Dr. John A. Lapp ’54, a history professor at Eastern Mennonite College during the Civil Rights Movement who helped lead the charge for local school desegregation, died on Dec. 5 at the age of 90. 

Remembered by many for his strongly held opinions and his booming belly laugh, Lapp died at the Waterford Crossing retirement community in Goshen, Indiana, where he had been living since 2011. A memorial service in celebration of his life will be held at a later date at College Mennonite Church in Goshen. An obituary with further details is available to read .

Lapp also held distinguished careers at Goshen College and at Mennonite Central Committee. He was the 2015 recipient of 91����Ƶ’s Distinguished Service Award.

Born on March 15, 1933, in Lansdale, Pennsylvania, Lapp was the first of nine siblings. He served as a mentor to his younger sisters and brothers, including Joseph, who would become the seventh president of EMC, and 91����Ƶ, from 1987 to 2003.

“He was the one who was breaking the ground in education and he was a big reader,” said President Emeritus Joseph Lapp ’66. “He was the one who paid attention to politics, and so he stimulated a lot of discussion in our home.”

John Lapp earned a bachelor’s degree in history from EMC in 1954. He later received a master’s degree from Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland and a doctorate at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. 

Life at Eastern Mennonite College

After two years of alternative service as a conscientious objector to the military draft, he returned to EMC to teach as a history professor from 1956 to 1969. During his tenure as a professor, he was active in the Civil Rights Movement and, along with several friends and faculty members, participated in the landmark “March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom” in 1963 where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech.

The professor also was instrumental in the formation of the local chapter of the Virginia Council on Human Relations. The “biracial organization sought to improve interracial relations through support of educational programs, school desegregation, fair employment practices and other related issues” (91����Ƶ News).

Following a campus visit from African-American Mennonite activists Vincent and Rosemarie Harding in 1963, John Lapp and fellow EMC history professor Samuel Horst, newly inspired, formed the committee largely responsible for the desegregation of Harrisonburg, Virginia, schools and hotels. Lapp and Harding were “major players in Harrisonburg’s ‘Concern Movement’ that pushed the city schools to desegregate,” according to 91����Ƶ history professor Mark Metzler Sawin.

Joseph Lapp, who was 10 years younger than John, recalled his time as an EMC student in his brother’s History of Western Civilization class. “He would lecture almost nonstop for a whole hour,” he said. “He held everybody’s attention. And, if you talked to alumni of that time period, they’ll say that was probably their favorite course and that he was their favorite professor.”

Life after EMC

John Lapp left EMC in 1969 with his wife Mary Alice Weber ’55 and their three children to direct the Peace Section at Mennonite Central Committee (MCC) in Akron, Pennsylvania. He later served as executive secretary of MCC from 1985 to 1996. A wonderfully in-depth writeup on his life can be read on .

In between those two stints, he served Goshen College for 12 years. Lapp was academic dean of the Mennonite school from 1972 to 1981 and provost from 1979 to 1984. To read more about his impact at Goshen, read their story about him .

Following his retirement in 1996, he spent 16 years leading a Mennonite World Conference project known as the Global Mennonite History Project. He fundraised and supervised an international team that ultimately produced five separate published volumes on Africa, Europe, Latin America, Asia and North America. In addition to that, he taught courses at Bishop’s College in India, Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania and at 91����Ƶ’s Lancaster campus. 

Joseph Lapp shared an anecdote about his brother he’s heard others tell around campus. One day when John was teaching a history class in the lower level of Lehman Auditorium, noise from the physical plant kept interrupting him.

“They were pounding and making noise and it was interfering with the lecture. So, he said, ‘OK, we’re all going to go to the administration building’ — and it had these open stairways going up to the second floor; this was the old building, not the current one. So, he had his class sit on those steps and he stood at the center and continued to lecture there for the rest of the period just to make his point about the interference that was occurring.”

“We are delighted to partner with a business program with similar interests and motivations, especially sharing a unique perspective on how business can be successfully carried out with a value-based sensitivity and outlook that considers more than just dollars and cents,” says Gordon Zerbe, CMU academic vice president. “Future leaders, more than ever, will be expected to direct entrepreneurial spirit, but also with a heightened appreciation for social responsibility, sustainability, and stewardship.”

