“My students and I were very involved in the public awareness campaign about the Cow Knob Salamander,” said photography professor , who chairs the Department of Visual and Communication Arts at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ. “This campaign was spearheaded by a constellation of dedicated conservation nonprofits and advocacy groups in the region.”

Partners who worked most closely with Johnson’s classes included , , and the .

The salamander photos emerged from a class in conservation photography launched by Johnson several years ago. He sought to encourage students to “think about broader ecosystems, the environment, human culture and how they relate to the natural world, as well as about helping to protect nature.”

Johnson’s own has also received attention. [To see more photos and learn more about Johnson, visit his .]

Proposed pipeline to cross wild regions

In the fall of 2014 and 2015, Johnson’s class took photos of the George Washington National Forest and nearby areas. The images were utilized to support a half-dozen citizens’ groups opposed to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, a proposal backed by four large utility companies. In a new pipeline more than 500 miles long, the natural gas would traverse the George Washington National Forest and Monongahela National Forest, in addition to other public and private properties in mostly rural areas of Virginia and West Virginia.

“The proposed pipeline will cross the central Allegheny Highlands, the Blue Ridge Mountains, and the adjacent valleys. It will cut through 30 miles of national forest and cross numerous rivers, streams, and wetlands,” says the of Dominion Pipeline Monitoring Coalition, for which senior Jonathan Bush did aerial photographic surveying. “This area represents the heart of the remaining wild landscape in the eastern United States, and it is a major biodiversity refugium that can only increase in rarity and importance.”

By the coalition’s description, “the proposed pipeline will be 42 inches in diameter, requiring excavation of an 8- to 12-foot-deep trench and the bulldozing of a 125-foot-wide construction corridor straight up and down multiple steep-sided forested mountains.

“It will require construction of heavy-duty transport roads and staging areas for large earth-moving equipment and pipeline assembly. It will require blasting through bedrock, and excavation through streams and wetlands. It will require construction across unstable and hydrologically sensitive karst terrain.

“Pipeline construction on this scale, across this type of steep, well-watered, forested mountain landscape, is unprecedented,” concludes the coalition on its website.

Photographing wildlife and landscapes

Johnson and his students did not limit themselves to documenting the rare Cow Knob Salamanders, which live in the path of the proposed pipeline on and near Shenandoah Mountain. They also photographed pristine streams, verdant farmland, and breathtaking views that would be lost with pipeline construction and maintenance.

Their salamander photos, however, were the ones that seemed to have the most impact, given that they were published widely by the news media and on civic action websites across Virginia. The potential negative impact on these salamanders and the Cheat Mountain Salamanders, plus on West Virginia northern flying squirrels and ecosystem restoration areas, was cited in the Jan. 19 letter from U.S. Forest Service administrators to the Atlantic Coast Pipeline, LLC.

The commission is deliberating whether to approve proposals to construct several pipelines for moving Marcellus shale gas from western West Virginia to Virginia and the southeast. These pipelines would be the largest ever built in this region, and all routes proposed thus far would impinge on national forest land.

The Forest Service letter referred to natural resources of “irreplaceable character” on Shenandoah Mountain, Cheat Mountain and Back Allegheny Mountain that would need to be circumvented by any pipelines.

Students contributed to publicity efforts

“I’m very proud of the student involvement in this work – surveying, hiking, mapmaking, land and aerial photographing, and writing,” said Johnson. “It’s impossible to know exactly how much the public campaign played in the final Forest Service decision, but I have to believe the amount of publicity surrounding this little amphibian helped provide political support for this move.”

Lynn Cameron, vice president of the Virginia Wilderness Committee and past president of the Virginia Wilderness Committee, has been with the latter group since it began 10 years ago. Cameron calls the partnership between her group and Johnson’s class “mutually beneficial.” Johnson serves with Cameron on the board of the Virginia Wilderness Committee.

“Being able to show the beauty and biodiversity of the area, along with its water and recreational resources, through the images provided by 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s students really helps our efforts,” she says.

