of noise and activity around the big table. People were holding conversations, taking care of the babies, taking kids to the bathroom … and ordering our food, and spilling our drinks and all manner of things.


In the midst of the chaos I hear Maya’s little voice and I think she’s talking to me, but she’s actually talking to herself in the way that small children (and some of us bigger children) do from time to time. She’s going around the table, methodically, pointing at each person and saying with each point of her tiny finger: “This is my family, and this is my family, and this is my family…”

She was making sense of her world. Making sense of all these cousins and aunts and uncles and grandparents, all together for a whole week in the beach house, on our outings together – we were all connected to her. We were… we are her family. It was a beautiful moment, and I want to remember it forever. But I also think about doing the work of anti-racism, doing the work of anti-oppression within the construct of a faith based community

We are family. We say that a lot in church, and we say it in our church institutions and it almost becomes trite, or boastful (look how cool and progressively multicultural we are) or it becomes this thing we say to cover up hurts and wrongs we do to one another (we’re a family – no need to involve others in this conversation), or it becomes a way that we exclude (we’re a family – you’re a guest).

Or we can simply say it so much without thinking about the ways we are connected to each other and the ways that we ARE with each other (in all our beauty and complexity) that we lose its meaning….but I want to ground us in that image that we belong to one another. We are part of the created order.

We are part of what God has named “good,” and we are called to take care of one another. We are called to tend to the most vulnerable. We are called to speak up when there is injustice and oppression, no matter the cost. And we have to tend to the pain, because part of the cost IS pain. And we need to become skilled at not being afraid to walk into the pain, to walk into the ocean, to sit around a table of messy, confusing people, call them family, and keep moving.


Mennonite Higher Education Faculty Conference 2012OTHER PRESENTATIONS

Examples from Classroom Teaching

How does what we do in our classrooms, departments, and campus life contribute to God’s reconciling mission in the world?

Jonathan M. Sears, Ph.D.Assistant Professor, International Development Studies Canadian Mennonite University

I would like begin by taking this opportunity to thank our hosts, Goshen College and AMBS, as well as to acknowledge our presence here in the traditional territory of the Myaamiaki of Indiana, who were recognized as a state tribe last summer in 2011.

In my past five years at Canadian Mennonite University, I have been teaching mainly at Menno Simons College campus in downtown Winnipeg, but also at the ‘main’ Shaftesbury campus in suburban Winnipeg, and with Outtatown Discipleship School participants in a Francophone Winnipeg neighbourhood. I would like to share briefly from my experience of three things in these settings: trusting, knowing and rooting.

Trusting – God’s greatnessWith the Outtatown French Africa site participants, I teach on Francophone West African history and culture, including some regional features of Islam. Outtatown intentionally moves participants outside their comfort zones for unexpected experiences and encounters. At the heart of Outtatown, there is a deep and dynamic trust that God is greater than our fears, what we may be told to fear, or what we are expected to fear. Outtatown trusts that faithful Christians are formed in relationship to other Christians, as well as in relation to people from other religious traditions.

Knowing – ourselves and our studentsAt CMU’s Shaftesbury campus, faith formation is fostered in a whole person, whole life educational experience. Students bring conversations from Chapel into the classroom, where the issues unfold in other dimensions. As a non-Mennonite at a Mennonite-founded institution, I find myself led into challenging inter-denominational dialogue. Once, after a class on international relations theory, a student said to me, “I’m not a pacifist. My tradition –Christian Reformed– has a just war theology.” The


student seemed worried that this perspective might be in opposition to the overall tenor of the course. With their statement, I felt affirmed to meet them –and then the class as a whole– from my own faith tradition. Anglicanism also encompasses a ‘just war’ theology. This encounter also affirmed for me the important place of inquisitive self-knowledge for teaching and learning.


