Yoder, who retired from 91����Ƶ in 2004, died on July 17, 2025, at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community in Harrisonburg, following a long journey with Parkinson’s disease. He was 86 years old. 

A memorial service will be held at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23, in the Eastern Mennonite School auditorium, 801 Parkwood Drive, Harrisonburg. 

“His love for travel was only surpassed by his love for people and he formed lasting relationships in the classroom, his community and around the world,” states an obituary written by his family.

You can read the obituary .

From Iowa to Africa

Born on April 17, 1939, Yoder was raised in a Mennonite family in Wellman, Iowa, a rural farming community about 25 miles from Iowa City. He was the oldest of five brothers and was the first in his family to attend college, majoring in English and history at 91����Ƶ and earning a BA in 1962. 

“He was not about to be a farmer,” said Nancy Myers Yoder ’66, his wife of 55 years. “He loved to read and he read voraciously, and so he was more of an academic.”

“He definitely was an academic,” agreed their youngest son, Joel Yoder ’97. “Growing up, he would be reading poetry or literature while working on the tiling machine in the summers for his uncle to pay for college.”

After graduating from college, Carroll left for Brussels to study French for a year and then taught in the French language in the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a conscientious objector through Mennonite Central Committee’s . In the fall of 1971, he was hired to teach French at 91����Ƶ, while a PhD candidate at the University of Iowa, and Nancy was hired at the school to teach nursing. Carroll would earn his doctorate in French African Literature from the University of Iowa in 1974.

From 1983-1984, during a two-year leave from 91����Ƶ, Carroll returned to the Democratic Republic of the Congo with his wife and two sons to serve as a Fulbright lecturer in French. It wouldn’t be the last time their travels would take them to the continent.

An ‘intellectual force’

Over the years, Carroll and Nancy led a total of 121 students on five semesterlong intercultural programs to France (1974 and 1989) and to France and Ivory Coast (1994, 1997, and 2001). He also led 16 students as a solo leader on two summerlong intercultural programs to Quebec (1987) and France and Ivory Coast (1992), according to a list from 91����Ƶ Intercultural Programs. 

“They were such a good team,” said Joel, who joined the 1989 and 1994 trips. “They needed each other to make it all work. Every time they’d come back from a cross-cultural, they’d say, ‘Don’t let us do that again.’ And then a little while later, they’d say, ‘Oh, we need to do another cross-cultural.’”

“He was a real people person,” Nancy said about Carroll. “He could communicate and make contacts with people in French-speaking countries and find opportunities to get speakers or find families for students to live with. He had a gift for reaching out and contacting people and seeing what might work out.”

Many of Carroll’s colleagues and former students, including those on his intercultural programs, have written tributes following his death to express their gratitude. 

Patricia King ’89, a former student of his who taught in 91����Ƶ’s Language and Literature Department from 2000 to 2003 and is now an author living in Durham, England, reflected on Carroll’s love of laughter and language: “He was someone who clearly took joy in his work and who loved the French language with a passion he transferred to his students.”

Novelist Christine Benner Dixon ’04, author of The Height of Land, said that Carroll had a “huge impact” on her development as a writer. “I am so grateful to have had him as my teacher,” she wrote. “In his classes, I deepened my interest in the craft of reading, teaching, and writing literature.”

Tim Swartzendruber ’95, a student on the 1994 intercultural group that traveled to France and Ivory Coast, remembered Carroll for his adventuresome spirit and keen intellect. “He had a reputation among faculty for having probably the most gifted mind,” said the English literature major and French minor. “He was the intellectual force on the faculty at that time. He was a real expert in literary criticism and taught us, at a high level, to analyze what we were reading and apply it to our lives.” Swartzendruber, who now serves as senior regional advancement director at 91����Ƶ, will be one of the speakers sharing their remembrances of Carroll at the Aug. 23 memorial service.

As an English major at 91����Ƶ, Joel took several of his father’s English and French classes. “He was known as one of the tougher professors, in terms of courseload,” he said. “He would have these daily quizzes. They weren’t worth a ton, but that was his way of seeing how many classes you actually attended.”

Carroll mentored many aspiring teachers and was also known for his successful track record in hiring and retaining qualified and dedicated faculty members while he was chair of the Language and Literature Department. 

