91¶جتسئµâ€™s newly designed website was named a winner in two categories in the , announced Feb. 18-19. District III is comprised of nine states and more than 4,000 members.

91¶جتسئµâ€™s website received an “Award of Excellence” in overall website design and implementation while the home page received a “Special Merit Award,” in World Wide Web home page design and implementation.

“Over the years, 91¶جتسئµâ€™s website had evolved, as is often the case, into something of an organizational chart,â€‌ says , director of at 91¶جتسئµ. “This redesign was a total overhaul from the standpoint of the end user. Undergraduate recruitment is particularly driven by the web these days, and this design speaks to our target audience in fresh ways.â€‌

The website redesign represents collaborative work of , web content manager and strategist; , media specialist and graphic designer; , web designer and social media coordinator; and 91¶جتسئµ . , a local brand and marketing consultant, advised the process.

Other schools to receive awards in overall website design include Virginia Commonwealth University and Duke, while Virginia Alumni Association, Virginia Tech and the University of Richmond received accolades in home page design.

Awards are presented on an annual basis, recognizing advancements that contribute to growth and understanding in education.

CASE is the top international organization for communications professionals working in education.

Zucconi succeeds Jim Bishop, who served as public information officer at 91¶جتسئµ since 1971 and is retiring June 30.

In this role, Zucconi joins the nine-member marketing and communications department. He will generate content to tell the 91¶جتسئµ story through traditional and social media, cultivating relationships with public and church press contacts in the region and around the world.

“Mike’s passion for Mennonite higher education, understanding of 91¶جتسئµ, writing and media relations experience as well as recent studies in mass communications make him a good fit for this new role,” said Andrea Schrock Wenger, director of marketing and communications. “We welcome him back to 91¶جتسئµ.”

Zucconi graduated from 91¶جتسئµ in 2005 with a BS degree in communications and history. He worked as sports information director at 91¶جتسئµ from 2006 to 2009 and was named Old Dominion Athletic Conference “Sports Information Director of the Year” for 2007-08.

He completed an MEd degree in sports management at Wichita State University this spring and served as a graduate assistant in media relations for the WSU department of athletics.

Zucconi is married to Stephanie Roth, also a 2005 91¶جتسئµ graduate. She worked in the admissions office at Hesston College, a two-year Mennonite school in Hesston, Kan.

2010 91¶جتسئµ graduate Lindsey Grosh (Photo by Jim Bishop)

Lindsey J. Grosh, who graduated cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree in photography with minors in TESL and Spanish, is a regional winner in a nationwide contest, “Art for the Long Haul,” sponsored by Celadon Trucking Services.

She received a $500 prize for a design she submitted for the company’s 25th anniversary celebration.

Grosh got the pleasant news upon returning to her York, Pa., home following 91¶جتسئµ graduation ceremonies on May 2.

, headquartered in Indianapolis, Ind., ranks as one of North America’s largest truckload carriers with some 4,000 employees and operating roughly 3,300 tractors and 10,000 trailers.

Grosh’s winning entry, intended for display on the side of the company’s tractor trailers, was several photos of piglets from a black-and-white photography project on her family’s farm. She merged the photos into a panoramic design.

A portion of Lindsey Grosh’s winning design in the Celadon Trucking Services student art contest.

“I submitted my design in February, and hadn’t heard anything before school ended,” Grosh said. “I came home and opened a letter naming me as winner of the Northeast region of the U.S. I was quite surprised and pleased.

“I was really delighted with the photographs and got a lot of positive feedback [in class],” Grosh said.

“I think it’s neat that Celadon held this contest just for the sake of supporting the arts,” Grosh added. “The money came at a great time, as I am currently looking for work back home in Pennsylvania. I am hoping to use my photography skills, perhaps working in a studio or for a small company as their media/communication person.”

Internship provided real-world experience

Grosh interned in 91¶جتسئµ’s marketing and communications department throughout her senior year.

She’s credited with a number of photos used in marketing materials and on the university website’s many photo galleries of life on campus.