Rooting – grounding our teaching and learningMenno Simons College is CMU’s campus affiliated with the public, secular University of Winnipeg. Events at UWinnipeg often begin with prayer and ceremony acknowledging the gift of the land by the Creator, and the treaty covenant relationship that settlers and newcomers have with people of the land on which the schools sit. I’m challenged to consider carefully the significance of where we are on the land for how we live peaceably and justly in our differences. As I learn more, I try to engage students with teachings from the people of the land where we live and work. For example, the Anishinaabek way of a good life encompasses physical, emotional, social and spiritual aspects of being human, always understood in relationship to stewarding Creation and honouring the Creator.

Trusting God, knowing ourselves, and rooting our teaching and learning. A Christian university, with the living word at its center, is perhaps uniquely placed to engage with traditions and perspectives that take the land seriously, that take stewarding Creation seriously, and that take honouring the Creator seriously.

Dorothy Jean Weaver, M.Div, Ph.D.Professor of New TestamentEastern Mennonite Seminary

Contributions to God’s Reconciling Mission in the World: A Perspective from a Mennonite Higher Education Vantage Point

It may well be extraordinarily audacious for me or any of us to stand in front of a group of people and announce with confidence precisely how our work in the classroom, in our offices, and around campus has in fact actually contributed to God’s reconciling mission in the world. I’m not convinced that we often even know the outcomes or the impact of our work as teachers or administrators. These insights sometimes come to us long afterward in comments from our students. And sometimes our impact has been far different than we ever would have imagined. But since our task this morning is to sketch out an answer to this question, I will offer a few basic comments that speak to what I perceive my contributions to be.

1. May day job in the classroom is living with the scriptures, opening them to the students in my classroom, and helping them to develop sturdy skills—linguistic, exegetical, reflective—with which to read the biblical texts and to tangle with their meaning and the relevance to the present-day world. This task, as I see it, lies at the heart of God’s reconciling mission: learning to read, to analyze, to reflect on the “good news” left us in the Scriptures.


2. My day job in the classroom and in my office and around the seminary is likewise to provide support, encouragement, and counsel to students as they find their way through seminary classes and as they face the much larger questions of where and to what God is calling them. I stand on holy ground as students share with me bits and pieces of their journey with God and their emerging sense of call to vocation. And I stand on holy ground as well as I share with students bits and pieces of my own journey, and, not infrequently, those broken bits and pieces of my journey with which I can reach out to students who are often struggling as I once struggled.

3. Another significant piece of my calling, not as frequent as my daily encounters in the classroom and around campus, but equally vital and urgent vis-à-vis God’s reconciling mission in the world are the seminary cross-culturals that I co-lead with a colleague every other year to Israel/Palestine. These trips have grown out of a distinct and powerful sense of God’s call on my life in response to the grief and pain and massive injustices experienced by one community of broken people at the hands of another community of broken people. I have no illusions about my personal powers to enact real and meaningful change to social structures or political realities. But I thank God for the calling to walk along besides North American Christians as they in turn encounter one little facet of the grief of the world and as they allow God to touch their hearts and call them to response.

Three little windows onto my share, and, with God’s grace, my contributions to God’s reconciling mission in the world.

Mark Metzler Sawin, Ph.D.Professor of History; Director, University Honors ProgramEastern Mennonite University

Only available as audio

Laura Kraybill, M.A.Director of Theatre, Hesston College



Jason E. Swartzlander, M.B.A. Assistant Professor of Accounting, Bluffton University

My response to this question is broken into two parts and attempts to address two questions: what is reconciliation and how are we, as educators, instrumental in God’s reconciling mission?

What is reconciliation?In accounting, reconciliation means to bring together two previously separate things. For example, we reconcile our checkbook with the bank statement; we reconcile cash accounting to accrual accounting; we reconcile income statements prepared under international financial reporting standards to those prepared under generally accepted accounting principles. Under each of these activities, two previously disparate things are brought together and shown to be the same.

So the question, then, becomes what does this have to do with our vocation as faculty in higher education? To help answer this, I reflected on an experience I had earlier this year when I had the opportunity to observe a panel of current students presenting to prospective students and their families as part of a recruitment activity for the university. While hearing the current students speak of their journey to and through Bluffton University, it occurred to me that we serve as important influences in the “reconciliation” of two critical aspects in these students’ lives. On one hand, the students are leaving the safety, security, and comfort of home to begin an entirely new journey in, most likely, an unfamiliar setting. On the other hand, they will soon enter their chosen vocation as independent people ready to contribute to their vocation and to the wider community. The brevity and instrumental nature of the time we have with them struck me. It is during this time they are figuring out who they are and what their place in this world is.