The Collaborative MBA is an accredited online program based on the concept of “,” emphasizing six values – spiritual growth, honoring community, leading as service, upholding justice, planning for sustainability and global citizenship.

“Leadership for the common good is a concept that pays attention to the triple bottom line of people, planet, and profits,” said , program director and dean of graduate and professional studies at 91����Ƶ. “The common good is established each time a person, organization or community reaches beyond individual self-interest for the sake of the greater whole.”

The addition of CMU’s faculty of business experts expands both the vision and resources of the program, Smucker added.

Students are organized in cohorts – – and move together through 12 courses that are typically completed in 22-24 months. Nine core courses are augmented by three courses directly related to one of the eight concentration areas: health care management, leadership, accounting and financial management, leading non-profits, conflict transformation, sustainable organizations and intercultural leadership.

Most courses are offered through interactive video conferencing and practical projects. Synchronous interactions delivered through video are complemented by asynchronous learning, in which students contribute and interact on their own time. A one-week international residency provides students with a global perspective and emphasizes interdependency and mutual accountability, values at the heart of today’s global economy. This approach accommodates different styles of learning, as well as demands of employment and family.

Hostetter, who was not a co-author on the recent paper, called the results exciting because they “could lead to new or improved medications for treatment of mood disorders.”

91����Ƶ 30,000 members of the Old Order Amish community in Lancaster County trace their descent exclusively from 32 people who immigrated from modern-day Germany to Pennsylvania in the 1750s. Genetically distinct from other Amish communities in the country, this “closed gene pool” presents a unique opportunity to study the genetic components of mental illness. In some families within this group, both bipolar disorder and EvC are more prevalent than in the general population.

According to the recent study, statistical analysis of these two conditions within the study group shows that a person with the genetic mutation that causes EvC is prevented from developing bipolar disorder. Linking that genetic mutation – which affects a protein called Shh – directly to bipolar and other affective disorders represents a breakthrough in understanding the genetic basis of these conditions.

Hostetter has been involved with the project, known in the field as the “Amish Study,” since it began in 1976. When he was invited to participate, Hostetter was working in private psychiatry practice in Hershey, Pennsylvania, where he regularly saw Old Order Amish patients. Hostetter had a further connection to that community because his grandfather had been a moderator of and was well-known to local Amish leaders.

“Dr. Hostetter brought to the Amish Study his special expertise based on a life-long exposure to the cultural setting and religious traditions of the Old Order Amish, as well as his experience as a practicing psychiatrist and hospital medical director involving Amish-Mennonite patients,” writes Dr. Janice Egeland, the director of the Amish Study and professor emerita at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine.

At Egeland’s invitation, Hostetter joined a group of psychiatrists that established specific criteria for diagnosing bipolar disorder in members of the Amish study group. They eventually identified more than 100 patients with the disorder. In 1987, Egeland, Hostetter and six others published the first research connecting bipolar disorder to a specific gene, in a paper that has since been cited hundreds of times.

“But just identifying a gene doesn’t cure anything,” said Hostetter, who approaches the research with a practical focus. “Now this recent finding is showing what one of the genes does. That’s the next important step.”

Hostetter attended 91����Ƶ for two years before transferring to the pre-med program at Goshen College, another Mennonite college in Indiana. After graduating in 1953, he went to Jefferson Medical School in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. While collaborating with Egeland and other colleagues on the Amish Study, he continued in private practice in Pennsylvania until retiring in 2003. He now lives in Charlottesville, Virginia, but remains involved with the Amish Study as it approaches its 40th year.

In addition to linking bipolar disorder to a specific human gene, Hostetter and his colleagues have also used their research to identify childhood risk factors that suggest an eventual bipolar diagnosis.

“There’s been a real move toward earlier identification of the problem,” he said. “Misdiagnosis is one of the big problems in dealing with this illness, and this study has been recognized as having led the way in greater accuracy and specificity of psychiatric diagnoses.”