As a senior she was also one of three student video bloggers on the university website.

More info

• Visual and Communication Arts program
• Marketing and communications internships

]]> /now/news/2008/good-at-business-the-spring-2008-issue-of-crossroads/ Tue, 01 Apr 2008 04:00:00 +0000 http://www.emu.edu/blog/news/?p=1642 91¶جتسئµ alumni are key players in retail businesses, banks, insurance and accounting firms, hotels, restaurants, publishing houses, law offices, land development, and construction-related industries. See what alumni have accomplished!

91¶جتسئµ’s Crossroads magazine won a major award this year from the southeast district of the .

Competing against dozens of magazines produced by larger institutions, Crossroads received a “special merit award” in the category of “magazine publishing improvement.”

The other winners in this category were magazines produced in 2007 by Furman University in South Carolina, Vanderbilt University in Tennessee, the University of Alabama, the University of Miami, Brenau University in Georgia and Barry University in Florida.

The southeast CASE district consists of 565 universities, secondary schools and other institutions involved in higher education from Washington D.C. to Florida. The magazine awards ceremony will be held at the CASE annual regional conference in Atlanta, Ga., on Feb. 19.

Crossroads is published quarterly and distributed to 16,000 alumni, students, parents and friends of the university.

The award confirms informal feedback sent by alumni, such as this Jan. 20 2008 e-mail to the editor from Daniel Lehman, a 1972 graduate who is now professor of English at Ashland University in Ohio: “I have really enjoyed Crossroads in the past year. You are doing an outstanding job (as one journalist to another), and I love the way that 91¶جتسئµ is highlighting its distinctive mission as well as the peace and justice programs.”

Betsy Robertson, magazine editor at Auburn University in Alabama and one of the CASE contest organizers, said Crossroads emerged as a winner because “the judges were impressed with the change in editorial direction to focus on current issues and provocative topics rather than the usual mundane assortment of event snapshots, fundraising updates and ‘successful alumni’ profiles.”

Robertson added that the results were especially notable “for a small staff.”

In last year

Read more…

Sojourners is a faith-based organization in Washington, D.C., with a mission to “articulate the biblical call to social justice, inspiring hope and building a movement to transform individuals, communities, the church, and the world.”

The Emerging Leaders Track, for participants age 30 and under, seeks to train and empower young faith-inspired leaders to help lead the movement to overcome poverty. The event, to be held at the National City Christian Church in Washington, D.C., is expected to draw nearly 1,000 registrants.

A Monday evening forum on “Faith, Values and Poverty” will feature leading Democratic presidential contenders Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards at George Washington University.

CNN will provide live coverage of the event.

Making Connections

As sponsor of the Emerging Leaders Track, 91¶جتسئµ will have the opportunity to connect personally and through written materials with hundreds of people under age 30.

“Participants at this conference will be people who share 91¶جتسئµ’ s core values of following Christ’s call to ‘witness faithfully, serve compassionately and walk boldly in the way of nonviolence and peace,'”said Andrea Wenger, 91¶جتسئµ director of marketing and communications, quoting from the university’ s mission statement.

91¶جتسئµ leadership, including President Loren Swartzendruber, and staff will be present throughout the conference and anticipate participating in a reception for the candidates’ spouses.

91¶جتسئµ representatives also will be part of the program at a Tuesday evening Emerging Leaders Dinner, where Shane Claiborne of The Simple Way will be guest speaker. The Simple Way is a community of faith located in Philadelphia, Pa., committed “To love God, to love people and to follow Jesus,” according to their web site.

More information is available at www.sojourners.com

James Madison University is like the Costco of local colleges.

JMU touts more students, teachers, property, majors, programs and campus activities than 91¶جتسئµ, Bridgewater College and Blue Ridge Community College

The book, by the publishers of “Choosing the Right College,” is scheduled to hit the shelves of major bookstores across the United States this month.

“We did not initiate this,” said Andrea Schrock Wenger, director of at 91¶جتسئµ. “91¶جتسئµ

An 91¶جتسئµ graduating senior has received a prestigious recognition from the Kennedy Center/American College Theater Festival.

