When Pryor was four, his father became the director of , near Richmond, Virginia. From then on, Pryor spent his endless summers on the camp’s four square court. Playing against the older kids put him on a steep learning curve, and playing against kids his own age put him in a position of dominance. And while nearly every four square player stops improving at about 10 years old, and usually retires for life soon thereafter, Pryor just kept going.

“When people play me and some of the other people I grew up playing with for the first time, they’re very surprised at the level we can play at,” he says. “It can be a very beautiful game.”

In the free-wheeling, schoolyard version of four square, the occupant of the king square gets to customize the rules, and early in his career, Pryor enjoyed calling all the oddball ones – glass ball, black magic, typewriter, pancake, etc. – that made it virtually impossible for anyone to get him out. (Wondering what four square is, or trying to remember its rules from childhood? Visit or )

The World Championships, though, plays by a more traditional set of rules that allow for overhands and bus-stops but not much else. At 8’ x 8’, the courts are also larger than the typical summer camp version, rewarding athleticism and skill rather than rule-calling chicanery. That style of play also suits Pryor, who played three seasons as a center-midfielder on the 91����Ƶ soccer team.

In 2012, he beat out about 100 other competitors and won his first World Championship by a relatively comfortable margin of three points. Competition is tight, and points are not easy to come by. In 2013, he simply annihilated everything in his path and rolled to a 17-point victory. This February, he carried on the tradition with a modest, for him, five-point victory.

At 91����Ƶ, Pryor earned a degree and played four square maybe once or twice, tops. He lives in Richmond now, and when he’s not beating the world at four square, earns his living mostly as a landscaper. He’s never been embarrassed about the four square habit he’s never outgrown. It’s his own little quirky interest, and he admires “strange little niches of culture” that other people get into. E.g.: “If you travel somewhere to go to a yodeling competition, I’m into that. That’s cool. That’s weird.”

And ended up spending almost all of his professional life at the helm of retirement communities and nursing homes.

The life of Bernie Bowman ’72 is a testimony to the way a solid liberal arts education can be a springboard to almost anything.

At 91����Ƶ recently as a Suter Science Seminar speaker, Bowman titled his talk “Forty Years Post-91����Ƶ: Reflections on an Unexpected Career.”

That career basically turned out to be “leadership.” Bowman took his leadership journey within the world of senior living. His last 14 years of full-time leadership were as President/CEO of ., overseeing six retirement communities affiliated with the United Methodist Church in east Tennessee and southwest Virginia.

At age 66, eight years after stepping down as CEO, Bowman continues to work part-time at Asbury, focused on strategic planning and projects rather than operational matters. He and his wife Carol, class of ’72, live in Maryville, Tenn.

Bowman spoke of the epiphany of learning that “an individual working alone is severely limited in terms of potential outcomes,” while one who gathers and coordinates the efforts of many toward a common goal will see that “greater things are possible.”

A key Bowman lesson regarding growth as a leader: “Beg, borrow and steal from leadership journeys of others, those still practicing and those from eons past.” One of his all-time favorite books is Robert Greenleaf’s Servant Leadership (republished as a 25th anniversary edition in 2002).

In all cases and all times, “leadership is not about getting ahead and gaining and keeping power.” Rather, it is about “empowering others to be all they can be.”

“If others, in general, are not made more whole over time because of your leadership, then something is amiss.” Bowman said a sign of poor leadership is a feedback style that interferes with a team’s performance, rather than enabling it to be more skillful.

Ten other leadership tips from Bowman:

1. Take seriously the adage “know thyself” and explore “various personality discovery exercises.” Bowman found personality assessments especially worth revisiting when his leadership team changed.
2. Know that you are being closely watched by others in your organization, especially subordinates, and that you set the tone and establish the culture by which others live and work.
3. Solicit feedback, even while realizing that “it is almost impossible for the CEO to get full and unfettered feedback from employees.” Don’t rely entirely on structured survey instruments; sometimes simply walking around and talking to people will draw out better feedback.
4. Be conversant regarding the work of employees. “If those you are leading and managing can feel that you understand their work, your authority will be better received.” Bowman periodically would change places with an employee, or arrange for mutual job shadowing, just to stay abreast of the work of others.
5. Study and understand “change theory,” so that you grasp the importance of “bringing others along with the proposed change in advance of the change itself.” There is always a price to be paid for change, but the price is lower if you do it this way.
6. Become sensitive to – inform yourself about – cultural differences when you shift work environments. Even a shift from one region of the United States to another can require a different approach to leadership, as Bowman discovered when he shifted from Iowa to an Appalachian region (east Tennessee).
7. Work at creating your own leadership style, and know how to adjust it to suit each distinctive group of workers and different work environments. Bowman recommended Management of Organizational Behavior by Paul Hersey, Kenneth H. Blanchard and Dewey E. Johnson (10th edition, 2012) for gaining an understanding of an adaptive leadership style. “It is often more effective for the executive to change his or her style to meet the needs of others than to ask and expect employees to adapt to the executive’s style.” This requires having “knowledge of, and experience with, a variety of leadership styles so you can flex with the situation.”
8. Think of strategic planning as akin to a river. “It is always moving and constantly changing.”
9. Don’t hesitate to seek out executive coaching for assistance “in learning the requisite attitude, behavior and skills needed to perform” as well as possible. “We assume other staff need continuing support and training in their roles; why not CEOs?”
10. Expect to sometimes fall short or even fail over the course of a long career: “The fact is, sometimes one can exercise the best of leadership skills and still not be successful.” In such situations, it is time to “let go” and follow an alternate path.

In summary, Bowman advised his listeners to start with “a solid base in theory and concepts,” then live, experience and adapt these in one’s workplace. In so doing, the exercise of leadership will become “an act of natural self-expression.”

Harding and his late wife, Rosemarie, were close friends and colleagues of Martin Luther King Jr., during an era when the Hardings were active members of a Mennonite church.

“I come as one who does not like to lecture or preach,” said Harding, during his remarks in chapel on the morning of Feb. 26. Characterizing his visit as a dialogue with everyone else on campus, he invited others’ feedback and thoughts throughout the next two days. “Loving dialogue is part of what keeps me going and keeps us going.”

That evening, Harding continued that conversation as part of the Albert N. Keim History Lecture series, when he spoke about America as an idea that hasn’t yet been fully realized.

“I am absolutely obsessed with the question of how you build a deep democracy in this country,” said Harding, who played an active leadership role during the Civil Rights movement and continues to work toward a more just, participatory society through his nonprofit organization, . He lives in Denver, Colo., where he was a professor of religion and social transformation at the Iliff School of Theology from 1981 until his retirement in 2004.

Helped MLK to articulate stance against Vietnam War

In the ’60s, Harding worked closely with King and other Civil Rights leaders, playing important behind-the-scenes roles in the movements to challenge segregation in Albany, Ga., and Birmingham, Ala. Harding also drafted King’s famous and highly controversial speech, delivered in New York City in on April 4, 1967, exactly one year to the day before King’s assassination.

In it King called for the U.S. to “undergo a radical revolution of values,” adding: “When machines and computers, profit and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.” King also explicitly linked capitalistic socio-economic practices to the absence of “fairness and justice” both at home and abroad. This passage – evocative of current questions regarding the U.S.’s role in Iraq and Afghanistan – shows the strong stance and unequivocal language in that Harding/King speech:

True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

Harding is the author or co-author of five books, including Martin Luther King – The Inconvenient Hero. In the 2009 edition of his book Hope and History, Harding called attention to “the continuing frontiers for justice, for community, for the redemption of the soul of our nation.”

Struggle still necessary for a more just, humane society

He wrote of the continued swamp of materialism, sexism, homophobia, and poverty, along with “antidemocratic, bullying military interventions of our government.” In order to “keep going toward a more just and humane society” we (the people) have to accept that there will be personal, fiscal and psychic costs. Yet by acting out of – and building upon – love, we will “receive the power to carry on the struggle.”

In Hope and History, Harding said he dreamed of a community-based “rainbow wedge,” which would be “a force for the creation of new political, cultural, ecological, and economic realities.”

At 91����Ƶ, Harding explained that being “we, the people” means being active as citizens because, in the absence of this, our leaders will always be happy to step in and take things in self-serving directions.

In December 2013, Harding married another longtime peace and justice activist, Aljosie Aldrich Harding, who accompanied him on the visit to 91����Ƶ. During classes and other discussion, Aljosie encouraged students to live their lives being primarily for, rather that against, things in order to promote change.

The Hardings’ 91����Ƶ itinerary also included visiting an undergraduate African-American history class, a seminary class, speaking at a seminary chapel, and informal lunchtime conversations with students and faculty.