Over 40 years, lots of data piles up, and there’s always new insight to tease out. Another paper Hostetter says he and his colleagues might try to tackle would demonstrate inheritance of specific sub-types of bipolar disorder that variously manifest with symptoms like violence, grandiosity, hypersexuality and others. This spring, he plans to pay clinical visits to some of the families that have participated in the study. It’s an extension of what Egeland describes as an unusual degree of concern for individual subjects of the ongoing research.

“Numerous patients have benefitted from ‘Dr. Abe’s’ personal efforts to improve understanding and reduce the stigma so often inherent in mental illness,” she wrote.

Three institutions affiliated with the – in Ohio, 91����Ƶ in Virginia, and in Indiana – have joined forces to launch “” to shape “transformative leaders.”

“We’re interested in developing authentic leaders who understand that personal, business, organizational, and community existence and success are tied to the sustainability of local and global systems,” said George Lehman, director of the graduate programs in business at Bluffton.

The 36-hour program will focus on “skills in entrepreneurship, shared vision development, mutual accountability, financial integrity, continuous innovation, empowerment of people and teams, and systems thinking,” said Michelle Horning, chair of the business department at Goshen.

The program director of The Collaborative MBA is , formerly president of the and board chair of the .

For Smucker, a unique aspect of the new program is addressing “leaders’ needs for personal and spiritual growth. Almost all of the other MBA programs focus mainly on the usual topics of budgeting, strategic planning, marketing and such.”

The Collaborative MBA will cover these topics too, said Smucker, who will also continue to be graduate dean at 91����Ƶ. In addition, however,  “our program will have an explicit orientation toward the well-being of people, community, and planet. We will situate making profits within the context of ethical practices and contribution to the common good.”

Professors at the three partner schools possess a wide range of expertise, permitting Collaborative MBA students to choose among eight concentrations:

• Leadership
• Health Care Management
• Accounting and Financial Management
• Conflict Transformation
• Sustainability
• Intercultural Leadership
• Self-designed

Students will move through the program in cohorts that begin with one week of residential courses at one of the three sponsoring schools and include a week of residency in an international setting, doing practice-based learning. In the other months, coursework will be partly synchronous – with distance learners joining students and professors via interactive video conferencing ­– and partly asynchronous, whereby students will pursue projects and interact with professors on a mutually convenient schedule.

While organizers expect to enroll a broad range of students from a variety of backgrounds, including international, Horning said “a key target student” is someone holding a full-time job in a small- to medium-sized business or organization, perhaps with family responsibilities, who needs to be able to pursue graduate studies in a flexible manner.

The curriculum is based on the concept of “leadership for the common good” which includes values of spirituality, community, leading as service, justice, sustainability, and global citizenship.

“In keeping with our Anabaptist-Christian roots,” said Lehman, “all of us involved in this program have a holistic view on how all of our decisions and actions affect other people, the community, and the world.”

Prospective students can enter the program through the doorway of any of the three sponsoring schools, Bluffton, 91����Ƶ or Goshen.

For more information on The Collaborative MBA, visit .

Concern over college affordability in the United States is nothing new. The inflation-adjusted average annual cost of tuition, room and board for the country’s colleges and universities has more than doubled over the past 30 years, according to the U.S. Department of Education.

While the cost of attendance has actually been increasing faster at public universities over the past decade, private institutions are in general still more expensive. The National Center for Education Statistics puts the average annual cost of tuition, room and board at private, not-for-profit American universities at $36,300 for the 2010-2011 academic year.

While the -affiliated colleges and universities aren’t quite that pricey, they’re not cheap either. According to online “sticker price” figures, the average full cost of attendance this year at the five colleges/universities is $33,714. (The full cost of a 90-credit hour M.Div. degree from the two Mennonite Church USA-affiliated seminaries is currently just over $41,000.)

Price or best fit?

“Higher education as a whole has had to defend its worth and value in today’s society,” says , director of retention at 91����Ƶ (91����Ƶ), Harrisonburg, Va. “We see more and more students making their choice based on price instead of what’s a best fit for them.”

When it comes to paying for an education, however, officials at Mennonite educational institutions note that scholarships and financial aid almost always mean that the actual cost of a student’s education will be less than the sticker price.

