The students were cited for their “significant and verifiable impact” on the university and on student life, for their contributions to developing 91����Ƶ’s positive image, for substantial contributions to the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County area and beyond, for their high academic and social standing, and for their embodiment of 91����Ƶ’s values of Christian discipleship, community, service and .

The blue cord represents the strength of conviction that one person can help to create a better institution or community. The gold cord represents the love of spirit and yearning towards creating a better university environment or community in which all may take part.

The recipients were:

• Christine Baer, a and major from Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania
• Aaron Erb, a peacebuilding & development major from Harrisonburg, Virginia
• Laura Glick, a major from Lancaster, Pennsylvania
• Nicole Groff, a major from Lancaster, Pennsylvania
• Ardi Hermawan, a major from Parsurvan, Indonesia
• Rose Jantzi, a major with an recipient from Harrisonburg, Virginia
• Litza Laboriel, a social work major from Trujillo, Honduras
• Krista Nyce, a major from Harrisonburg, Virginia
• Melody Tobin, a liberal arts major with an elementary education licensure from Harrisonburg, Virginia
• Brandon Waggy, a peacebuilding and development and major from South Bend, Indiana

SGA co-presidents and main auction organizers Christine Baer and Carissa Harnish say they didn’t know what to expect before the auction started. “When the first big item, a ceramic bowl by Jerry Lapp, went for $325, we were amazed,” says Harnish.

Baer adds that local auctioneers John and Jack Bowman, who donated their time, “really knew how to keep the crowd engaged and laughing.”

“I was very pleased with the kind of response and donations we got from students, the science department, alumni, parents, faculty and staff,” says , executive director of development. “The auction crowd wasn’t huge, but those who came were prepared to spend money.”

The infamous shotglass (originally purchased as a “rosebud vase” for a donor appreciation banquet) brought $300. Howard Zehr‘s recent book, “,” went for $300. A star guide from M.T. Brackbill’s 1930s astronomy classes sold for $600. A large chest of drawers (possibly from the Ad Building) went for $750, and Esther Augsberger’s sculpture, “Robe of God,” sold for $3200.

Students also bought bricks from previous buildings on campus, plants from the greenhouse and discarded glassware from science labs. Food tables of chili, cornbread and baked goods added $700 to the total.

“It inspires everyone when students engage in a project like this with their own creativity, commitment, and passion for a good cause,” says Kirk Shisler, vice president for advancement.

A matching grant magnified the auction’s yield; for every $2 raised, an additional $1 was added by the Marietta McNeill Morgan and Samuel Tate Morgan Foundation, bringing the total to more than $21,000. Further donations made to the SGA campaign using this secure online form will be matched as well.

“When we started planning for this campaign last semester, we drew inspiration from the famous Library drive of 1969, when students lead the campus community to raise more than $100,000 [in 1969 dollars] in four days,” says Baer. “We heard so many library drive stories from alumni and community folks as they dropped off donated items for the auction. That made it come alive for us.”

The co-presidents admit their fundraising goals for the auction event were considerably more modest, between $5,000 and $10,000.

One lesson Harnish and Baer want to pass to future student leaders: “With all the institutional support here, from development to physical plant to faculty and staff, it is completely possible for students to organize successful fundraising campaigns for things they care about.”

Young alum , who as a and major spent many hours in Suter Science Center, agrees. “I thought the auction was fantastic: the type of event we should try to do every year, frankly. Not only did we raise money for a good cause, connections were made between students and alumni, and that’s what it’s all about.”

The auction, which begins at 1 p.m. on Thomas Plaza in front of the Campus Center, has been organized “in the spirit of the 1969 student library drive,” when the entire campus community, galvanized by student enthusiasm, . By doing so, they protected a major construction grant for the , still in use today, and won glowing national headlines ($111,000 in 1969 would be worth well over $700,000 today).

Equipment from the Science Center, including eight microscopes (both full-size and miniature; most in their original wooden cases), will headline the auction, led by local auctioneer John Bowman.

One unique item will entitle the new owner to tell a funny story: Years ago, the planners of a donor appreciation dinner purchased what they assumed were “rosebud glasses” to garnish each table, emblazed with the blue seal of Eastern Mennonite College and Seminary. As it turned out, they had actually bought shot glasses.