Harding’s ties with the Mennonite Church

Vincent Harding’s long association with the Mennonite Church began in the late ’50s, when he was studying for his doctorate at the University of Chicago and began attending Woodlawn Mennonite Church on the city’s south side. In 1958, five Mennonites – Harding, another African American man, and three white men – decided to travel through the South “to manifest and test our faith in Christian brotherhood.” Harding’s decade-long association with King began on this trip, when King welcomed the five men into his home, though he was in bed recovering from a stab wound.

In his book Martin Luther King – The Inconvenient Hero, Harding wrote:

Before we left, he [King] turned to Ed Riddick, the other African-American traveler, and to me, and he said, very seriously, “You Mennonites understand what we’re trying to do in this nonviolent movement. You ought to come down from Chicago and help us.” I never forgot the invitation, or the reasoning behind it.

Harding and first wife Rosemarie moved to Atlanta, Ga., in 1961 to lead a new, interracial voluntary service unit support by , where they lived around the corner from Martin and Coretta King. (Rosemarie was the first African-American woman to graduate from 91����Ƶ’s sister school, Goshen College; she died in 2004.)

The following year, the Hardings visited 91����Ƶ to talk about their involvement in the civil rights movement, and to challenge the broader Mennonite community to more active participation in the struggle for racial justice.

“It was easy for people scattered around [these] often-isolated Mennonite worlds to have only the weakest possible understanding of what was going on,” recalled Harding during his recent visit.

On being insensitive to the sin of racial prejudice

When the Hardings arrived in Harrisonburg in May, 1962, they were troubled by the 91����Ƶ community’s lack of awareness about the extent of segregation in Harrisonburg itself and, as they later wrote in a report, “a frightening moral insensitivity to the sin of racial prejudice and discrimination.” The couple used the opportunity to challenge those on campus by presenting them with a series of questions, such as whether it was morally acceptable for Mennonite teachers to participate in segregated professional organizations, or whether “Mennonites should continue to take advantage of the false privilege of a pink skin by making use of facilities that are denied to their Negro brothers.”

“Before we left Harrisonburg, we felt that there were many individuals – students and adults – who were beginning to struggle deeply with the implications of discipleship in their situation,” the Hardings wrote later. Harding remained in contact with 91����Ƶ as it began changing, visiting in the late ’70s at the invitation of Titus Bender (then a professor) and again in 1995 as part of 91����Ƶ’s observation of .

Titus and Ann Bender became friends with Harding when they led a Mennonite voluntary service unit in Meridian, Mississippi, from 1958 to 1969. Titus says Harding pushed him personally, and 91����Ƶ collectively, to move forward in realizing that “nonviolence is not inaction” and that “one can work for creative change without being violent.” While the Hardings’ tough questions during their first visit caused some discomfort on campus at the time, the university’s eventual embrace of nonviolent social activism is reflected today by initiatives like the and the undergraduate major in .

Harding inspired restorative justice pioneer Howard  Zehr

Harding also was a major influence on , who is regarded internationally as one of the founders of the field of restorative justice. Today Zehr is co-director of CJP’s .

“I remember sitting at the dining room table with him as he patiently helped a naïve white boy understand racial injustice in this country,” said Zehr, referring to several visits Harding made to his family’s home and church in Indiana. Zehr subsequently enrolled in Morehouse College in Atlanta (MLK’s alma mater) and became its first white graduate in 1966. Harding “was a major factor in developing my consciousness and concern about justice,” Zehr said.

Reflecting on the recent visit, 91����Ƶ professor said that Harding challenged and inspired the university, as he has been doing since he first came to campus more than 50 years ago.

“He reminds us again and again that we are the people we are waiting for. We are the ones who can make change happen,” Sawin said. “It is in our talking together that we are at our most human, and this sacred conversation is what makes us whole and helps move us toward the world that is yet to be – the world we want for our children.”

Choosing to identify with those who are oppressed

During the Feb. 26 evening event, Harding was asked how King, if still living, would assess our country’s progress toward the goals outlined in his famous “I Have a Dream” speech. Harding responded that King wasn’t expecting miracles. Simple solutions and quick fixes were never part of the plan. He recalled one of the most celebrated ideas King described in that speech, that someday his children would be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin.