How are we instruments of God’s reconciling mission?To answer this question, it was helpful for me to look at scripture. One thing I love about scripture is there always seems to be something new to learn…often with familiar passages. The feeding of the five thousand is one of the miracles that is familiar to many. I have heard about this miracle many times, yet reading it earlier this year in Mark chapter 6, beginning with verse 30 gave me new insight; in particular, the portion of the text that describes what events led up to the feeding of the five thousand.

I will give a brief summary of the passage. The apostles had just returned from a very successful mission trip. While they were away, Jesus learned that John the Baptist was beheaded. Upon hearing the news of John’s death, the disciples quickly returned and I would imagine when they did, they longed to reunite with Jesus and enjoy some solitude and rest. Once together, they attempted to retreat for some much needed rest, but the crowed followed them and actually beat them to the location they were


headed to. Instead of turning the crowd away (and we could not blame Him had He done this), Jesus taught those in the crowd. He also fed them and, as we know, there were many baskets of leftovers after all had had their fill from the original five loaves and two fish.

For me, the takeaway of this passage was that God took the limitations of human efforts (Jesus and the disciples were exhausted and broken-hearted) and used whatever they could give to perform a great miracle. Just as a worn out Jesus and the disciples fed the five thousand when they most likely had nothing left physically and emotionally, let us see our students in much the same way as the crowd in Mark’s passage. Our students are at a critical time in their lives and they are looking to us to help train them in their vocation. Just as Jesus served the crowd, we must also see ourselves as serving our students. We have to recognize that God uses us as instruments of reconciliation. While there are times when we feel “empty”, we must trust that God will take our efforts, with all of our limitations and use those efforts to complete His mission.

Francisca M. Méndez-Harclerode, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of Biology, Bethel College



E. Kent Palmer, Ph.D.Associate Professor of InformaticsGoshen College

God and My iPad

How does what I do in my classes contribute to God's reconciling mission in the world? I teach Informatics at Goshen College. This means that I teach students how to write apps for information appliances. An information appliance might be a phone, a tablet, or a computer. The apps that my students write make these devices useful to other people. This year the primary appliance that Goshen students will use to access information is an iPad. So my students will be writing apps for iPads.

As an Anabaptist, before using technology, I am interested in how the technology will affect my relationship with God and my community. Would God use an iPad? Would Jesus use an iPad? We can say with a fair amount of confidence that when Jesus was manifested in Israel/Palestine two thousand years ago he did not use an iPad. Should followers of Jesus use iPads today? Will using an iPad bring us closer to God or further away?

Quakers speak of God being not only in all people but in all things. God created the material universe and God’s presence continues to be in all objects. So I begin by thinking about where God is in my iPad? I begin my search for God by cracking the case of an iPad to see whether I can find God there. My 15 years of technology experience tells me that the battery pack is not very interesting. God is exciting. So God is going to be where the action is and in computing devices the action is in the CPU.

Here is the CPU of an iPad. Still I do not immediately see God by viewing the outside of the CPU chip. So here is an image of the CPU using X-rays so that we can see inside the chip and see if God is there. Not seeing God, I will increase the magnification a bit. Still I do not see God. What can I do?

Ah!!!! It's an iPad and today there are over 250,000 Apps for iPads in the App Store. There's got be one to do with God. I will just go over to the App Store and download it. Here is an app for 99 cents!! I can even afford the number one God app—“Pocket God™.”

The description of Pocket God™ is: “What kind of god would you be? Benevolent or vengeful? Play Pocket God™ and discover the answer within yourself. On a remote island, you are an all-powerful god, ruling over the simple natives. You can bring new life, and take it away just as quickly. Exercise your power by lifting your subjects in the air, altering gravity, striking them with lightning: you control their universe!”