Dr. Marti Eads, professor of English, was hired by Carroll to come teach at 91����Ƶ starting in the fall of 2003. “Carroll was the kind of person I aspired to be,” she said. “He was a very humble person and was always looking for ways to encourage others. He was always ready to sing other people’s praises.” Eads would chair the department for the next three years after Carroll retired and said that he supported her in that role. Carroll also helped start the Writers Read event that continues to draw authors to campus. 

Each year, the Carroll Yoder Award for Teaching Excellence honors an 91����Ƶ student who has demonstrated academic excellence in both literary studies and education courses and has shown a clear call to the teaching profession.

Later years

In a 2004 Weather Vane article about his retirement, Carroll is quoted as saying he will miss the “daily contact with students and colleagues,” and has most valued “the opportunity to integrate my Christian/Mennonite faith with my professional and service goals.”

Carroll was deeply engaged in the life of the church. The Yoders were one of the founding families of Shalom Mennonite Congregation in 1988. The church began meeting in Strite Auditorium in Campus Center and now meets at Eastern Mennonite School.

Carroll enjoyed attending concerts on campus and spectating basketball games. He also appreciated catching up with other retired 91����Ƶ faculty members at VMRC. “He kept physically fit,” Nancy said. “He would walk, he would bike, and he played tennis regularly.”

Carroll is survived by his wife, Nancy; sons Eric (Karina) and Joel (Chia-Chi/Judy ’98); and six grandchildren: Carrie (Jansen Miller), Elliott, Sophia, Bryn, Leah, and Lilly. He is also survived by his brothers Wilbur, Milford, and Galen, and was preceded in death by his brother Marcus.

One final testament to his love for 91����Ƶ was the many nephews, nieces, and other relatives he helped bring to the school. “I counted the number of students who came here, who I think were influenced by Carroll, and it totaled about 25,” said Nancy.

91����Ƶ alum Patrick Monk was on cross-cultural in South Africa in 2007 when this picture was taken with a new friend. Photos and journals from the fall 2009 cross-cultural group in South Africa…

For years, Africa quietly summoned Patrick Monk. So quietly that, for awhile, Monk himself didn’t hear the call.

“When I was younger, I don’t think I ever saw myself going to Africa, and serving or living overseas,” said Monk, a Bridgewater native and 2000 Turner Ashby High School graduate.

Two years ago, a taste for adventure drew Monk to South Africa for a cross-cultural experience, one requirement for graduation at 91����Ƶ.

Last year, he returned to the world’s second-largest continent for a mission in Uganda.

Haunted History

A turbulent past, in which the country was led in the 1970s by the cruel rule of dictator Idi Amin, left Uganda with social and economic woes that still haunt the country. Some of Uganda’s present problems stem from broad ethnic strife, Monk said, and such struggles are a huge part of what brought him to a nation of more than 33 million people, who are as varied as Uganda’s terrain, which ranges from beaches to deserts.

Monk, 27, recently finished the first year of a three-year mission in Hoima, Uganda, for Mennonite Central Committee, a non-governmental, faith-based group present in numerous developing countries throughout the world.

In Hoima, a rural town in western Uganda, Monk works as an adviser in a program called Living With Shalom, which promotes peace among Uganda’s high-school-aged residents by bringing together young people from different tribes in a Christ-centered setting. MCC created Living with Shalom to spread inter-tribal harmony, something Uganda historically has lacked.

Lasting Impression

His trip to South Africa stirred in Monk a curiosity for how other cultures practice their faith, and an earlier stint as a youth pastor prepared him for a similar role in Uganda, he said.

“Throughout my university studies, I [was] interested in Africa long term,” Monk said.

“The interaction and relationship between religion and culture in our world is a fascinating thing.”

Monk’s mother, Margaret Jones Monk, sensed her son’s excitement for Africa when he returned from his 91����Ƶ trip.

“The cross cultural [with 91����Ƶ] really clinched it,” she said. “He knew he wanted to go back.”

Brother’s Legacy

Patrick Monk credits the life of younger brother Jeremy with helping to shape his own views on missions. Jeremy Monk, a UVA-Wise grad and a behavioral-management counselor with Crossroads Counseling in Harrisonburg, died on Oct. 9, 2008, at the age of 23 after a six-month bout with bone cancer.

“Jeremy’s life had, and will continue to have, an immense influence on my life,” Patrick Monk said. “Jeremy’s arms, heart, mind and soul were always open to people.”

Though personally different in many ways, Patrick and Jeremy became close in Jeremy’s final years, said their mother, Margaret Monk, 61, a retired Rockingham County teacher.

