“That first or second week, I thought, ‘I’m not gonna make it. This is my last semester here, and I’m not coming back,’” she recalled.

But then, she said, she began forming deep connections with her professors.

“Going to school with students nearly half my age, I felt a little more connected with my professors than with my fellow students,” she said. “When I started making those connections, I had this feeling that I was going to be OK after all.”

She had met her advisor, English Professor Dr. Kevin Seidel, during an open house the previous fall. “He checked in one day to make sure I was doing all right,” Beachy said. “We talked about how my experience was going, and that was super helpful.”

Beachy graduated with degrees in English and writing studies last spring after five semesters at 91����Ƶ. She had transferred to the university from online classes at Blue Ridge Community College. By the time she enrolled at 91����Ƶ, she had already spent four years teaching at the church school she graduated from and another 10 years developing curriculum at in Harrisonburg.

When Beachy, who lives in Staunton, expressed interest in pursuing a bachelor’s degree, a co-worker at Christian Light recommended 91����Ƶ. He thought the close-knit community would be a good fit for her, and he was right.

“The fact that 91����Ƶ is small makes it more personable,” she said. “I feel like you get to know your professors better. I didn’t know that when I started, but I’ve enjoyed that.”

She mentioned Dr. Marti Eads and Chad Gusler as faculty members she’s grown close to. “I appreciate the connections I made here, and I feel that some of my professors are still my friends,” she said. “They’re people I connect with when I see them, which is really useful.”

Beachy worked part-time at Christian Light while taking classes as a full-time student and tried to find courses that fit her busy schedule. When the registrar suggested she take a sociology class, she enrolled in Dr. Gaurav Pathania’s class.

She described the sociology professor as “very personable” and fondly recalled that he served chai and cookies in class. “That was something I always enjoyed,” Beachy said. “We would have discussions outside of class, too, and it was interesting to hear his perspectives on life in India versus life here.” She enjoyed his introductory sociology class so much that she signed up for more classes with Pathania. Those sociology classes helped her think about the world differently and better understand social issues.

Pathania remembers Beachy as never missing a class and demonstrating a level of thoughtfulness and maturity that set her apart. “Joyce is truly one of the most exceptional students I have encountered in my five years of teaching at 91����Ƶ,” he wrote.

Through a “Local Context” intercultural program, Beachy spent a summer studying various neighborhoods and social groups in Harrisonburg. That experience led her to try different ethnic restaurants in the area. “I still enjoy doing that to this day,” she said.

Last spring, Beachy served as an editorial intern for 91����Ƶ’s marketing and communications department, writing many well-received articles for 91����Ƶ News. She attended the 2025 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference and wrote a recap about it. Her story about the intercultural to Guatemala and Mexico was one of the most read stories of 2025. She also wrote about an initiative by the Latinx Student Alliance to distribute “Know Your Rights” cards to members of Harrisonburg’s immigrant community. At the same time, she volunteered to help adult English learners at 91����Ƶ’s Intensive English Program, which was at the heart of another article written by her.

Near the end of her time at 91����Ƶ, Beachy was promoted to the role of literacy coordinator at Christian Light Publications. She said her employer is helping reimburse her for tuition costs.

“In the (conservative Mennonite) setting where I come from, it’s not as common for people to pursue higher education,” she said. “They didn’t have any program in place to help with tuition costs, but now they want to offer it to others who want to go to college, which I’m really excited about. It means some reimbursement for me, but it also opens a path for other people.”

Beachy said there are advantages to attending college as a nontraditional, older student. She met students who knew what they wanted to do and were serious about studying, as well as others who were in college because their parents wanted them there. “They didn’t know what they were doing,” she said. “I always felt sorry for them and wished they could just go out and work for a couple years and figure out what they actually wanted to do.”

She mentioned reading The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was turned into a Brad Pitt movie a couple decades ago.

“It’s about a guy who’s born an old man, and he goes through life backwards,” she said. “I’ve thought about that story sometimes with my experience at 91����Ƶ. I felt like I was doing things backwards. Most people go to school and then start their careers. I did my career first, then went to school. But I’m really glad I did it. Now, if I have friends in their 30s who say, ‘Oh, I want to go to college,’ I tell them, ‘Yeah, you should. It’s absolutely worth it.’”