But do I really want a god of my own making? Perhaps I am asking and seeking the wrong thing, and not asking the right questions. So I might ask instead how do we, my students and myself, use information technology to reconcile a diverse group of people to each other and enable these people to build God's kingdom?

People sometimes ask me what informatics is about. Informatics is about taking information and making it useful. At Goshen, informatics students contribute to God's reconciling mission in the world by applying informatics to solve problems in business, biology and health, media and communication, as well as peace and social justice. In the past, this has meant writing software for managing a coffee shop, creating an app to monitor water quality in the Elkhart River, providing technical support for the Global Anabaptist Wiki, and creating a database to track mediation sessions for the Center for Community Justice.

God's love is spread by how we use information and information appliances. We need to provide the students at Mennonite Colleges and Universities with the experiences and skills necessary to effectively use technology for God’s work on earth.

Troy Osborne, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of History, Conrad Grebel University College


Daniel Schipani, Ph.D. Professor of Pastoral Care and CounselingAssociated Mennonite Biblical Seminary

Core Competencies for Educating Christianly in Multicultural and Multifaith Settings: A Working Tool for Self-Reflection

Consider the following list of core competencies deemed necessary for educating well, broadly speaking.1 A simple instrument could add something like this: “On a scale of 4 to 1, how do you view yourself regarding each of the 1 This working tool does not present a complete list of desirable competencies; it is rather an invitation to further our reflection. Other competencies can be added in light of personal and professional experience. An agreed upon model of core competencies may also serve as an accountability device in collegial conversation and collaboration.


competencies listed (4 being the highest, 1 the lowest)? What would you add in each category?”

BEING competencies (presence) Clear sense of personal and professional identity and authority Self-awareness (including realistic sense of strengths and

vulnerabilities related to one’s gender, ethnicity, social status and culture, life and professional experience, spirituality, etc.)

“Mature faith”: a spirituality characterized by the capacity to embrace mystery and paradox (what James Fowler calls “conjunctive faith”)

Overall sense of personal wellbeing, integrity and worth Character strengths (virtues): humility, hospitality, compassion,

respect, courage, empathy, honesty, passion for justice and peace, patience, hopefulness, open-mindedness (and others)

Appropriate curiosity and sense of humor


KNOWING competencies (understanding) A philosophy of education pedagogically sound and grounded in our

Christian-Anabaptist tradition Culture-general knowledge Culture specific knowledge (knowing at least another language, and

being familiar with practices and codes of at least another culture cultures and faith tradition)

Knowledge of challenges and opportunities encountered by educators in multicultural and multifaith settings

Integration of spirituality, behavioral/social sciences, theological, and socio-political perspectives

Knowledge of personal, interpersonal, and system dynamics of change

Knowledge of responses to critical incidents, conflict, and crisis, in classroom, institution, etc.

DOING competencies (guiding) Relationship building skills Behavioral skills (active listening, discernment of appropriate verbal

and nonverbal responses, problem solving, conflict transformation etc.)

Pertinent pedagogic strategizing and implementation (teaching methodology )

Engaging learners’ psychological as well as spiritual self Internal monitoring of teaching-learning processes and self Active partnering with faith communities, government agencies,

advocacy groups, and others, including accountability structure and process

Ongoing critical and constructive reflection on experience and practice in higher education

Discipline of self-care and intentional work on professional growth

A modest proposalIdentifying, assessing, and fostering core competencies for intercultural and interfaith educational settings is an indispensable task before us. Some underlying claims and understandings follow:

Our conversation must include “interfaith” side by side “intercultural”; the two are closely related but “interfaith” should not be collapsed into “intercultural”. Our college and seminary students, in addition to their racial, cultural and ethnic diversity, also bring with them diverse experiences and expressions of spirituality and faith (not necessarily correlated with those racial, cultural and ethnic categories). Given that multifaith reality, it is often a difficult challenge for professors, administrators and students alike to communicate and collaborate together in creative learning environments, and many find themselves alienated and excluded.