“How do you get to know the content of a child’s character?” asked Harding, pointing out that King’s vision was itself a plea for greater engagement. Building the beloved community, he said, isn’t limited to passing new laws that, in theory, advance racial equality. Building that community means creating stronger connections and developing relationships across the racial divides that persist in our country.

In his last public presentation at 91����Ƶ, a Thursday morning chapel at the seminary, Harding focused on these words of Martin Luther King Jr.

I choose to identify with the underprivileged.

I choose to identify with the poor.

I choose to give my life for the hungry.

I choose to give my life for those who have been left out of the sunlight of opportunity.

I choose to live for and with those who find themselves seeing life as a long and desolate corridor with no exit sign.

This is the way I’m going.

If it means suffering a little bit, I’m going that way.

If it means sacrificing, I’m going that way.

If it means dying for them, I’m going that way, because

I heard a voice saying, ‘Do something for others.’

All of Vincent Harding’s talks at 91����Ƶ on Feb. 26 and 27 can be accessed online:

“Loved into Life: a personal testimony”

“Is America Possible?”

“Martin Luther King’s Choices and Ours”

.

“I’ve written a lot of comedy, satire and even horror, but I’ve never written a cancer play,” explained Bodner, an aspiring playwright.

“I decided I was going to start interviewing people who had their lives affected by cancer — patient, doctor, nurse, family member — and try to create a fictional story based off the interviews I had with them,” he continued.

More than 150 pages later, Bodner settled on an idea. He would write a play centered on the life of a 50-year-old man stricken with Grade Three anaplastic astrocytoma, a type of brain cancer.

After more consideration, Bodner changed course again.

“Originally, [the play] was going to be about a 50-year-old man, then I decided that was horrible. I had never been a 50-year-old man,” said Bodner. “So, I wrote from the perspective of a high schooler instead.

“The original script that I had is very different from the one [I ended up with].”

Hence the final installment of his idea, “The Crowleys of Tobias,” a student-oriented Laboratory Production, which will run Dec. 5-7 in 91����Ƶ’s Lee Eshleman Studio Theater.

The play follows 17-year-old Tobias in his final moments battling brain cancer, which fully develops in his temporal lobe. Throughout the drama, the audience witnesses the development of Tobias’ relationships with his mother, Lydia, his friends, Blake and Zoe, and the hallucinogenic manifestation known as Crowley, which helps Tobias cope with dying.

“The theme is still very much the same, but a lot of the plot structure itself has changed because it’s not a 50-year-old man,” said Bodner. “The dynamic changes from ‘What I could have done’ to ‘What I’ll never be able to do.’ ”

To help Bodner bring his lines to life, co-director Amanda Chandler sought to display the realism she found throughout the script.

“We see Tobias as a normal 17-year-old,” explained the senior theater and major. “I wanted to highlight [his] relationships and juxtapose them with the outrageous behavior of Crowley and the dream world he orchestrates.”

Bodner explains Crowley’s relationship with Tobias.

“It’s the idea of having the wickedest man in the world running around in your head causing all sorts of ruckus,” Bodner elaborated. “Crowley, to me, represents a cruel reality of love within death, a weird, twisted, morbid form of love. But it in that grotesqueness you find something beautiful.”

Associate professor of 91����Ƶ’s theater department Heidi Winters Vogel oversaw the creative process behind the presentation and commends Bodner for his script.

“Michael is a very good writer,” said Vogel. “He did a lot of interviewing with hospice workers and Astrocytoma patients — most of them who are no longer alive — because it does have a very high mortality rate. He’s been really honest to their experience.”

“The journey I took comes out in the play,” concludes Bodner.

The play stages at 7:30 p.m. Dec. 5 and 6; and 3 p.m. and 9 p.m. Dec. 7.

Tickets are $5 for general admission and $2 for 91����Ƶ students. Contact the 91����Ƶ theater department at 540-432-4360 for more information and age appropriateness.

Courtesy Daily News Record, Dec. 5, 2013

The American Studies Association is the nation’s oldest and largest association devoted to the interdisciplinary study of American culture and history. Join Eastern regional chapter members at the 2013 conference “E Pluribus Unum?: Unity, Division & the Making of American Identity.”

Registration for the meals and receptions is now closed.

Schedule information is available .

Brendon Derstine, a senior history major from Harleysville, Pa., found his time as a community assistant, a student leader in campus residence halls, deepened his faith and led to many other spiritual opportunities on campus.