“Everyone’s driving around with the biggest gun they can find, mowing down anyone who seems remotely threatening,” she said. “Everyone’s fighting tooth and nail in this really brutal way.”

Speaking at a Writers Read event in Martin Chapel on Thursday evening, Benner Dixon said she’s not particularly interested in those types of stories. She would rather learn how people get past that point. 

“I don’t want post-apocalyptic,” she said. “I want what comes after. I want to see the communities that thrive once all the warring and stabbing has burned itself out.”

The Height of Land is set in the far distant future and follows Red, a sensitive and inquisitive young farmer who is torn between “spiritual longing and commitment to his community’s survival in a harsh landscape” (). Benner Dixon read from a chapter in her novel, shared a short story she had written about encountering God in her garden, and read an essay that will be published by The Iowa Review in its spring issue.

Answering questions from moderator Dr. Kevin Seidel, professor of English at 91����Ƶ, and members of the audience, Benner Dixon spoke about beauty in art and gardening, the meaning behind the title of her novel—the dividing line that separates watersheds—and the inspiration that sparked it all. She said she had read a book by religious scholar Reza Aslan, who wrote God: A Human History.

“I started wondering, what would it be like if modern humanity was able to have the slate wiped clean, as it were, of all the religious knowledge we have and create a new religion,” she said. “What would we create?”

Future events

A book launch and “post-post-apocalyptic party” held on Saturday, March 22, from 1 to 4 p.m. at Tangly Woods Farmstead (2715 Fruit Farm Lane, Keezletown, Virginia) will feature a reading from Benner Dixon, an open mic, and demonstrations from local artisans and craftspeople. Read more details about that .

The next Writers Read event, on Tuesday, April 22, at 7:30 p.m. in Martin Chapel, will feature 91����Ƶ English Professor Kirsten Beachy introducing her memoir of collected essays, Martyrs and Chickens, Confessions of a Granola Mennonite.

91����Ƶ the author

is a teacher, poet, editor, and novelist living in Pittsburgh. She spent roughly 15 years in academia as a classroom teacher and scholar before launching her freelance editing and writing business. Along with poet Sharon Fagan McDermott, she is the co-author of Millions of Suns: On Writing and Life. Her writing has appeared in outlets such as Literary Hub, Reckoning, Flash Fiction, Online, Appalachian Review, and elsewhere.

For Mennonite-raised Nightbitch author Rachel Yoder, what excites her most about speaking at 91����Ƶ is learning how Mennonites will react to her book. “Will they be offended? Will they relate? Will they see it as productive or worthless?” — all questions she’s pondered in an email to 91����Ƶ News.

“Now that I’m more outside the Mennonite tradition than in, it feels important to me to remain in conversation with the community regardless, not only as a means to understand the tradition better, but as a means to understand my own story, why I make art, why I have to write things that are ‘dark’ or ‘evil’ or ‘unpleasant,’” said Yoder, who will present at 91����Ƶ’s Writers Read Author Series on Friday, Feb. 28.

Yoder grew up in a Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio before studying English literature as an undergraduate student at Georgetown University. She is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. Currently, she serves as assistant professor of screenwriting and cinema arts at the University of Iowa. 

Her debut novel Nightbitch, published in 2021, is a “strange and unforgettable story about a sleep-deprived stay-at-home mother who, after apparently growing extra nipples, sharper canine teeth and a tail, develops an ‘exhilarating and magical’ ability to literally become a powerful bitch. ()

“It became a cult hit, was named one of the best books of the year by Esquire, got shortlisted for a PEN/Hemingway award — and has now been made into a film starring Amy Adams and directed by Marielle Heller.”

91����Ƶ Professor Kevin Seidel said the Language and Literature Department tends to invite authors for its Writers Read series who have some connection to the Mennonite tradition or who can “help us see past the edges of that tradition.” Yoder, he said, meets both of those conditions.

Seidel credited fellow 91����Ƶ English Professor Kirsten Beachy with introducing him to Nightbitch a couple years ago. 

“She handed me the book with a smile that, looking back, probably meant I dare you to read this,” he recalled. “The first paragraph was so brilliant, so affectionately self-deprecating, and so off-kilter funny that I had to read the rest.” 