The George Washington-Jefferson National Forest receives more than 2 million visits annually, most often for hiking, fishing and picnicking, by Forest Service estimates. Access to this forest is as close as 10 miles (20 minutes by car) west of 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s campus.

All nine students in the fall 2014 Conservation Photography took class field trips that involved photographing landscapes and biodiversity along the proposed pipeline route: Jonathan Bush, Malika Davis, Londen Wheeler, Emma King, Ryan Keiner, Chris Lehman, Meghan Good, Amber Davis and Jonathan Drescher-Lehman. These students also divided into three small groups, two of which worked specifically on the pipeline (their images can be seen here: ).

Cameron recalls that Wheeler was the first to see and photograph the Cow Knob Salamander. Then Bush, Davis and King returned to the area and found some of these salamanders on their own. “I was with them and remember being amazed that they could actually find rare salamanders on a field trip in mid-October, which is at the end of their active season,” said Cameron. “Normally, these salamanders can be found on warm, damp nights. The students found them at mid-day during a dry spell. It was just unbelievable.”

Collectively, the students emerged with some remarkable images which have been used in by and the , among others.

In the fall 2015 Conservation Photo class, four students focused on the pipeline project, but their photos centered on farmland and private property: Curtis Handy, Rachel Schrock, Azariah Cox, and Macson McGuigan. McGuigan also worked on a with his GIS class to make maps related to threatened species in the pipeline route area.

Quoting author and psychiatrist M. Scott Peck , Swartzendruber said once we accept that life is difficult, then we can transcend that fact and move forward.

Swartzendruber—who is retiring June 30—drew from the biblical story of Esther, a young Jewish woman who became queen of Persia and was called upon to save her people. Her cousin Mordecai addressed her hesitation by saying perhaps she had been called to her royal position “for just such a time as this.”

“We also live in difficult times,” Swartzendruber said, “more for some than others.” While it is tempting to “hunker down” and “shield ourselves” from challenges, he said, we are called to something more.

He continued: “In place of fear and anxiety, I invite us to proclaim a message of hope, to push back against the dark forces of negativity and divisiveness. I invite each of us to step up for such a time as this. This is our opportunity, in this time and place, on this campus and beyond, to reach out to each other with love, compassion and empathy.”

Earlier, provost welcomed more than 50 new students, faculty and staff to 91¶ĚĘÓƵ’s “very special learning community.” While this might not quite be “heaven on earth,” Kniss said, “what makes us different is what holds us together. We are a community bound by love.”

Some members of that community received a special sendoff later, as headed to Guatemala/Cuba and the Middle East were blessed and surrounded by prayer. , director of cross-cultural programs, said they were embarking on a “journey of transformation.”

In a broader sense, all of 91¶ĚĘÓƵ may be embarking on such a journey. Kniss observed that 2016 would be a “time of significant change for 91¶ĚĘÓƵ,” headlined by the upcoming presidential transition.

welcomed students, faculty, staff and guests with a summary of the summer’s events on the national, denominational and local levels, situating these events as sources of fear, unrest and anxiety, as well as of grace and hope.

“Our aspiration is to be a university community that embodies these signs of hope, nurtures their development, and provides an alternative to the fear, ignorance and violence that drives so much of human society,” he said. “We aspire to be an engaged community of learning that is bound together by love – the love of learning, the love for God as revealed in Jesus Christ, and a love for each other.”

President , who will after 13 years at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ, gave his final convocation speech, sharing his dreams for the future: “These are the dreams I have for you and my grandchildren: to serve as co-creators with God for a more sustainable world in which all God’s people can flourish, to be sustained by a faith that is grounded in hope not fear, and to be energized by an insatiable thirst for discovery and knowledge, not for ourselves but for the good of the world.”

He pointed to tangible actualizations of sustainability on the campus itself that he could already share with his

grandchildren: the recently revived by the student-run Sustainable Food Initiative, a new set to begin this fall, and the .

And in speaking to all in the community who mentor and support each other, Swartzendruber observed that too often Christians fall into argument or dissent, and are not exemplars of Jesus’ commandments: “love God with heart, soul, mind and strength, and our neighbors as ourselves.”