Other items up for auction from the science center include ten of the greenhouse’s best plants, assorted science glassware (perfect for flower vases), two Margaret Gehman paintings, a hand thrown ceramic bowl by Jerry Lapp, an Esther Augsburger statue entiteld��Robe of God and an astronomy course packet, including star charts, from the M.T. Brackbill era.

“It’s been great having the support of the development office, Science Center faculty and staff,” said SGA co-president Christine Baer, one of the auction’s organizers.

Organizers hope drive becomes template for future

Co-president Carissa Harnish said planners have been inspired by the 1969 campus-wide library fund drive since last fall.

“Organizing this drive has been a learning process,” Harnish said. “We’ve never done an auction on this scale before. Hopefully, this can be a template for student campaigns of the future.”

Also to be auctioned are donated items, including two nights’ lodging at a “tranquility guest suite” east of Harrisonburg and a copy of professor ’s recent book, Pickups, a Love Story. A “marketplace” of other items, including baked goods, will be for sale as well.

A matching grant will magnify the SGA’s fundraising efforts. For every $2 raised, an additional $1 will be added by the Marietta McNeill Morgan and Samuel Tate Morgan Foundation. A personalized letter has been sent to parents and families of students, announcing the student-initiated campaign and the matching grant.

“We’re delighted that SGA has taken the lead in mobilizing student support for the Suter Science Campaign,” says , vice president for advancement. “Students have expressed keen interest in this campaign since its inception, and it’s great that the student government leaders have stepped up to engage the larger student body in the effort.”

Fundraising efforts focus on west wing of science center

The has reached and exceeded its initial $7 million goal to modernize the laboratory section of the building, built in the late 1960s.

Bringing the west wing into the 21st century is the focus of current fundraising efforts. This involves demolishing and replacing S-104 (known as the “head room” for its array of antlered trophies) and upgrading ancient HVAC systems.

“During our student years, this is our home,” says Baer. “When we learned from development that we could designate how the funds are used, that really injected additional energy into the campaign.”

Replacing all the chairs in the large auditorium S-106 with more comfortable seating is one idea, albeit an ambitious one. Other possibilities have been discussed, including an outdoor amphitheater classroom, equipment purchase or front entrance landscaping.

As part of this discussion, “the students are interested in how buildings change the campus,” Harnish says. “We’re here for a few short years. It’s good to know that people are thinking and planning for the future.”

In the ramp-up for the auction weekend, SGA launched several student awareness events. Before the latest Hunger Games movie screened in S-106 in early March, students were treated to a “fun science” culinary experiment – ice cream made using liquid nitrogen instead of ice.

Updates on the student science center campaign can be found on its , as well as a link to a secure online form for making a financial gift to the student campaign. For more information on remote bidding on the day of the auction, call Phil Helmuth, executive director of development, at 540-746-2068.

If it rains, the auction will move inside to the upper level of University Commons.

Shoulder–to-Shoulder,��a Washington D.C.-based interfaith coalition that works to end anti-Muslim sentiment in the United States, has its work cut out for it. Political campaigns throughout the 2012 election season made use of xenophobic language, and vandalism of mosques made headlines repeatedly over the past year, including an incident at a mosque a few miles from 91����Ƶ.

As an intern with the organization, Bekah Enns ’13 has put to work her experience as a co-editor of The Weather Vane, 91����Ƶ’s student newspaper, by producing a bi-weekly newsletter, compiling fact sheets, and otherwise pitching in on the group’s various initiatives and campaigns.

One of Shoulder-to-Shoulder’s priorities is trying to replace the commonly used label “Muslim American” with “American Muslim” – a term consciously chosen to emphasize to the “American-ness” that unites people of all faiths who live in the United States. While it seems a worthwhile project to Enns, she’s also well aware of how this appeal to secular, American values is somewhat at odds with the Mennonite tradition of emphasizing primary allegiance to God rather than country.

And so, Enns’ internship through 91����Ƶ’s , or WCSC, has become something more than just a taste of real-world work and an opportunity to develop contacts, ideas and credentials for life after college. It’s also a launching point for deeper examination of the relationship between faith, values and career.