What will a post-pandemic world look like? How is COVID-19 affecting each of us differently, and what are our responsibilities to one another in the face of those disparities? What do we know about the biology of the virus? And are there things that are changing for the better because of this crisis?

A free seven-week online course offered at 91����Ƶ this summer will delve into those questions and more. Community members are welcome. Students can opt for a pass/fail grade and will have online access to readings, videos, and other materials before each class. 

The course meets each Tuesday evening, beginning June 30, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. for seven weeks, with a different pair or trio of faculty and staff from different academic fields leading each class.

The lectures and Q and A will be recorded and available for viewing later.

The course is co-led by language and literature professor Kevin Seidel and chemistry professor Laurie Yoder.

“What pulled me in at first was the possibility of teaching with faculty from all three schools – sciences, social sciences, and humanities – talking together and learning from one another about the virus,” Seidel said. When the pandemic hit, he started fervently gathering information and perspective: from scientists, from fictive literature, and from poetry, trying to make sense of “this strange new world.” 

Week 1 | June 30, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Treating COVID-19

What do we know about the biology of COVID-19? What’s next in vaccine development? What public health measures are working to slow the spread of COVID-19?

Kristopher Schmidt, Associate Professor of Biology

Kate Clark, Assistant Professor of Nursing

Week 2 | July 7, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Pandemic History and Data

What can we learn from past pandemics about life after this one? What can we learn from visual presentations of data about the pandemic? 

Mary Sprunger, Professor of History

Daniel Showalter, Associate Professor of Mathematics

Week 3 | July 14, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Politics and Collective Trauma

Why has the U.S. response to COVID-19 been so contentious and uneven? What is collective trauma and what might it have to do with that response?

Mark Metzler Sawin, Professor of History

Ryan Thompson, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Trina Trotter Nussbaum, Associate Director, Center for Interfaith Engagement

Week 4 | July 21, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Zoonotic Viruses, Wet Markets, and the Economics of COVID-19

Where do coronaviruses come from? What are the links between environmental degradation and pandemics? What does COVID-19 have to teach us about how our economy is connected to the natural world? What are the economic impacts from a pandemic?

Jim Yoder, Professor of Biology

Jim Leaman, Associate Professor of Business and Leadership

Week 5 | July 28, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Our Life with Animals, Our Life with God

Why are so many people taking refuge in nature during the pandemic? Why is that refuge harder to come by for some people? What do the scriptures say about how our life with God is related to our life with animals? 

Steven Johnson, Professor of Visual and Communication Arts 

Andrea Saner, Associate Professor of Old Testament

Week 6 | August 4, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Systemic Racism in the U.S. before and after COVID-19

Why has COVID-19 hit African-Americans harder than other groups? Why does rural Navajo Nation have the highest infection rates in the country?

Jenni Holsinger, Associate Professor of Sociology 

Matt Tibbles, Teaching Fellow, Applied Social Sciences

Jim Yoder, Professor of Biology

Week 7 | August 11, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Resilience, Repair, and Transformation after COVID-19

How do we carry forward what we’ve learned about COVID-19, trauma, and restorative justice? 

Johonna Turner, Assistant Professor of Restorative Justice and Peacebuilding

Katie Mansfield, Lead Trainer, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR)

The sixty-third volume of The Phoenix is out – a 52-page collection of stories, artwork, and poetry cultivated from the 91����Ƶ community. Works featured in the annual publication range from breathtaking night sky photography to short stories with gut-wrenching plot twists. 

Student editors Anna Cahill, Anali North Martin, and Megan Good completed the booklet while quarantined the second half of the spring semester. 

“Most of the long work days, late nights, and hard conversations involved in putting together the Phoenix happen at the busiest time of the semester for students, right as final projects are coming due,” professor and advisor Kevin Seidel said. “Knowing a little about that behind the scenes work, I’m always impressed by the final product, but this year, with the campus scattered and under quarantine, it’s especially impressive the way the editors were able to get it done.”

This issue includes 41 pieces from 27 students and faculty. Good, a writing studies major from Harrisonburg, said the three editors review all submissions with the creator’s name removed, so they can be evaluated without bias. After analyzing the pieces individually, the editors then try to come to a consensus about what to print.