The annual festival was held Feb. 7-12 in northern Florida.

Davi R. Soesilo, a , and major from Malang, Indonesia, won the Kennedy Center Award in “sound design excellence” for Region IV, the first time an 91¶جتسئµ student has received the honor.

Region IV of the KC/ACTF incorporates 10 states, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.

“Fellow theater students who attended Davi’s defenses in scenic design and sound design felt he acquitted himself admirably, particularly in his impressive and comprehensive presentation of his winning sound design for ‘Fuddy Meers,'” said Patrick Reynolds, acting theater chair. The offbeat, contemporary comedy by David Lindsay-Abaire, was 91¶جتسئµ Theater’s fall mainstage production.

“Alhough he chose not to compete even though nominated in lighting design, it should be noted that over one fifth of the nation lies in our region and that Davi was the only designer nominated in three separate categories,” Reynolds said. “The responding judge – also the national design chair – cited Davi’s growth in the period following his second-place finish last year.

“Davi’s award reflects professor Jerry Holsopple’s classroom training and evocative compositions in addition to Phil Grayson’s mentoring and technical expertise as well,” Reynolds added.

Soesilo’s winning entry is automatically eligible for the national competition with the other ACTF regional winners to be held in April at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.

“It seems a bit like a dream to receive the award,” Soesilo said. “Two years earlier I was encouraged to enter this competition and it felt rather far-fetched at the time, especially considering that 91¶جتسئµ is not known for its student theater design.”

Soesilo was among 10 recipients of the annual “Cords of Distinction” award presented last spring. The 91¶جتسئµ students were cited for their “significant and verifiable impact” on the the university and on student life, for their contributions to developing the institution’s positive image, for substantial contributions to the Harrisonburg/Rockingham County area and beyond, for their high academic and social standing and their embodiment of 91¶جتسئµ’s shared values of Christian discipleship, community, service and peacebuilding.

As soon as he completes his final class at 91¶جتسئµ, Soesilo plans to return to his present home in Australia and work in theater for a year, then “see what graduate program in theater or communications is best for me.”

By Tom Mitchell, Daily News-Record

Loren Swartzendruber quickly points out that schools like once reflected an academic norm.

“Most colleges started out as Christian colleges,” Swartzendruber told his audience at Wednesday’s Downtown Prayer Luncheon at First Presbyterian Church.

New times and attitudes made higher education’s 91¶جتسئµs an exception, said Swartzendruber, 91¶جتسئµ’s president, and a considerably larger secular academic world poses obstacles to spiritually-based colleges.

91¶جتسئµ’s comparatively lower paid faculty, Swartzendruber says, swap higher salaries for a chance to teach in a more religiously free school.

“We are blessed with people committed to the values of 91¶جتسئµ,” said Swartzendruber.

Such values include a campus ban on alcohol and drugs and a healthy nudge toward church attendance, though 91¶جتسئµ does not enforce the latter practice, Swartzendruber said. Besides Sunday service, 91¶جتسئµ offers chapel worship twice a week

91¶جتسئµ, while hardly shedding its old denominational roots, has added new branches. With a charter governed by , 91¶جتسئµ’s enrollment of nearly 1,300 students shows more women than men – 61-39 percent respectively – a ratio of Mennonites and non-Mennonites that is virtually 50-50.

A more unbalanced quota, Swartzendruber says, is 91¶جتسئµ’s fiscal disadvantage in matching other schools’ operating budget. “We aren’t heavily endowed,” he said, citing 91¶جتسئµ’s endowment of $17 million from former graduates and other supporters.

Setting stricter behavior standards for students and staff allows schools like 91¶جتسئµ to be more selective. Both parties sign contracts binding them to 91¶جتسئµ’s standards of demeanor.

“We can discriminate in hiring,” Swartzendruber said, referring to his school’s employing of persons deemed compatible with 91¶جتسئµ’s personal standards. Such philosophies aren’t meant to demean other colleges’ hiring and admission policies, he said. “We’re just different from schools like JMU.”