“How do we as Mennonites engage the state, and how much do we build our alternative systems?” asks Enns, a history major with minors in political science, pre-law and peacebuilding and development.

What relationship, exactly, should a person of faith hold toward advocacy in a secular environment, she wonders? Doesn’t a faith like hers, one that prescribes action on behalf of the least among us, require this sort of entanglement with the wider world? But does this very entanglement with the wider world undermine the foundations of her faith?

Sitting at the kitchen table in the WCSC house, Enns – approaching the end of her semester in Washington –��hasn’t hit on any answers to her questions yet. At the same time, she knows she would like to continue doing faith-based advocacy work after she graduates.

“Washington is often viewed as the quintessential ‘City on a Hill’ because of the power that exists here,” says Sheldon C. Good, WCSC assistant director. “And yet, Jesus professed an upside-down kingdom that turned power on its head, and that’s what students have to grapple with.”

Questions like those raised by Enns lie at the heart of the Washington Community Scholars’ Center experience, says Kimberly Schmidt, the program’s director since 1999. While most internship programs in Washington D.C. focus on career-building, WCSC pushes students to think more broadly about vocation, where one’s work and one’s values align. Another key feature of the WCSC internship programs is its emphasis on serving other people rather than just one’s own interests.

“A lot of people come to D.C. and they just want to pad their résumés and network,” says Schmidt, who takes satisfaction in seeing students struggle with deeper questions during their WCSC experience. “But we really want our students to come in with an attitude of service.”

This concept of “servant-leadership” has been a part of the WCSC program since its inception in 1976 and remains very much at the center of its focus.

At the same time, that doesn’t mean that student internships remain limited to ones like Shoulder-to-Shoulder, with an overt mission of service or advocacy.

Instead, Schmidt and Good place students in a wide variety of internships that match career interests, and then work with them to “imagine themselves as servant-leaders in that particular sector.”

The academic component of the WCSC program places great emphasis on the differences, diversity and contradictions encountered by students during their semester in the city. A student’s day could begin in one of the poorest neighborhoods in the country and could end at the Kennedy Center, a few miles away and several worlds apart. Schmidt and former associate director Doug Hertzler ’88 (after more than a decade with the program, he took a new job in the late fall of 2012) intentionally expose students to these different realities – “polarities and disparities,” as Schmidt refers to them – during the seminars on urban history, anthropology and life that the directors lead each semester.

“I didn’t know what ‘gentrification’ meant before coming here this semester,” says Christine Baer ’14, calling her class in urban anthropology one of the highlights of her WCSC experience.

Through a variety of field trips, guest speakers and readings, she and her classmates studied the dynamics of race, class and politics at work in the rapidly changing city. (Since WCSC was established in the ’70s, for example, the African-American share of the city’s population has fallen from 70 percent to 50 percent.)

Like many in the WCSC program, Baer finds city life exhilarating. After graduation, she plans to look for work in the human services field in a large city, with D.C. high on her list.

The endless opportunity for new experiences, encounters and entertainment, the public transportation that zips you around, the crowds, everything seemingly at her fingertips – all of these are also a highlight of the experience for Taylor Swantz ’13.

“I love the city,” says Swantz, who grew up in rural Iowa and has an internship with a psychologist at a therapy center in College Park, Maryland.

Good points out that it’s simply fun to live in one of the world’s most important cities.

“Students have plenty of opportunities to experience city life and build community together,” he says.

(The night before Crossroads’ visit to the WCSC program, several students were out late, taking in the spectacle of President Barack Obama’s re-election outside the White House and along U Street, where celebration erupted after the result was announced.)

But even when there are great times to be had and great questions to ponder, there are still groceries to buy and bathrooms to clean, and here again, WCSC students are thrust into the real (and banal) world, where there is no cafeteria or custodial staff to lean on.

Because she is one of the few students with a car in the city, Baer became one of the grocery shoppers, making regular trips to Aldis for the deals and Giant for everything else, plus a few agreed-upon luxuries, like caramel macchiato-flavored coffee creamer. She and her classmates also have organized weekly meetings and set up cooking and cleaning rotations to keep the house in order – tasks that the WCSC staffers leave up to the students to figure out.