Dan Koop Liechty, director of admissions at , notes that cost and affordability decisions are best made after prospective students have applied, been admitted and received financial assistance packages. At this point, students can make decisions based on the bottom-line cost of their educations, which are often much more comparable to attending a public institution than it first appears.

Directly related to the price of higher education is the issue of student debt, which has also been increasing. According to the , 2011 graduates who borrowed to finance their educations finished with an average debt load of $26,600. In the aftermath of the Great Recession, some consider this an unreasonable burden to place on graduates entering an uncertain job market. Others characterize it as a reasonable investment—about the cost of a new Toyota Prius—that sets college graduates on the path to a much larger payoff.

College degree as an investment

“It’s not debt that you’re using to buy consumables and putting on a credit card with a 21-percent interest rate,” says Ron Headings, vice president for enrollment management and marketing at . “It’s buying you a college degree.”

Headings adds that with prior planning and hard work during college—to maintain academic scholarships as well as earn income—students and their families can find it “fairly easy to get out of Bluffton University debt-free.”

Cost and debt aside, getting a college degree clearly remains a smart financial investment for young adults. While estimates vary, many sources now place the average increase in earnings over a 40-year career at or near $1 million compared to workers without a college degree.

Furthermore, faculty, staff and alumni of the five colleges and universities say a degree from one isn’t just any garden-variety bachelor’s degree.

Engaged profs, small classes

“At a larger school, many of the foundational classes are taught by teaching assistants,” says Matthew Schmidt, a 1994 graduate of , North Newton, Kan. “At Bethel you have full professors teaching these same classes.”

Schmidt, who lives in Newton, Kan., and is interim director of a clinic providing health services to medically underserved populations, says the small class sizes at Bethel created an interactive environment ideal for collaborative learning.

Additionally, engaged faculty invested in students’ well-being and emphases on critical thinking and cross-cultural skills prepare them particularly well for the future.

Strong outcomes

Two of many indications are these:

• From 2006 to 2010, 91 percent of 91����Ƶ graduates who applied to medical school were accepted, almost double the national acceptance rate of 46 percent.

• At Bethel, 95 percent of social work graduates pass their licensing exams on the first attempt, compared with a national pass rate of 78 percent.

“In a rapidly changing and highly specialized job market, a liberal arts college degree provides an essential foundation for the basic skills that are needed in a dynamic economic environment,” says John D. Roth, the author of Teaching that Transforms: Why Anabaptist-Mennonite Education Matters and a professor of history at Goshen College. “So education at Goshen College is ‘worth it’ for straightforward economic reasons alone.”

But the financial case for the value of a Mennonite college, university or seminary education only tells part of the story.

Education that transforms

Back on the financial aid page: “The key is to think of [education] in terms of value. While the cost of college may initially be a bit of a shock, step back, take a deep breath and think about the experiences and lifelong advantages a Hesston education provides.” This appeal to the value of a Mennonite education is an extremely important part of the argument.

“As Anabaptists, we are part of a tradition that measures worth in more than monetary terms,” says Rachel Swartzendruber Miller, vice president of admissions and financial aid at Hesston. “Mennonite colleges and universities not only offer course credits and degrees, we provide transformational opportunities for our students to fully discover themselves and their place in God’s mission in the world.”

Graduates of these schools frequently point to impossible-to-quantify personal growth as one of the most important parts of their educations there.

“Attending Goshen College was a seminal time in my development,” says Peter Eash-Scott, a 1999 graduate, now a stay-at-home dad in Newton “It probably is one of the most influential things that has informed who I am, what I value and who I strive to be.”

Shared, reinforced values

Spending four years in a learning environment surrounded by people who held similar values, Eash-Scott adds, provided “a safe place to explore my faith and challenge my understanding of God, myself and the faith community,” both in and out of the classroom.

Close, caring relationships between students and faculty often are another important aspect of an education at a Mennonite institution.