“Sometimes we all agree about a piece, and sometimes we have to compromise with each other. We try to include work from a broad range of students without sacrificing the quality of the work, and we try to include no more than two or three submissions from each person,” Good said.

While the publication is , the team also printed copies to send to the contributors and pass out when students return to campus.

“It is so satisfying to hold something beautiful and think, ‘I made this!’” Good said. In her first two years at 91����Ƶ, she loved flipping through old Phoenix issues, and would tear out favorite pages to paste to her walls.

Martin, an English and writing studies major from Cary, North Carolina, enjoyed assembling the book with the software InDesign, “learning how to fit all the pieces together so that we do justice to the wonderful submissions we get. Seeing the final product is always so satisfying and well worth the work.”

Seidel said that, while he loves seeing poetry and visual art from the minds of 91����Ƶ’s campus every year, “I’m especially grateful for this year’s issue. Reading it brings me a little closer to everyone involved—artists, editors, and readers—as if we’re in the same place together, sharing something at the same time.”

This was neither the end of the semester we anticipated nor the graduation we expected, but it is the semester we have completed and the graduation we celebrate, said Dean David Brubaker this past weekend to a virtual celebration for graduates from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Those words encapsulate the whirlwind experience of the last nine weeks, as our semester was completely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was not the semester we anticipated, but it was the semester we completed.

And what choice did we have but to persevere, adapt, be flexible and patient, flatten one curve as we were being slung faster on an accompanying learning curve of what exactly to do with ourselves, our bodies and minds in this strange new world.

The following collection of photos and text is a snapshot of the semester, collected in real time and revisited now, for those of you who are more peripheral to 91����Ƶ. It might help to give a sense of how faculty, staff and students responded in and out of classroom — in true 91����Ƶ fashion, with resilience, empathy and commitment.

Here we go (online)!

Some of the first on campus to sense an impending switch were employees in Information Systems. They began thinking about remote learning during 91����Ƶ’s spring break the first week in March, and in anticipation, beefed up their HelpZone articles on a variety of relevant topics.

By March 12, when 91����Ƶ announced a move to online learning, IS had reviewed and increased capacity of all systems and equipment (including webcams, laptops and Chromebooks) necessary for online teaching and campus operations. Needless to say, they were busy.

Two graphs from Jenni Piper, director of User Services, tell the story:

First Helpdesk Tickets. The green line shows last year’s demand and the blue line this year’s.

And second, the number of daily Zoom meetings hosted through the campus account, beginning in early March.

After hosting a training for faculty March 13 and the shift to online the classes the next week, IS handled 64 tickets on March 16, something of a watermark that shows when faculty and staff began to engage with the reality of a move to remote work.

Pedagogues thinking positively

91����Ƶ 10 days into the online shift, I asked a few professors how things were going. Some of their answers are included below. I was particularly struck by the positive perspective of veteran educator Carolyn Stauffer, professor of applied social sciences:

In reality, what we’re experiencing now is the presence of hybrid education. We’ve had the chance to meet in-person for the first part of the semester and now I get to know each participant’s online presence as well. It’s wonderful to be able to build on the assets of both sides of that equation!

Solo field trips

Professor Doug Graber Neufeld‘s “Natural History of the Shenandoah Valley” course syllabus was packed full of fantastic field trips to local natural wonders and lab experiences (like taxidermy practice below).

With his students scattered in mid-March, the field trips turned into independent explorations, such as Katelyn Dean‘s below. Here she holds morel mushrooms she and her dad found in the George Washington National Forest, just one find shared during class time.

“It’s the highlight of my day to hear students who daily recount the joy they find in now recognizing the animals, plants and rocks around them,” Neufeld said. “In such unusual times, experiencing the beauty and complexity of the natural world together has been a unique source of hope for us.” Read more about this class.

Conversations continue

In Professor Marti Eads’ class “Ways of War and Peace,” students met virtually with Reverend Masayuki Sawa, the pastor of a Reformed (Calvinist) congregation in Japan. He spoke of his perception of contemporary Japanese attitudes toward World War II and Japanese perceptions of the US and our own military actions, then and now, among other topics.

The class was slated to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. Instead, guest speaker Gillian Steinberg, an educator at the Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy in the Bronx, and her students from the Modern Orthodox Jewish tradition met online with 91����Ƶ students.