91¶جتسئµ’s mantra of “nurture and discipline” meets mischief halfway.

“We don’t necessarily expel a student for something that another school might,” Swartzendruber said. “I accept the community’s high standards and expectations, but we’re human.”

Right Fit

91¶جتسئµ students Joel C. Lehman and Erica Kraybill, co-presidents in the university’s , took different paths to the Harrisonburg college, but found at 91¶جتسئµ an ingredient both felt they might have missed at other institutions: compatibility.

Lehman, a senior from Lancaster, Pa., who is studying , found 91¶جتسئµ to be something close to a second home.

“Two things drew me to 91¶جتسئµ,” Lehman said. “First, the fact that it is a small liberal arts college that’s religious. Secondly, I grew up in a church family and wanted to attend school where I could talk about my faith. ”

Lehman said that 91¶جتسئµ’s conservative climate and comparatively low profile don’t faze him. “I knew if I chose to come to 91¶جتسئµ, I wouldn’t be challenged as much by other religions. 91¶جتسئµ doesn’t have as large a reputation as schools like UVa or places like that, but people are very intrigued and impressed by it. Even though it doesn’t carry the same prestige, it doesn’t mean that the education is not at the same level.”

91¶جتسئµ caught Kraybill, 23, on the rebound. Kraybill, a major from Columbus, Ohio, transferred in last year after two years at Guilford (N.C.) College. Guilford, Kraybill said, “wasn’t the right fit,” for her.

“I took a year off after I left Guilford and visited 91¶جتسئµ but I didn’t expect to end up here,” said Kraybill, whose parents graduated from 91¶جتسئµ. “What attracted me to 91¶جتسئµ was its really strong academic program. What kept me here, in addition to the academics, was its Christian focus.”

Another draw for Kraybill was 91¶جتسئµ’s campus chemistry.

“I really felt people at 91¶جتسئµ were connected with each other and had strong sense of common mission in terms of their goals in life, that people here know who they are and what they stand for.”

91¶جتسئµ’s Mennonite foundation welcomes diversity, said Kraybill, who eyed Ohio State but balked at a vision of life at a larger school. “91¶جتسئµ is very spiritually minded and very Christian centered, but it’s not exclusive and its focus is on reaching out to the community and wider world of people in need.”

When they graduate next spring, Lehman and Kraybill may perform public service abroad. Kraybill attributes her interest in such global work to attending college on a campus that encourages such callings.

Said Kraybill: “91¶جتسئµ’s focus on mission comes through.”

Pleasant Valley

Carissa Sweigart, 25, a senior from Hesston, Kan., transferred to 91¶جتسئµ last year from Hesston (Kans.) College, a small 2-year liberal arts school, to study . While knowing Swartzendruber, who served as Hesston’s president before coming to 91¶جتسئµ two years ago, eased Sweigart’s transition, 91¶جتسئµ’s place in the Shenandoah Valley’s cultural and geographical mix drew her to the Harrisonburg school.

“”I looked into a lot of different public [colleges], including some in my own state,” said Sweigart,. “I like the diversity and the idea of knowing the professors and most of the other students. The area here attracted me, too.” Sweigart added that coming to 91¶جتسئµ “gave me a place where I could be part of a community.”

Contact Tom Mitchell at 574-6275 or mitchell@dnronline.com

The 91¶جتسئµ department will present an award-winning contemporary comedy, "Fuddy Meers," in the mainstage theater of the University Commons.

The two-act play, by David Lindsay-Abaire, will run Nov. 10-12 and Nov. 16-18. Curtain time is 7:30 p.m.

Claire (Rachel Swartzendruber) has a rare form of amnesia that erases her memory whenever she goes to sleep. This morning, like all mornings, she wakes up a blank slate. Today, however, she finds herself confronted with a strange assortment of new faces: a limping, lisping, half-blind, half-deaf man in a ski mask; an upbeat husband who goes into the shower and never returns; a dimwitted thug with a beloved hand puppet; and a claustrophobic lady-cop.