“I feel more adult here,” says Kiersten Rossetto ’13, mentioning the greater freedoms and greater responsibilities given students in WCSC compared to life on campus in Harrisonburg.

While Schmidt and the rest of the WCSC staff emphasize the way the program develops students beyond simple career enhancement, job opportunities frequently do present themselves through the internships in D.C. During some semesters, 90 percent of the students have received job offers through, or directly because of, their internship placements, Schmidt says.

And even when the internship doesn’t culminate in a full-fledged job, the experience at the very least lets students give the urban vocation a full-dress rehearsal.

Baer, interning with Maryland Citizens Against State Executions, has both enjoyed her work ­assisting the organization in its campaign to abolish the death penalty in Maryland, and figured out that working on a policy level ­– emailing, letter-writing, bending legislators’ ears – is a little too impersonal for her tastes.

“It is really valuable work, but I think I get my energy elsewhere,” says Baer, who has figured out over the course of the semester that she prefers service and advocacy work that involves more direct contact with constituents.

Rossetto, an intern with the immigrant advocacy group Casa de Maryland, feels very much drawn to that field, which she also studied from a very different angle as a student on 91����Ƶ’s Guatemala and U.S.-Mexico border cross-cultural. Now considering work with the Peace Corps or Mennonite Central Committee, though, Rossetto isn’t yet exactly sure where or how her skills and values frame a vocational calling.

“I really like nonprofit work and organizing, but I’m still on that journey,” Rossetto says. “I’m still figuring it out.” — Andrew Jenner ’04

Keynote speaker , an 91����Ƶ professor internationally known for her work, asked the 100 conference participants to craft a confession of their faith, informed by 500 years of peacemaking experience. The resultant statement reached fruition on Feb. 24, exactly 487 years from the day that the Schleitheim Confession was issued.

The original document represented “a watershed articulation of certain Anabaptist distinctives,” wrote C. Arnold Snyder, in the of the Global Anabaptist Mennonite Encyclopedia Online.

The Shenandoah Confession – printed below – encompasses themes of love and compassion as well as calls to radical nonviolent action. “It heavily stresses the peace principles that set the Anabaptists apart from many other faith streams,” said professor , adding that it was “drafted in group process and finalized by a student-led committee.”

The document follows in the tradition of “speaking boldly” as part of the “priesthood of all believers,” said senior Evan Knappenberger. He led the process through a half-dozen drafts, working with seniors Jacob Landis, Aaron Erb, Christine Baer and Krista Nyce. (Baer and Nyce also organized the conference.) Knappenberger said Heisey, Schirch and other 91����Ƶ faculty members significantly contributed to the process.

The Shenandoah Confession consists of 11 articles comprising 1,668 words. 91����Ƶ Bible and religion professor calls its language “robustly theological.”

“The same spirit of radical community still hangs in the air, waiting for the right moment to spark something new,” said Knappenberger.

The Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship of Mennonite and Affiliated Colleges aims to “promote the cause of biblical nonresistance by providing various channels for sharing ideas among the college peace groups,” according to its 1953 constitution. Its annual conference rotates among host institutions.

��* * *

The Shenandoah Confession

Presented this 24^th day of February, 2014, on behalf of those gathered in Christ at the Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship of Anabaptist colleges meeting at 91����Ƶ, to our various communities around the world. Written by participants with inspiration from previous Anabaptist confessions of faith.

Preface.

May peace, fellowship, patience and the truth of the love of God be with all who love God.�� Beloved brothers and sisters in the Lord, may the care of the good shepherd and the strength of the lamb who was slain sustain you in your efforts to recognize God’s Kingdom which, according to the most holy teacher and savior, Jesus of Nazareth, exists among and within all creation and is the source of life everywhere.

Dear brothers and sisters, we who have been assembled for the 2014 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference, in the Lord at Eastern Mennonite Seminary in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, make known to all that we have been united in the spirit of fellowship to the common goal of building the peace of a loving and merciful God.�� The articles to which we confess ourselves we announce here in the spirit of those Anabaptist brothers and sisters who before us made confession together at Schleitheim on the 24^th day of February in the year 1527, and Dordrecht in 1632, including the various conclusions that have been amended to it by the church since.�� As those dear brothers and sisters made formal confession into a foundational action of the Anabaptist church, so let us confess ourselves in the hopes of a new and prophetic life in Immanuel, who is God with us.