This conversation and the de-brief afterwards held richness and nuance, Eads said, with several classmates opening up about their own religious experiences, choices and identities. Recognizing the common humanity, despite labels — “just the idea of all of us sitting together talking and all of us from different groups” was a moving experience, said one of her students. []

Creating community with virtual high fives

Engineering professor Esther Tian (pictured above at top right) continued teaching synchronous classes, preferring the structure and the presence of students. “It is also good for students to see each other and talk to each other before class as they would in a classroom.

We do high fives, thumb-ups (and downs) during class, we find out new features of Zoom and use them right away. It has been fun. I also found that one-on-one and small group Zoom sessions were working really well in answering students’ questions as well as advising..”

Senior Collin Longenecker, visible below Tian in the photo above and also at right, was an embedded tutor with a first-year engineering course. Though initially he wasn’t sure how Zoom sessions would work, he adapted well: “The students pop in and out and they can share their screen with me. It is almost like I am in the engineering lab looking over their shoulder trying to help them troubleshoot the problem. I have been helping a few students that I had not helped before we went to online school which is cool.”

Read more about 91����Ƶ tutors at work during online classes.

The power of community to enhance learning was the top tip in a blog post titled ” by Dean (and chem prof) Tara Kishbaugh for fellow organic chemistry teachers using the same texbook. “Community Matters,” she began. Use the relationships that have already been built to help students continue asking questions and learning in small peer groups. And she reminded readers, you can still greet each student individually when they enter your Zoom classroom.

Tech fails/wins: ‘chipmunky’-ness and new relationships

Professor Mark Sawin teaches U.S. History 103, from World War I to the present, with a focus on “power and paradox.” Sawin tried to do a synchronous class on Zoom and “it rather hilariously and spectularly failed,” he reported.

“So, since then, I’ve been pre-recording all my lectures on Panopto so students can watch them asynchronously, and with that program, you can adjust my speed. At 1.5 speed, I start to get rather chipmunky… at .5 speed I sound like the television show ‘Drunk History.’ I’m not sure if that amuses students, but it certainly amuses me.”

With the lectures available at any time, he began using normal class time as an open forum where students could drop in and ask questions.

“I’ve had some wonderful 1-on-1 conversations with students that I would never have had in our normal class setting. In this sense, our ‘social distancing’ has actually provided some closeness that wasn’t there before, and for that I’m grateful,” Sawin said. “I’ve also been pleased and touched by the grace that students have extended to us as we struggle to move our classes online. And I believe we, too, are showing that grace, focusing on the learning objectives and the big important ideas, and allowing a lot of latitude when it comes to the many wifi issues, isolation stresses, and general quarantine chaos we’re all learning to live with.”

Grace and connection

That grace is something education professor Paul Yoder has also experienced. Students in his classes are pre-service teachers and as a pedagogical specialist himself, the shift to online classes provided ample room for discussions around topics related to the digital classroom.

He wrote: “The key word in my planning for weekly class sessions via Zoom has been connection. We have taken time for each of the 18 students to rate how they are doing on a scale of 1-10 and then share with the group. Last week I sent individual emails as a follow up to the few students who placed themselves on the low end of the scale. I have also been excited to hear from some of my advisees who have shared their affirmations of how professors are providing flexibility as needed.  Particularly as we recognize that not all of us have the same level of internet access, I know that living into an ethic of care is essential.”

Nancy Heisey, seminary dean, also used check-ins with her classes, which often included adult students who juggled many responsibiliities, including pastors working in ministry settings.

“We take time every period to share ‘how it’s going’ and encourage one another. Some students are struggling with a household where everyone is working on line in a crowded space—spouse tele-working, children trying to do homework, and seminary student worrying about class work and how to get a video service up for their congregation’s Sunday service.

“I’ve been amazed, though, at the depth of engagement—this morning, my New Testament students each did a creative rendering of a parable of Jesus. They were funny, sobering, and encouraging!”

Hearing some of those needs led seminary professor Sarah Bixler to host an April 1 online gathering that drew 32 pastors, including 22 alumni, from four denominations and eight states. This has led to a free online series for pastors. Check it out here.