In a fitting intergenerational tribute, Swartzendruber was introduced by Student Government Association co-presidents Hanna Heishman and Rachel Schrock, and then promptly turned to introductions of honored guests and members of the 91¶ĚĘÓƵ community.

Those present included former presidents and ; and , former interim president, as well as Shirley Showalter, former president of Goshen College, and Laban Peachey, former president of Hesston College who was also a professor and dean at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ.

The event concluded with a sending of the China cross-cultural group and the traditional “Shenandoah Welcome,” during which the campus community forms two rows and new students walk between the clapping crowd to the sounds of traditional bluegrass music.

The students are rising junior Jeremiah Knott and rising seniors Daniel Barnhart, Rachel Schrock and Wes Wilder.

“I’m excited about the unique gifts and talents of each MIP student, and about the opportunities for experiential learning they will encounter,” said , MIP director and instructor of at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ. “Ministry gifts and skills are best tested and learned within the context of real life, not simply in a classroom. MIP provides a safe way for students to explore their interest in ministry.”

More than 300 students have participated in the MIP program, a partnership that includes the student’s respective Mennonite college, the student’s home congregation, the student’s home and host area conferences, the congregation where the student is in ministry, and Denominational Ministry.

At the end of the program, each student receives a scholarship of up to $2,000 toward tuition costs at a Mennonite college or seminary for the next academic year, along with a $500 stipend for living expenses from the host congregation.

A student’s placement depends on “his or her own interests in size and type of congregation, the availability of a congregation and pastoral mentor, and a fit between the intern and the host congregation,” said Schrock-Hurst.

Taking action on their calling           

This summer’s MIP participants include three students enrolled in religious studies at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ.

Daniel Barnhart, from Grottoes, Virginia, is a congregation and youth ministries major who will serve with his home congregation of in McGaheysville. He has been interning this last semester with , a United Methodist faith community in Harrisonburg.

Barnhart says he is participating in MIP “for the simple reason that I feel this is a call from God, but like any of us, I am tempted by the outside world,” he said, adding that this summer will “help me determine if I want to be a pastor.”

He looks forward to returning to his home church with the new intellectual skills and knowledge he’s acquired at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ, he said, and with a new interest in liberal and conservative biblical views.

Wesley Wilder, of Hesston, Kansas, is a double major in psychology and Bible and religion. The firsthand experience he’ll gain at in South Hutchinson, Kansas, will help him discern his path, he says. Wilder knows he’ll be working primarily with youth, joining them for the trip to the Mennonite Church USA convention in Kansas City, Missouri.

“I look forward to preaching a sermon and jumping into whatever the congregation asks of me,” he said. “I am most looking forward to finding my own niche in ministry and learning more about what I have to offer the church.”

His home congregation is in Hesston.

Jeremiah Knott, of Elkton, Virginia, will serve at his home congregation, , as well as the church he was raised in, Bethel United Church of Christ. For many years a professional musician, Knott plays guitar, sings and writes songs on the Faith Alive worship team.

A Bible and religion major who plans on going into the ministry and pursuing graduate studies, Knott says the MIP opportunity appeared while he was waiting to visit a professor during office hours.

“I saw the flier [for MIP] and I had a hunch and I listened to my hunch,” he said. “I’ve always known since I was about 13 that I was supposed to go into ministry, so I’ve had a calling, but now I’m taking action on a calling.”

Fresh lens in a spiritual setting

Rising senior Rachel Schrock, an art major, says her interest in MIP came from a “Divine moment,” while speaking during a winter break church service about her cross-cultural experience.

“It felt electrifyingly right,” Schrock said, adding that the decision to explore ministry was encouraged by her family and close friend Hanna Heishman, who participated in MIP last summer.

Schrock will head to her home state of Iowa, dividing her time between in Washington and her home congregation of of Iowa City.

“It will be a new experience for me – entering a community that I am already familiar, with a fresh lens,” she says. “I want to see the ins and outs of leadership within a spiritual setting.”

Schrock looks forward to mentorship from two female leaders she already knows well, the spiritual director at the camp and the pastor of her home church. She’ll spend her summer organizing a children’s peace camp, working in the office, giving a few sermons, and making visits to people in hospitals, retirement homes and home care.