The eleven articles of confession.

The articles of our confession are as follows.

1.�������� Confession of faith in Christ as the foundation of peace.

2.�������� Love as the root of all things.

3.�������� The call of the spirit of God to all for radical pacifist action.

4.�������� Acceptance of the truth of the full humanity of all God’s children.

5.�������� Inclusion as the guiding principle of action within the spirit.

6.�������� Accountability of historical wrongs, especially colonialisms.

7.�������� An abiding desire to participate in resilient and just economies.

8.�������� The full and unflinching engagement of creative faculties of believers in service of peace.

9.�������� Embrace of lives of radical simplicity following the truth of God’s peace on Earth.

10.�� Commitment to deep listening and dialogue as the prophetic intention of Christian pacifism.

11.�� Recognition of failures and continued re-commitment to our principles within community.

Explication of articles.

Confession of faith in Christ as the foundation of peace.�� We confess our faith in the peace of Christ that surpasses understanding, and our dedication to the principled peace of the Lord and savior Jesus who taught a bold humility. ��We embrace the faith even as we work for the good of all people, including people with whom we disagree, or people of other faiths, and even those who proclaim themselves our enemies and seek to do us harm.�� We seek the realization of the one we follow, Jesus, that the good of all is the work of servants; and in the tradition of him who laid down his life for all people, we embrace our identities as his followers knowing well the consequences of the burden of the cross.�� We admit that there can be no higher calling than the gospel call to nonviolent action in accordance with the will of the Holy Spirit, and the imminent fullness of the kingdom of the lamb, who does justice with mercy.

Love as the root of all things.�� Being created in the spirit of love, and saved by the love of Jesus who is our redeemed example of love, we here confess that love to be at the heart of all things.�� We confess to loving ourselves and others without the world’s judgment and vanities; we commit to loving the earth and protecting God’s gift of life, the spirit of God itself, and our enemies and neighbors, in praise and thanksgiving.�� We also confess our belief that our love must be one that challenges those around us to become better followers of Jesus.�� Love must be mission, holding others accountable and building them up.�� True love, we hold, calls people to action in its embodiment and by its very example.

The call of the spirit of God to all for radical pacifist action.�� ��This gospel call to act as servants we confess to be the central tenant of the Christian faith.�� Peace is the vocation of all things made by a just and good creator, we believe. ��Peace shapes our daily lives and actions whether or not we are aware of it; it is our intention to practice this peace conscientiously around the world and amongst neighbors.�� The spirit of God calls all God’s life back to God, clothed in the raiment of nonviolence, worshiping the wonderful counselor who does justice and loves mercy.�� We confess that we seek to build institutions upon the shoulders of Christ, the servant who yearns for right relationship among the children of God.

Acceptance of the truth of the full humanity of all God’s children.�� We affirm all brothers and sisters to be equal in Christ.�� We call for the full privileges and rights of Christ to be granted them without delay.�� We honor the power and beauty of all life, and seek to enter relationship with it, not avoiding but rather walking toward conflict in the spirit of peace and fellowship.�� Along with this, we confess that our communities must become places of deep healing, sustainable praxis, nonviolent education and radical acceptance, where brothers and sisters can seek their identities in Christ freely, without fear of prejudice or categorical pre-judgement.

Inclusion as the guiding principle of action within the spirit.�� We confess that the guiding principle of prophetic action within the will of the spirit is one of active inclusion. ��In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, nor male and female.�� All people, created in the image of God, are unconditionally welcomed to God’s table and to God’s salvation.

Accountability of historical wrong, especially colonialisms.�� We hereby pledge solidarity and yield up positions of leadership to those communities who have been historically marginalized.�� We seek to affirm their leadership and support peace and nonviolence education by upholding the principles of peacebuilding in our own local and historical contexts.�� As North American Anabaptists, we confess our need to challenge and reform our own government and lay out peacebuilding alternatives to violence and war.