A wider global market for CJP

Innovation happened quickly during the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding’s facilitation class, co-taught by Professor Catherine Barnes and Amy Knorr. Students usually practice skills they’ve learned in person by helping clients with a planned discussion, strategic visioning or group dialogue. With face-to-face options limited and practice still required, students moved online.

Above, one group produced an online strategic planning for Shenandoah Green, a local environmental group, including a circle process, a historical reflection using a digital timeline that folks could fill in, and a card sort, a way of getting ideas out into the open and then grouping them together. “Board members at Shenandoah Green were delighted,” said Knorr, who helps coordinate practice settings for CJP students.

In the midst of the pandemic, CJP also hosted several online gatherings for alumni to connect and share resources.

And significantly, center staff moved quickly to adapt the Summer Peacebuilding Institute to online classes, expedite a new hybrid graduate degree program in transformational leadership, and prepare upcoming semester classes for online delivery.

The massive disruption and accompanying move towards online learning and programs have created new opportunities, said Executive Director Jayne Docherty, especially in a previously untapped market of prospective participants who could not have afforded to travel or would not have been issued a visa in the current environment.

“In the face of the pandemic, many people are waking up to the fact that our societies have become more unequal and unjust and that we are teetering on the edge of violent confrontations between social subgroups. Some of those people are saying, ‘This can’t continue. This is just wrong. What can I do? I want to be part of the solution.’ By moving our programs online quickly, we have helped channel their energy and impulse to help others in ways that prevent violence and address injustices.”

’12 hours ahead of our students’

As daily reports arrived into faculty in-boxes about the closure of practicum and internship placements to students, the nursing department focused on making sure their seniors could graduate on time and join the fight against covid-19.

For one cohort, that meant three 12-hour shifts at a local hospital. For others, they logged clinical hours (and their supervising professor also took calls) at a special covid-19 public health hotline.

“The faculty were meeting hour to hour, staying 12 hours ahead of the students as we were making decisions,” said Professor Melody Cash.

Eventually, a waiver allowed faculty to substitute simulation hours for live clinicals and all 16 seniors finished out the semester in good standing, ready to join the workforce.

It’s the small things…

Marci Frederick (above), director of Sadie Hartzler Library, and Professor Kevin Seidel dressed in academic regalia in honor of their senior seminar students for their last Zoom class meeting.

Congratulations, 91����Ƶ family, on the end of the semester we did not anticipate.

We celebrate.

The sixty-third volume of The Phoenix is out – a 52-page collection of stories, artwork, and poetry cultivated from the 91����Ƶ community. Works featured in the annual publication range from breathtaking night sky photography to short stories with gut-wrenching plot twists. 

Student editors Anna Cahill, Anali North Martin, and Megan Good completed the booklet while quarantined the second half of the spring semester. 

“Most of the long work days, late nights, and hard conversations involved in putting together the Phoenix happen at the busiest time of the semester for students, right as final projects are coming due,” professor and advisor Kevin Seidel said. “Knowing a little about that behind the scenes work, I’m always impressed by the final product, but this year, with the campus scattered and under quarantine, it’s especially impressive the way the editors were able to get it done.”

This issue includes 41 pieces from 27 students and faculty. Good, a writing studies major from Harrisonburg, said the three editors review all submissions with the creator’s name removed, so they can be evaluated without bias. After analyzing the pieces individually, the editors then try to come to a consensus about what to print.

“Sometimes we all agree about a piece, and sometimes we have to compromise with each other. We try to include work from a broad range of students without sacrificing the quality of the work, and we try to include no more than two or three submissions from each person,” Good said.

While the publication is , the team also printed copies to send to the contributors and pass out when students return to campus.

“It is so satisfying to hold something beautiful and think, ‘I made this!’” Good said. In her first two years at 91����Ƶ, she loved flipping through old Phoenix issues, and would tear out favorite pages to paste to her walls.

Martin, an English and writing studies major from Cary, North Carolina, enjoyed assembling the book with the software InDesign, “learning how to fit all the pieces together so that we do justice to the wonderful submissions we get. Seeing the final product is always so satisfying and well worth the work.”

Seidel said that, while he loves seeing poetry and visual art from the minds of 91����Ƶ’s campus every year, “I’m especially grateful for this year’s issue. Reading it brings me a little closer to everyone involved—artists, editors, and readers—as if we’re in the same place together, sharing something at the same time.”