The history major added a Bible minor to his studies, and has led campus chapels, the weekly praise and worship gatherings known as “Celebration,” and more. In his junior year he was a ministry intern with a local congregation.

and others in our .

Rose Byler, a senior major from Goshen, Ind., won first place with her speech, “Living into the Tension: Social Services and Systemic Change.” Byler discussed how her profession can both empower individuals and tackle systemic issues.

“I challenge us to use our gifts to empower individuals, communities and policy making bodies in ways that confront systemic injustice and shift toward sustainable change. We must not forget the end goal,” Byler said.

As first-place winner, Byler receives a cash prize and entry in the bi-national competition with winners from other Mennonite-rooted colleges and universities in the United States and Canada. The bi-national winner will be announced in the fall.

Julia Schmidt, a junior from Pandora, Ohio, who is majoring in in addition to , was first runner-up with her speech, “Holding Dignity in the Community of Faith.” Her speech focused on responses to difference and conflict in the church, articulating “how the concept of dignity can transform the way we live in relationship as a community of faith.”

“Looking back on my two experiences [in Ohio and Texas], I believe that dignity was the difference,” said Schmidt. “Now, I don’t think people in (my first church example) were bad people, or they meant to harm each other in the way they did. However, the church did not understand dignity, and how dignity is essential to all humans, and especially when attempting to be a community of Christ.”

Taylor Weidman, a junior from Chambersburg, Pa., who is triple-majoring in , and , was second runner-up with his speech, “Dissimilarity is Hope.” Weidman spoke about his story of dyslexia and the recognition of dissimilarities in the world.

“As a community dedicated to peace, we must not use or internalize the methods of measurement or conformity,” Weidman said. “As a community of learners and teachers, we cannot let ourselves become reduced to merely cogs in a system of compulsion…”

The annual oratorical event, open to students in Mennonite and Brethren in Christ universities and colleges in Canada and the United States, is administered by Peace and Justice Ministries of U.S.

Each speaker applied the Christian peace position to a contemporary concern in an 8-10 minute address.

The contest was established in 1974 in honor of the late C. Henry Smith, a Mennonite historian and professor at Goshen College and Bluffton University.

Other 2012 contestants

• Thomas Millary, “A Pluralistic Realm: Towards a Theology of Peace”
• Joel Nofziger, “Confession as a Restorative Practice in the Church”
• Sarah Schoenhals, “Justice from Generation to Generation”
• Jamila Witmer, “His Dream is our Command: Breaking Stereotypes through Integration”

Read more…

Mark Metzler Sawin

Now, a new book by Mark Metzler Sawin, associate professor of history, sheds new light on Kane through his cultural biography, Raising Kane: Elisha Kent Kane and the Culture of Fame in Antebellum America.

Dr. Sawin, who joined the 91����Ƶ faculty in 2001, is on sabbatical for the 2008-09 academic year. He is currently serving as a Fulbright scholar on the faculty of philosophy at the University of Zagreb in the central European nation of Croatia. During his year in the capital city, he is teaching American cultural studies courses and helping launch a PhD program in American studies. He will return to Harrisonburg in July 2009.

The 350-page paperback examines how Elisha Kent Kane used his family’s influence with the burgeoning popular press to promote himself, turning his globe-traveling adventures into best-selling books that inspired and thrilled the nation in the years leading up to the Civil War.

Hero of the Age

“At the time of his untimely death in 1857, Kane was the hero of the age,” Sawin said. “The nation mourned his death via a funeral procession that lasted nearly a month as his casket wound from New Orleans to Philadelphia in a funeral procession that is, to date, second only to Abraham Lincoln’s.”

Sawin’s book examines how Kane methodologically constructed his fame, but also the price this fame exacted, preventing him from marrying the woman he loved and ultimately, and ironically, leading to him being largely forgotten withing a generation after his death.

“Following Kane’s exploits from the Mexican War through his Arctic adventures and ill-fated romance with the Spiritualist medium Margaret Fox, Mark Sawin ties this singular figure into the main currents of mid-nineteenth century popular culture, opening a new vista on the meanings of masculinity, celebrity, and heroism,” notes reviewer Robert S. Cox of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst.

“This work comprises two initiatives: a new and exhaustive research work into the life and accomplishments of a remarkable adventurer, as well as a sociological analysis of popular perceptions of Kane’s work and feats,” noted Charles O. Cowing, chairman of the Elisha Kent Kane Historical Society.