An abiding desire to participate in resilient and just economies.�� We see that our world suffers from a lack of care for God’s living environment, and we grieve the lack of our participation in an economy that is environmentally sustainable and socially just. ��We confess our desire to support local enterprise, invest prudently in clean energy, and remain mindful of our impact on and our role within God’s loving creation. ��We seek to embrace trickle-up change, and we commit to imagining innovative communities along these principles near to our homes, even as we seek God’s peace farther from our immediate spheres of influence.

The full and unflinching engagement of creative faculties of believers in service of peace.�� We confess that we look for creative engagement within our hearts and communities in order to nonviolently pursue restorative justice in the name of a righteous God of wholeness. Violence stifles creative impulses and inhibits our ability to seek the peace of God. ��We believe in appealing for peace to the creativity of the Spirit, which is that of Jesus, and of the one who sent him.

Embrace of lives of radical simplicity following the truth of God’s peace on Earth.�� In order to focus our lives to the call of God’s peace on Earth, we hereby uphold the life of the servant Christ in its simplicity and mission-orientation as the model for all conscientious human activity.�� We seek to affirm the intentional community of believers without excluding other brothers and sisters, and we disavow egotistical ambition as a basis for peace and faith work.�� We recognize the impossibility of following two masters, and chose to follow the way of peace despite the possibilities of worldly poverty which can sometimes overshadow it.

Commitment to deep listening and dialogue as the prophetic intention of Christian pacifism.�� We assert principles of right relationship to neighbor, enemy and self to be the following: deep listening as a means of connection and dialogue; openness to change of identity and opinion; mutual transformation in partnership and in the spirit of the creator; deep reflection before action; and nonviolence.

Recognition of failures and continued re-commitment to our principles within community.�� We confess that we have at times failed to embody the principles of community.�� With contrition we earnestly implore God’s forgiveness.�� We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves, we have not honored God’s creation, and we have often left the work of peace undone.�� Brothers and sisters in Christ, let us recognize our many vanities, our mindless consumerisms. Let us hereby recommit ourselves to the principles of Christian pacifism, the articles of confession above, and the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in the way of nonviolence.

��Postlude.

Brothers and sisters in God, we most earnestly confess these points to you in hope that they move in your hearts, and excite within you a desire to confess them also.�� May your roots – watered in the innocence and strength of the lamb of God – nourish your spirits and give you rest and joy.�� Also may your wings – lifted by the breath of the Holy Spirit – shield you in the protection of the most high and allow you to walk and not grow faint, to run and not become weary, to soar as eagles.�� May the peace of God be with you now and always, and may the teachings of the Prince of Peace guide you to the realization of God’s presence among us.�� Amen.

Freelance Whales – Friday, Feb. 7,�� 9 p.m. – $5 students; $15/$20 non-students advance/door.

“Their sound is awesome,” says Emma King, a junior who’s been a fan for several years and saw the band perform last fall in Washington, D.C. “They’ve got a great stage presence and they’re just a really great band.”

Freelance Whales makes extensive use of unusual instruments like the harmonium and glockenspiel to create a sound that has drawn comparisons to huge acts like Arcade Fire and Sufjan Stevens. named the group to its list of “50 Must-Hear Bands” before the 2010 SXSW festival, while in a review of the band’s 2012 album Diluvia, the called Freelance Whales “one of indie rock’s most intriguing new acts.”

The and worked together to bring the band to 91����Ƶ, in response to student surveys that have constantly reflected a desire for larger acts to perform on campus. The two groups have decided to pool resources every three years to attract a big-name musician or band.

“It’s really special to have a major artist come to 91����Ƶ,” says , the assistant director of student programs who arranged the show. “Come to hear great music and come for a more exciting experience in a more intimate setting than you’ll usually get.”

The band will perform in Lehman Auditorium.

SGA co-president Christine Baer became a fan of the band as she and the rest of SGA listened to Freelance Whales as they were discussing which group to bring to 91����Ƶ. She adds that the band has a group of avid followers on campus as well as a growing number of people who have begun to listen to them more recently.

“We’d love to get a good student turnout,” says Baer, who hopes to recapture the excitement that was present on campus when Joshua Radin performed.

Tickets for 91����Ƶ and JMU students are available for $5; non-student tickets cost $15 in advance or $20 at the door. Advance purchase from the is recommended.