“The faculty and staff here are part of our community,” says Clark Oswald, associate director of admissions at Bethel. “We care for our neighbors. That’s something as Mennonites that we learn in church growing up, and at Bethel we do that. … There’s just kind of this underlying sense of ‘we’re in this together.’ ”

Michelle Roth-Cline, a 2000 graduate of 91����Ƶ, called the mentoring role of faculty “absolutely invaluable.” Now a pediatric ethicist for the , Roth-Cline says her education at 91����Ƶ prepared her for medical school as well as her classmates coming from Ivy League and other prestigious schools. At the same time, what she learned about building relationships has served her equally well.

Learning to care for people

“I learned more about how to care for other people at 91����Ƶ than I did in medical school. Simply knowing how to care for other people in this way has opened all kinds of doors both personally and professionally that I never would have imagined possible when I was choosing a college,” Roth-Cline says.

Leah Roeschley, a 2011 graduate of Bluffton, says her education there set the stage for her own spiritual growth. The opportunity to explore Mennonite faith and spirituality, combined with “space to ask questions [and] space to access and receive counsel” allows students to “claim a faith that is truly their own,” she says.

“My Mennonite education was worth it because my college experience was bracketed with values that resonated with me,” says Roeschley, a registered dietitian in Bloomington, Ill. “Those values were in the background of everything I did at Bluffton. … I left not only fully equipped for the field of dietetics, but I also left with … a deeper understanding of who I was.”

A related role played by Mennonite higher education is the development of future church leaders and members.

Developing leaders

“There is strong and long-standing research that shows that students who graduate from a Mennonite college are far more likely to participate after college in a Mennonite congregation, our denominational service agencies and leadership positions in the denominational structures. Mennonite higher education is not only a great value for students, we are of great value to our denomination,” says Koop Liechty, the admissions director at Goshen.

, director of admissions at (EMS), says that study at a Mennonite seminary puts Anabaptist “theology, history, polity and biblical understandings” at the center of the curriculum. At a non-Mennonite school, she adds, these topics—key in the development of church leaders—would often be relegated to electives.

Ron Guengerich, a 1974 graduate of (AMBS), says his education gave him a lifelong love of scholarship and the church while bringing the Bible alive as “a challenging and transforming ‘word.’ ” Now the pastor of Silverwood Mennonite Church in Goshen, he says he left well prepared for work within the church and eager to continue advanced study of the Old Testament.

Given the relatively low pay offered to people entering church leadership and ministry positions, Amstutz says EMS is concerned with the growing cost of attendance and believes all levels of the denomination need to “find ways to help support students financially.”

There is also a converse question of worth to consider: What would be the price of not having strong educational institutions?

“It’s impossible to put a money value on effective and visionary leadership for the church,” says Sara Wenger Shenk, president of AMBS. “Most of us don’t get it that healthy communities thrive … because they have compassionate, competent and confident leaders.”

Building community

“Thank God for those who remember that the cost of ignorance and immaturity given full sway in local congregations is far greater than an investment in those who are ready to become masters of the craft,” she says.

According to those interviewed for this article, the sum of an educational experience at a Mennonite educational institution is greater than its individual parts, with academic growth and personal development building upon and informing each other.

“We feel very strongly about our value and the high quality of education that we provide to our students,” says Good. His statement is echoed by his counterparts at other institutions. “At 91����Ƶ, students receive an education in which they are challenged to move beyond their comfort zone, to think critically about the world around them, to strengthen their core values and beliefs and to be leaders and forces for change and justice in their communities.”

Courtesy The Mennonite, Jan. 1, 2013

, , and have each signed a memo of understanding with 91����Ƶ’s (91����Ƶ) . Each college/university has agreed to do an initial screening of students who apply to the institution and then recommend IEP to those who could benefit from the one-semester, or more, English language immersion experience.

Two years ago, IEP Director approached MEA Senior Director with the idea of making IEP available to the other Mennonite colleges/universities. Moyer was excited about the potential for this type of collaboration and encouraged Roth to pursue the idea.

Over a period of time, Roth met individually with admissions, enrollment and academic staff of the four colleges/universities.

“I believe very strongly in Mennonite education and the work MEA does to bring educators together. I was grateful for the opportunity to share how IEP could work on their behalf and was pleased by their openness and eagerness to work together,” said Roth.