The rest of the Monk family includes two daughters and another son. Patrick’s father, Edward, 73, is a retired telephone repairman.

“Both Patrick and Jeremy were good influences on each other,” she said. “Pat has such an openness for people.”

Others outside Patrick Monk’s family foresaw his missionary path. Nancy Heisey, a professor in 91����Ƶ’s Bible and religion department, taught Monk. Heisey recalls Monk as a good student at 91����Ƶ with a “deep sense of calling” to mission work.

“Even before he did his cross cultural, Patrick had a sense of where he wanted to go,” Heisey said. (In 2007, Patrick placed second in 91����Ƶ’s Haverim Writing Award with his scholarly essay on “Reaching Across Rubbled Walls: Emerging from the Galatian Baptism with a New Identity.” Read more…)

Monk’s present path may bring him closer to home. When he returns to the U.S., Monk hopes to work with inner-city youth and possibly write children’s books. He also intends to return to his favorite place abroad.

Said Monk: “I would like to maintain some connection with Africa.”

And so, early on Easter Sunday, 2008, the 91����Ƶ junior biblical studies and philosophy major from Lansdale, Pa., was baptized in the Jordan River into the community of faith.

91����Ƶ student John Tyson during his baptism in the Jordan River on Easter Sunday.

What made the experience even more special: Tyson was baptized by Linford L. Stutzman, associate professor of culture and mission at 91����Ƶ and witnessed by 29 fellow students in his Middle East study group. Dr. Stutzman and his wife, Janet M. Stutzman, are leading the cross-cultural seminar during the university’s second (spring) semester.

‘Sharing Something Special’

“The community I’ve experienced in this cross-cultural group and the journey we are sharing is something special,” Tyson said afterwards. “I’ve been active in the Mennonite church for several years, but traveling with this group has been the place where I’ve been most at home with God and the world.

“John had asked about the possibility of being baptized several weeks before Easter, when our group was still in Jerusalem,” said Stutzman. “I mentioned that the Jordan River runs through the back of Kibbutz Afikim, and that we would be there over Easter. Perhaps that would be a good opportunity.”

The 91����Ƶ group arrived at Kibbutz Afikim on Mar. 17 for two weeks of work, study and field trips. Kibbutz Afikim is a secular Jewish agricultural commune established around 1925. In the fields behind the kibbutz is their graveyard on a bluff overlooking the Jordan River.

Easter Sunday morning the entire group, got up early and assembled at 5:30 for the 20-minute hike to the graveyard. They walked through the kibbutz quietly to keep the dogs from barking, toward the Jordan. In the graveyard, the students led songs and read scriptures as the sun rose over the Golan Heights. It was a beautiful, peaceful morning.

Then they hiked for about another 10 minutes down toward the Jordan through the fields of freshly-cut barley singing, “As I went down to the river to pray.” Earlier, Stutzman had found an ideal baptismal spot with a break in the reeds that grow along the banks that allowed the group to stand on the bank and see the water flowing.

“I recounted the journey of learning and faith that everyone is traveling on this cross-cultural, paralleling the journeys of faith in Scripture, how wilderness and water are so much a part of it, and how baptism connects to these stories – Moses and the Hebrew children crossing the Red Sea, the Hebrews wandering through the wilderness then crossing the Jordan to the promise, John baptizing in the Jordan, Jesus being baptized in the Jordan. All of these places and events have been part of the group’s travels, and all relate to the meaning of baptism,” Stutzman recalled.

‘God at Work in the World’

Tyson and 91����Ƶ Professor Linford Stutzman, leader of the Middle East crosscultural, embrace after Tyson’s baptism.

Tyson then recounted his own journey of faith and why he chose to be baptized at this point in his life.

“I decided that taking this step [to be baptized] was appropriate and the time and place and people only confirmed that,” he said. “For me, water baptism symbolized the life of God at work in the world through things we often take for granted but that create new life.”

The men waded into the middle of the Jordan, and Stutzman poured water over head. (The Jordan is fairly shallow, so immersion wasn’t a good option). Then they waded back to shore, and the students gave their encouragement and blessing, sang several songs and hiked back to the kibbutz in time for breakfast.

Tyson has been attending Souderton (PA) Mennonite Church since age 17. More recently, he’s attended Park View Mennonite Church in Harrisonburg.