Every twist and turn in this funhouse plot bring Claire closer to revealing her past life and everything she thought she’d forgotten. It’s one harrowing and hilarious turn after another on this roller-coaster ride through one woman’s attempt to regain her memory while surrounded by a curio-cabinet of alarmingly bizarre characters.

, visiting assistant professor of theater, is directing the seven-member cast. The play features original music by Jerry Holsopple, professor of , and lighting, scenic and sound designs by award-winning student designer Davi Soesilo. Some language and subject matter are intended for mature audiences.

Tickets are available in advance by calling the 91¶جتسئµ box office, 540-432-4582, and will also be on sale at the door.

For more, read the latest edition of .

Myron Blosser

Myron E. Blosser

Myron E. Blosser, a 1983 91¶جتسئµ graduate and veteran educator from Harrisonburg, received 91¶جتسئµ’s 2005 "alumnus of the year" award during the Sunday, Oct. 16, worship service of homecoming and family weekend.

The award is presented annually to a graduate who has been recognized for significant recent achievements in their profession, community or church. Melodie M. Davis, a 1975 91¶جتسئµ graduate who has a 30-year tenure as a writer/producer with Mennonite Media in Harrisonburg, received the "distinguished service award," also during the homecoming service.

The annual "distinguished service" award seeks to recognize graduates who have demonstrated in notable ways the Christian service and peacemaking emphases of the university.

Following graduation, Blosser taught at Strasburg (VA) High School for three years before taking a position teaching biology at Harrisonburg High School.

He has received wide recognition over the years for his efforts to instill students with a love of science by taking them beyond the classroom walls.

Blosser led a group of Harrisonburg High School students across the country in 1998 to study environmental science for several weeks. He took another group on a similar trip two years later.

In 2001, he left Harrisonburg High and joined the faculty at Eastern Mennonite High School with the retirement of long-time biology teacher David A. Mumaw, who Blosser said "made me want to be a teacher in the first place."

In 2003, he and two other EMHS teachers in several disciplines led 22 students to the Pacific Ocean, following the trail of Lewis and Clark in the year of the 200th anniversary of the explorers’ voyage of discovery.

This summer, Blosser and another 22 EMHS students followed the Colorado River by bus and raft from its source all the way to Yuma, Mexico, where it enters Mexico. The group analyzed the river’s water along the way and its effects on local farms and a major city, Las Vegas.

Blosser has received numerous recognitions for his teaching, including "biology teacher of the year" in 1993 from the Virginia Association of Biology Teachers, in 1994 from the American Association of University Women and in 1998 from the National Association of Biology Teachers. He was one of 20 teachers nationwide named to the 1999 USA Today Teacher First team and was a member of the state education committee that wrote Virginia’s science Standards of Learning.

The Harrisonburg native is married to Rhonda Graber Blosser, a 1986 91¶جتسئµ graduate. Their children are Kurtis, Kelsey and Bryce, all students at Eastern Mennonite School.

Melodie Davis

Melodie M. Davis

Davis, an English major at 91¶جتسئµ, took a position with the former Mennonite Broadcasts, Inc. (now Mennonite Media), one month after graduation and has been with the agency since then.

Today, as writer/producer for Mennonite Media, she works with radio spots, writes a syndicated column, "Another Way," and does editing for the organization’s "Third Way Cafe" () web site. The radio spots are carried on some 300 stations across the country; her column appears in 10 newpapers in North America, including the Harrisonburg Daily News-Record.

Davis also works on documentaries on difficult life issues that have aired on network and cable television.

Davis’ radio spots and other work have received awards from the church and secular media. Her "Parenting on the Edge" radio spots were recognized in the 2003 Gracie Allen Awards.

She has written eight non-fiction books and also works part time as editor of the inspirational newsprint tabloids, "Together" and "Living," published by the Shalom Foundation.

The Goshen, Ind., native is married to Rockingham County native Stuart Davis. The couple has three adult daughters – Michelle, Tanya and Doreen.