Many kinds of higher education institutions today take seriously the moral and legal imperative to embrace and engage diversity in educationally fruitful ways. Given our “faith based” or church-related nature, our conversation must help us to shape vision and practice in an integrated way. We must deftly integrate the best that social and behavioral sciences, education itself as a practical human science2, and other disciplines (e.g. philosophy) and cultural resources (e.g. the arts) have to offer, together with biblical-theological perspectives and substantive content (e.g. “God´s reconciling mission…”)

Within a truly multidisciplinary reflection, theological clarity matters significantly for at least three interrelated reasons: (a) theology informs our educational normative convictions (on the nature of reality, knowledge and wisdom, the good society and the good life, etc.); (b) theology undergirds our faith and spirituality as educators, personally, corporately, institutionally; and (c) theology inspires our vocation, including norms for pedagogical practice.

Identifying, assessing, and fostering core intercultural and interfaith competencies for Christian educators is one way to advance our agenda in the direction of both excellence and faithfulness. We might say that they help us to “educate Christianly”. Core competencies are commonly defined as those characteristics, dispositions and abilities that support effective and appropriate educational interaction in a variety of settings; they are usually grouped in terms of attitudinal, cognitive, and behavioral categories. While including those standard categories, we prefer to work with a more comprehensive profile of professional wisdom defined in terms of core competencies of being, knowing, and doing, as presented in the following exercise.

CASE STUDY

Background and DescriptionIN the fall of 2010 I taught the course, “Education for Peace & Justice”. Eight students enrolled and agreed to make the proposed goals and objectives their own.3 The “critical incident” happened in response to a video presentation about how a (Mennonite, Caucasian) mother of a teen

2 I am using a standard way of characterizing education in philosophy of science. As a practical human science (not unlike psychotherapy, also included in this category) the discipline is dedicated to human formation, and guidance, correction and transformation, thus necessarily involving values and normativeness. (i.e. necessarily non-neutrality and direction).

3 The syllabus stated the following: Students who fulfill all the course requirements will meet the following goals and objectives:

To nurture their identity and vocation as Christian peacemakers (being) To identify core values, virtues and attitudes as PJ educators To develop the disposition of pedagogical “presence”


girl responded to a (n African-American) girl who had hurt her daughter. During the discussion of the presentation, the two African American women members of our class (one of whom had worked in public schools for several years) made a number of negative comments about the behavior of that mother, which contrasted with the positive comments of the others. It became apparent that the two women felt that the video reinforces racist stereotypes. An intercultural factor present was that I was not personally challenged for having brought the video to class; rather, arguments ensued involving a clash of interpretations and applications. My role was to become a mediator even though I initially felt that the criticisms were unfair. Eventually I decided to stop the conversation by proposing to shift the focus to the class dynamics and to trying to figure out what was happening and why.Analysis Key issues that surfaced: lingering memories of discrimination and disempowerment; sense of lack of understanding and of a biased approach being used in class; frustration with two members of the class seemingly hindering the class process; the relation between micro and macro contexts of experience and. Theologically viewed: how to discern when and how some behaviors will be deemed sinful; grace, forgiveness and reconciliation.

EvaluationThe incident became a special occasion to reflect on what might imply “educating peacefully” and “justly”. We were able to draw connections with the three main goals of the course and the stated values and commitments of AMBS. We also took advantage of the opportunity to look deeper into the question of how to love not only the enemy” but the oppressed neighbor. In retrospect, I should have anticipated a possible negative reaction and/or consult with those two students beforehand.

ProjectionsI learned that I must not underestimate the powerful forces at play in intercultural and interfaith situations, especially when “race” factors are a major dimension of the equation. My growth in this area is directly connected with my work and teaching/supervising in interfaith spiritual care.

To enhance their understanding of, and theological reflection on EPJ as a ministry of the church (knowing)

To articulate a vision for EPJ that is theologically and pedagogically sound

Grow familiar with important issues in the field, and learn how to research EPJ themes

To be equipped with practical knowledge and tools to further their ministry practice in EPJ (doing)

To develop skills for the practice of teaching in the area of EPJ To create their own approach to EPJ


Further dialogue and collaboration with students and colleagues will also be on the professional agenda.


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