It is the fifth time for Linford and wife Janet, a former director of alumni/parent relations at 91����Ƶ, to lead a cross-cultural program in the Middle East. The group is scheduled to return to campus Apr. 22.

(Photo by Jim Bishop)

The group, led by faculty members Harlan de Brun and Audra Baker, divided their time among Soweto, Lesotho and Cape Town in language study and learning the history and experiencing the culture of the regions.

Three different home stays were built into the program so that students could appreciate differences in rural/urban living and racial politics in South Africa.

The most valuable aspect of the program, several participants noted, was “discovering anew the value of building relationships among people with similar aspirations but from different worlds.”

Here, several group members do a skit on “adjusting to African time.” Also during the service, participants read journal entries, poetry and scripture and sang songs from South Africa and ended with a prayer of thanksgiving for the remainder of the semester and safety over the holidays.

This academic year, 91����Ƶ is celebrating the 25th anniversary of its “Global Village” program that includes an off-campus study experience as part of its general education requirements.

Several 91����Ƶ faculty members who helped to shape the school’s cross-cultural study program reflected on the vision and process that led to the university formally making cross-cultural study, either stateside or abroad, a required part of its general education curriculum in 1982.

“91����Ƶ’s program was on the ‘cutting edge’ when it became a required general education component for incoming students,” said Marie S. Morris, vice president and undergraduate academic dean in introductory remarks. We are honored to have some of these early visionaries reflect on the program as part of this International Education Week ‘Celebrate the Vision’ chapel.”

L. to r.): Vernon Jantzi, Ann Graber Hershberger, Kenneth J. Nafziger, Calvin E. Shenk and Marie S. Morris enjoy a lighter moment in reflecting on and celebrating the 25th anniversary of the cross-cultural study program at 91����Ƶ. Photo by Jim Bishop

Vernon Jantzi, professor of sociology at 91����Ƶ, noted that the school offered cross-culturals as electives for some 11 years prior to this date.

Dr. Jantzi credited Albert N. Keim, long-time history professor who was serving as academic dean during this period, with “really helping faculty brainstorm the best ways to package the program to make it truly international and a two-way learning experience. The entire faculty was deeply involved in the whole process.”

He also noted that Calvin E. Shenk, professor emeritus, wrote a paper on cross-cultural learning, many components of which are part 91����Ƶ’s program today.

Dr. Keim appointed Jantzi, Shenk, Kenneth J. Nafziger, professor of music; and Ann G. Hershberger, professor of nursing to work at implementing the program. All four had earlier spent considerable time serving and leading study seminars in other countries.

“At that time, 70 percent of the 91����Ƶ faculty had studied or worked in other countries,” Jantzi noted.

“We spent considerable time hashing out some thorny questions,” Jantzi noted. “How long should the experience be? Several weeks? A year? What countries to be involved? Should there be a service component?”

Today, 91����Ƶ offers three-and-a-half week cross-cultural seminars during May-early June along with semester-long programs and the year-long Washington (DC) Community Scholars Center program.

Twenty-one students, led by Harlan De Brun and Audra Baker, are in South Africa the fall semester. 91����Ƶ faculty will lead seminars in Latin American and the Middle East the spring 2008 semester.

“I think back and realize that I was just 27 years old when this planning process was under way,” Dr. Hershberger said. “But this involvement, along with many years of church-related service in Central America, has dramatically shaped my world view.”

Dr. Nafziger, who has led study-seminars to Germany and Poland and took the 91����Ƶ Chamber Singers to Cuba twice, believes that learning takes place best when a group “stays in one place and concentrates on learning the language.” He would like to see a proposal from Mennonite World Conference leaders on “what they would like 91����Ƶ’s focus to be in the future.”

Several speakers reinterated that some students enter the experience reluctantly but return saying it was the most meaningful, memorable part of their educational experience at 91����Ƶ.

“In more recent years, we’ve been working at making stronger connections between what students experience in their cross-cultural immersion experience and what they are learning/experiencing on campus and in the local community,” Dr. Morris said. “We want to do a better job of integrating this life transforming experience into the overall educational experience at 91����Ƶ.”

Dr. Shenk closed the session with prayer, giving thanks for what has happened in the cross-cultural program in the past 25 years and entreating God’s guidance and blessing for the future.

The audience left the auditorium pondering this comment from Ann G. Hershberger: “The critical question we must keep asking is, what do we do with what we’ve learned from the peoples and cultures we’ve spent time with – do we remain tourists on the balcony or fellow travelers on the road?”