Moyer believes that this collaboration among Mennonite higher education is one that our missional church can also celebrate.

“The world community is relating in new ways; there is an openness to learn from each other,” said Moyer. “The Anabaptist view of God’s love for all people is being modeled in relationships that go beyond our borders. The faith and values that Mennonite education teaches is significant for our neighbors both near and far.”

91����Ƶ’s IEP began in 1989 to support its international students who needed English language skills in order to study in an American academic setting. Classes focus on language skills of listening, speaking, reading, writing and grammar through cultural immersion and much personal attention. The program emphasizes the value of cultural diversity even as it helps students understand North American academic rules, methods of study and expectations. Currently, 45 to 55 students, representing 15 to 20 different countries, are enrolled in each IEP session.

Speaking at the final event, a service marking Palm Sunday, Wiebe touched on the way writers work in silence, enveloped in the mystery of writing. Yet when writers and readers meet, their “mutual silences open to listening.”

There was little silence at this conference, dubbed “Mennonite/s Writing VI.” Packed into the two days, one evening and one morning were: an oratorio featuring the poetry of one of the conference participants, Jean Janzen of California; two dramatic  performances and an equal number of music events; at least 30 readings from original poems, works of fiction and memoirs; and plenty of talks on such weighty topics as the intersection of theology and poetry (“theopoetics”), on teaching writing and literature, and on what it means to be a Mennonite or to write in a Mennonite manner. Critics of literature formed one panel discussion and publishers of literature formed another.

Some participants left the campus to take a guided tour of the MennoMedia offices a block away or a different tour to Singers Glen, eight miles to the west of 91����Ƶ, where the oldest continually used hymnal in the United States was first published by a local Mennonite man, Joseph Funk.

Kirsten Beachy, an 91����Ƶ assistant professor who was co-chair of the conference, smilingly summed up the conference with these words: “We feasted together on words and on food.”

Throughout the conference, participants often credited Wiebe and Julia Spicher Kasdorf, a poet and conference co-chair, with inspiring other Mennonite writers by producing seminal works that challenged the insularity of the traditional Mennonite church-community in North America—he in 1962 with his first novel, Peace Shall Destroy Many, and she in 1992 with her first book of poetry, Sleeping Preacher.

Well-known poet and essayist Gregory Orr, a University of Virginia professor who is not a Mennonite, attracted one of the largest crowds assembled in one location to hear his talk on “ethics, aesthetics and the lyric.” He advocated that writers be true to themselves and “break with the overculture,” a message that resonated with his Mennonite audience in two ways—some have worked hard to find their voice within the “overculture” of their original community, while many view themselves as belonging to a minority culture that often goes against the grain of the mainstream culture.

On Friday evening, Vern Thiessen, one of the most-produced playwrights in Canada, performed two roles—that of himself and of his father—in “Back to Berlin,” his play exploring how his father (and by extension other Mennonites in Germany) acquiesced to or collaborated with the Nazis during World War II.

Writers who received formal tributes at the Saturday evening banquet were Ervin Beck, Goshen College professor emeritus; Omar Eby, 91����Ƶ professor emeritus; Al Reimer, professor emeritus at the University of Winnipeg; Elaine Sommers Rich, author of the 1964 children’s book Hannah Elizabeth; and Katie Funk Wiebe, a prolific essayist who taught at Tabor College before her retirement.

The 91����Ƶ conference received support from the Virginia Commission for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as from Conrad Grebel University College in Ontario and private donors. It was the sixth gathering in North America since 1990 of writers who have a Mennonite background, who delve into Mennonite themes in their works, or who simply have an interest in this field. Photos are online at emu.edu/photos/mennonites-writing-vi-conference/

Many within the 91����Ƶ campus community knew Miller, a professor of biology at Goshen since 1980.

“We extend our deepest sympathies, thoughts and prayers to all those in the Goshen and Mennonite Church USA communities mourning his untimely passing,” said Loren Swartzendruber, president of 91����Ƶ.

Goshen College, a sister university to 91����Ƶ, is located three hours east of Chicago and is a member of Mennonite Church USA.