Thus began Dr. Amir Hussain’s lifelong admiration for the boxer and activist Muhammad Ali. Hussain, a professor of theological studies at Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, California, told this story as part of a colloquium at 91����Ƶ on Oct. 23. The talk was named after his latest book, (Baylor University Press, 2017).

Muslims and the Making of America is far from Hussain’s only work in the realm of popular culture. He serves as an adviser on The Story of God, a television documentary by Morgan Freeman, and was a consultant for the new Warner Bros. film, . 91����Ƶ hosted two screenings of Blinded by the Light , including one talkback session with Professor Timothy Seidel, CIE’s director.

During his visit, Hussain spoke with students about Muslim representation in media over lunch, and visited classes on social and political economy, reimagining identity, and liberation theologies.

Muslim achievements shaped the U.S.

Ali is one of the dedicatees of Hussain’s Muslims and the Making of America.

Years after watching that historic fight on television, Hussain would learn more about the racial context of a country where not everyone shared his admiration for the African American boxer. He referenced an incident in which Ali was refused service in a restaurant in his hometown, after winning an Olympic gold medal in Rome in 1960.

“You can eat in the kitchen, but you’re the wrong color to sit in the dining room. Think about that as a young man. You’re good enough to win a gold medal for your country, but you’re the wrong color to eat in a restaurant.”

“You can eat in the kitchen” is a callback to the Langston Hughes poem, “I, too, sing America,” which Hussain recited at the beginning of his talk. 

“They’ll see how beautiful I am / And be ashamed— / I, too, am America,” the poem ends. 

“That’s what I want to do with this book,” Hussian explained. That is, to give the general reading public a narrative about the many Muslims whose achievements have helped shape our nation.

Hussain’s colloquium did that as well – serving up a historical digest of notable American Muslims, from the African slaves who first brought Islam to the U.S.; to Ahmet Ertegün, who founded Atlantic Records; to present-day congresswoman Ilhan Omar of Minnesota.

“There has never been an America without Muslims,” Hussain recited from the opening line of the book.

Hussain also spoke about the Islamophobia that emerged after Sept. 11, 2001. Before, Muslims had been “a curiosity,” that few of his students knew much about. After Sept. 11, his students claimed to know a lot about Muslims – but all negative stereotypes, and no history. 

Connections to CIE, 91����Ƶ

Trina Trotter Nussbaum, associate director of the Center for Interfaith Engagement at 91����Ƶ, met Hussain at an American Academy of Religion conference in 2016.

“I was immediately taken by Amir’s ability to speak publicly about confronting Islamophobia while working across religious differences to build alliances, and I thought that we needed to hear from him here,” Nussbaum said. “Amir is both a skilled Muslim scholar and a plugged-in cultural critic and I really wanted the 91����Ƶ community to be able to hear from him.”

Hussain’s roots in the Mennonite world run deep – he first collaborated with Mennonite Central Committee in 1988, on a trip to Israel-Palestine. His wife, Shannon Hamm, who passed away in 1992, grew up in a small Mennonite community in Manitoba, Canada.

President Susan Schultz Huxman, whose academic expertise lies in the field of rhetoric and communication, attended the colloquium.

“Dr. Hussain is a seasoned scholar and theologian and as a cultural studies and film studies expert,” said Huxman. “This combination makes his expertise a perfect supplement for our integrated liberal arts curriculum at 91����Ƶ. More importantly, he is an expert communicator with engaging visuals who presents difficult and challenging topics in accessible and invitational forms.”

Hussain said after the colloquium that he was most excited about “the chance to engage with the students” while at 91����Ƶ. In fact, those experiences are the reason why he’s in academia.

“I remember knowing I wanted to have a hand in its creation during my time here,” said the junior major.

Little did she know, her editorial debut would be the journal’s 60th edition. The editing process for this spring’s journal was both harder—and easier—than she anticipated.

“Usually a poem or picture would ask to be included and we couldn’t say, ‘No,’” she said with a smile.

Since 1958, The Phoenix has showcased poetry, prose, photographs and illustrations from the 91����Ƶ community once a year. Now, the journal’s biannual release is accompanied by a new class that offers a credit hour for 40 hours of Phoenix work.