Sawin said of his book, “Kane is a fascinating and wonderfully-flawed character. His reckless exploits, unabashed self-promotion and tumultuous love affair with spirit-rapper Maggie Fox sound more like fiction than fact. I just hope my book conveys this remarkable life in a way that engages readers as much a Kane’s letters, journals, and life have engrossed my attention over the past decade.”

“My goal was to shed a bit of light on this tumultuous and exciting era of US history,” Sawin added. “It was the age of the American Literary Renaissance, of the rise of the popular press and of massive and aggressive Manifest Destiny, all of which addressed and helped fuel the internal conflicts that ultimately led to the Civil War.”

Sawin received his PhD in American studies from the University of Texas at Austin. He is past president of the Middle-Atlantic American Studies Association and is currently beginning work on Ned Buntline, a popular 19th author who wrote over 140 “best-selling” pulp-novels, including a series of Westerns that launched the career of William “Buffalo Bill” Cody.

Sawin’s current book, published by the American Philosophical Society, Philadelphia, is available from the 91����Ƶ bookstore and other book outlets and from Amazon.com.

James C. Juhnke, professor emeritus of history at Bethel College, N. Newton, Kan., will give an illustrated presentation on a strange, uncertain segment of Mennonite history 3:50-5:15 p.m. Thursday, Mar. 13, in room 123 of the seminary building.

Juhnke’s account of the 1880 story of the "Mennonite Great Trek" from the Ukraine to Central Asia is based on his recent travels and study and one that he believes "more accurately reflects the people and the events" of the period.

From May 27 to June 7, 2007, Juhnke was part of a group that retraced part of the route of those who migrated to the Russian frontier of Central Asia from the colonies of Molotschna in the Ukraine and the Trakt in the Volga region. Those migrants established two settlements – one in the Talas Valley north and east of Tashkent and one near Khiva in what is now western Uzbekistan.

It is generally believed that the group’s migration was largely triggered by the teachings and writings of Claas Epp, Jr., that set a schedule of millennial events culminating in the expected return of Christ in 1887, later revised to 1889.

"Dr. Junke’s revisionist account is less focused on a group of Russian Mennonites with apocalyptic illusions of Christ’s second coming and more on a prophetic vision to avoid military service, less a focus on abject suffering and futility and more on positive Muslim-Christian relationships," said Ray C. Gingerich, professor emeritus of theology and ethics at 91����Ƶ and director of the Anabaptist Center for Religion and Society (ACRS).

The program is co-sponsored by 91����Ƶ’s history department and ACRS. Refreshments will be served, and admission is free.

For more information, call 432-4465; email gingerrc@emu.edu.

But this was no ordinary feast.

The main course at 91����Ƶ’s Multicultural Services’ Soul Food Cafe was cultural diversity, says Melody Pannell, director of the program. Contemporary gospel music, fellowship and a celebration of the kickoff of black history month also were on the menu.

Pannell credited a Manhattan restaurant for inspiring the annual event, now in its third year. The restaurant served soul food, she said, and treated customers to live music.

"It was very popular," she said.

‘Celebration Of Faith’

The 91����Ƶ event appears to be picking up steam. 91����Ƶ 60 people purchased tickets for the dinner and concert this year. Volunteers began preparing for the feast on Thursday, said John Grinfin, 23.

An accounting senior from Frederick, Md., Grinfin is one of eight assistants in Pannell’s office.

The event does more than take note of African-American culture during February, he said.

"It’s a celebration of faith, as well," Grinfin said.

He and 91����Ƶ junior Bill Seidle, 21, of Madison, were among the early arrivals to help create the right atmosphere for the cafe.

Seidle, a social work major, was attending his second Soul Food Cafe. After going last year, he decided to join Multicultural Services as an assistant.

"It is very important to promote diversity among students," Seidle said.

Crossing Bridges

The aroma of the freshly cooked food wafted into the room as Pannell ran down the list of dishes on the evening’s menu.

Along with collard greens and baked macaroni and cheese, the menu included cabbage, candied yams, cornbread and sweet potato pie.

Asked to define soul food, Pannell said it is "food that makes you feel alive and good in your spirit, and is cooked with love."

Pannell said she hopes people attend events this month celebrating black history and multiculturalism, and try something new.

"When they cross cultural bridges and backgrounds and open themselves up to new experiences," she said, "they receive something back."