For more information visit or

Keith Graber Miller, professor of Bible, religion and philosophy at Goshen (Ind.) College, will speak Wednesday and Thursday, Jan. 28-29, on the theme, “Embodying Sexual Wholeness in a Broken World.”

Miller will open the series 10 a.m. Wednesday with a university chapel presentation “On Loving Sexuality and Living Faithfully.”

At 6 p.m. that day, he will focus on “Negotiating the Young Adult Sexual Landscape” in Martin Chapel of the seminary building.

A “talk back” will follow at 9 p.m. in the Common Grounds Coffeehouse of the University Commons. Miller will recap his evening talk and speak briefly on pornographic seductions with opportunity for questions and responses.

Miller will continue the series 9:30 a.m. Thursday in Martin Chapel with the topic, “Sexuality in the Ministering Person.” He will conclude with a luncheon talk at noon Thursday in the west dining room of the university cafeteria (Northlawn ground floor) on “Emerging Sexuality Themes: Listening to the 91����Ƶ Campus Community.”

Miller’s specialty areas at Goshen College include contemporary Christian ethics, religion and politics, religion and sexuality and adoption and childhood issues. He has written four books and speaks frequently in congregations and at conferences on these and other topics. He has co-led Goshen’s SST (Study-Travel Term) semesters with his spouse Ann in Cambodia, Cuba and Costa Rica, China and the Dominican Republic.

He has a BA degree from Franklin (Ind.) College, an MDiv from Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary, Elkhart, and a PhD from Emory University.

“Keith Graber Miller is uniquely gifted and prepared to guide our campus-wide conversations on sexuality,” said Brian Martin Burkholder, 91����Ƶ campus pastor. “He brings a wealth of experience engaging the themes and dynamics of sexuality with young adults both in the classroom and as a faculty mentor.”

The series is sponsored by 91����Ƶ Campus Ministries and is open to the public free of charge.

For more information, call 540-432-4115.

For only the second time in the last four years, the Goshen (Ind.) College Maple Leafs and the 91����Ƶ Royals teams will face each other in varsity competition.

And, this time, they’ll play on 91����Ƶ’s newly-replaced artificial turf field. Game time is 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 16. It will be 91����Ƶ’s first home game of the season.

Goshen College and 91����Ƶ last met in soccer on Oct. 21, 2002 at Goshen, with 91����Ƶ winning 4-0.

While the event will spotlight an inter-Mennonite competition, the emphasis will be on the opportunity afforded for alumni of the two schools to see their alma maters, according to Douglas J. Nyce, director of at 91����Ƶ.

A reception for parents and alumni of both schools, sponsored by Mennonite Mutual Aid, will follow the game.

The athletic directors of Goshen, Ken Pletcher, and 91����Ƶ, David A. King, will be on hand to unveil future plans for using sporting events between Mennonite schools to promote Mennonite higher education.

“This is a great way to open the men’s soccer season on the new turf field,” King said. “The atmosphere should be electric, and I anticipate a great time of making connections, reuniting with friends and celebrating all the good that can come from athletics, whether one is a player or fan,” he added.

Admission to the game is free.

Eighteen faculty members from undergrad Bible and religion programs in colleges related to Mennonite Church USA met on campus Sept. 25 and 26.

At this first meeting of faculty representing the five institutions now relating to MCUSA, conversation focused on mission, academic work and church relations. The group also spent time in worship and fellowship.

Speaking from personal experiences, five faculty addressed the topic, “Standing with one foot in the Church and one foot in the Academy: My experiences as a Bible/Theology/Religion/Philosophy professor in an MCUSA school.” Duane Friesen, Bethel College; J. Denny Weaver, Bluffton University; Nancy R. Heisey, 91����Ƶ; Marion Bontrager, Hesston College and Keith Graber Miller, Goshen College, made presentations.

In a Sunday morning worship led by Hesston professor Michelle Hershberger, participants meditated on the story of Jesus teaching in the temple from John 7 and created symbols of their questions for God. A brainstorming session raised possibilities for facilitated student exchanges among schools, further gatherings to focus concretely on pedagogical questions and the idea of a published collection of participants