The editorial team also includes sophomore Allie Sawyer, an major and Writing Studies minor; junior Kate Weaver, an English and English education double major with minors in Spanish and Honors; and senior Lauren Eckenroad, a major.

The release party for this semester’s issue is Friday, April 21, at 8 p.m. in Common Grounds.

Submissions invited from all on campus

In February, Nolt and Sawyer send an appealing email to the entire campus: “Let the writer or photographer in you shine through, even if you’re up to your eyeballs in nursing clinicals, chemistry labs, dismantling capitalism, accounting spreadsheets, case studies, or restorative justice … It’s gonna be #lit.”

With guidance from faculty advisor , the team selected then submissions through discussion and debate – after delving into a lengthy reading list.

“The hardest part was trying to limit the number of Middle East poems, and then putting a bunch of them in anyway because they were great,” says Nolt.

Weaver and Nolt hope their readership forges an emotional connection to the selected pieces and the students who produced them.

Says Nolt, “I would love for someone to go up to Liesl Graber or Macson McGuigan or Azariah Cox and say, ‘Hey, I saw your work in the Phoenix! I’d love to hear the story behind it.’”

“I’ve loved reading the different poetry that my peers have created,” says Sawyer. “It gives me insight into who they are and what they appreciate in a way that a normal conversation can’t always do.”

Featured Contributors

Writers: Kaitlin Abrahams, Diego Barahona, Savannah Olshove, Caleb Schrock-Hurst, Amanda Williams, Liesl Graber, Luke Mullet, Megan Bishop, Justine Nolt, Naomi Scoville, Elizabeth Nisly, Megan Good.

Photographers: Scott Eyre, Robert Weaver, Macson McGuigan, Ariel Barbosa, Dylan Buchanan, Carissa Luginbill, Andrea Cable, Azariah Cox, Lauren Eckenroad, Julian Bussells, Esther Ghale.

Artists: Nicole Litwiller, Robyn Cordle, Joaquin Sosa, Rachel Holderman.

“We appreciate each and every person who submits pieces to us,” says Scoville, an and double major from Cuba, New York, with minors in and . “It takes a lot of courage to send your creations into the light of day.”

That light will shine on this year’s edition on April 19, when The Phoenix rolls out its 2016 issue at a release party in the Common Grounds Coffee House at 7 p.m. It continues a legacy of six decades for the publication, which first appeared in 1958.

Scoville hopes the journal will move to biannual publication starting in 2016-2017, with fall and spring issues. A new class will give students one semester hour of credit for 40 hours of work on the journal.

“Working with The Phoenix has been a learning process,” Scoville says. “Last year I came into the position of editor without any previous experience working on a literary arts journal. I had to learn on the job and learn quickly. It was challenging at times, but this year, I was able to take all of my knowledge from last year and put it toward making the publication process flow more smoothly and efficiently.”

The Phoenix advisor , an associate professor in the , says Scoville has brought many gifts to the position.

“Naomi brings a rare combination of tenacity and patience,” Seidel says. “She’s tenacious in reaching out to the people involved, emailing, doing what she needs to do to set submission and production deadlines, organizing the work, matching people to the tasks that need to be done—all that. But she’s also patient with people and patient when things don’t go exactly according to plan.

“There’s always more to be done to get The Phoenix to press than any one person can do,” he adds. “So the main editor has to be good at delegating and coordinating efforts among the staff. Naomi is good at both of those things.”

Seidel says many of the students who have worked on the journal in recent years have brought good ideas for additions and improvements, such as including music and video in an online version, making it multilingual, including some longer pieces and organizing issues around a timely theme. He hopes the shift to a larger staff working together for two full semesters may help some of the ideas become reality.

Those possibilities are exciting, Scoville says.

“I wanted to be part of something that celebrates creativity in all its forms,” she says. “We are constantly striving to improve the quality of The Phoenix, to make it better and more visible on campus, and it’s been fun to brainstorm ways of doing that.”

In addition to Scoville, members of this year’s Phoenix staff include Lauren Eckenroad, layout and design; Lauren Sauder, finance manager; Carissa Luginbill, visual editor; Bethannie Parks, literary editor; Kevin Treichel and Amber Davis, general staff.