York, a junior at 91¶ĚĘÓƵ, was making her for 12 hours in solidarity with local college students and others in more than 40 states and 10 countries to raise awareness of human trafficking. The Stand, which happens from April 6-10, is an outreach of the non-profit .

York, who grew up in Bucharest, Romania, is a reluctant leader who would prefer to remain out of the spotlight, but she wants to make advocacy for victims of human trafficking her life’s work.

Changed by the stories

The stories she heard during a summer internship at a shelter for sexually trafficked women in Romania have burrowed into her heart and psyche.

“I got to know them really well and fell in love with them – that really changes you,” she says.

When she returned to campus in the fall of 2014, raising awareness among her fellow students became a priority.

“I’m out here for the seven girls I live, ate and breathed with for two months,” York says. “The Stand for me is all about them and the other women, men and children who are trapped and coerced into slavery.”

In working to stage the Stand event, York says she is called by her faith and the knowledge, drawn from personal experience, that the survivors sometimes need someone to tell their story, because they themselves can’t.

One touching story she heard from 13-year-old “Ana,” who was living in a state-run orphanage when she heard the rumors. “The director has one thing in mind for the girls here,” the older girls told her. “Prostitution.”

Frightened, Ana ran away with the help of some of the other girls. She was able to find her grandparents and ended up at , the shelter where York worked.

York’s internship concluded with a job offer that she wanted to accept. However, her parents encouraged her to finish her degree. She compromised by saying she would graduate a semester early, in the fall of 2015, and then return to the shelter.

“I would love to eventually work with the justice system in Romania,” she says. “I want the police to implement justice for the poor and not against them. The current system is keeping people in the cycle of poverty in which they feel forced to sell their bodies for money because they feel like they don’t have a choice.”

Staying connected through activism

In the meantime, back in Harrisonburg, she searched for another internship, which is how she learned about International Justice Mission and Stand for Freedom.

“I thought that it would be really cool to be a part of, but I had a lot of doubts in my ability to pull it off,” she says.

York’s experiences in that shelter and her passion for serving justice were compelling to listeners, though. On a recent that she led with junior Hanna Heishman, she gained six more allies, including Heishman: Rachel Schrock, Jessamyn Tobin, Abby Hershberger, Amy Feeser, and Jolee Paden.

“I felt drawn into Stand because of the passion Rebekah has for her work,” Heishman says. “She shared with me her vision for humanity during our Y-trip: a life without the reality of trafficking. This is something she cares so deeply for, and it is where she will devote her life.”

Together the group grew the conversation from a Facebook message, to a living room meeting, lunch room conversations and finally to connecting with the James Madison University Stand group.

That JMU group heard York’s story and decided to partner their Stand with 91¶ĚĘÓƵ to have a united event in a centralized location. A contingent of Dukes came to Thomas Plaza for the Tuesday Stand.

JMU students with the , a faith-based group raising awareness about the human trafficking issue, also came to campus Thursday to share their work.

A vigil tonight [March 10] at Court Square will again unite students with the Harrisonburg community, which has recently seen a rise in human and labor trafficking charges. In January, Virginia’s House of Representatives passed four bills to combat human trafficking and sex trafficking, which the FBI calls the fastest growing crime in the United States and the third-largest criminal enterprise in the world.

‘In your backyard’

York planned the week-long event to include a huge dose of education about modern slavery, which has the potential to affect the nearly 4 billion people living in poverty in countries with dysfunctional or corrupt public justice systems, according to the United Nations.

After all, she herself had grown up in a country with a long and traumatic history of sex slavery, and she knew nothing about it until a few months after graduating from high school.

That’s when she saw a documentary that was also aired on campus Monday night.

“Let’s know what we’re standing for, before we make a statement,” York wrote in her campus-wide email advertising that showing.

With more than 200 signatures gathered on two petitions during Tuesday’s event, York is optimistic about the Stand’s impact.

“All I wanted to do was raise awareness about human trafficking and let people know that this is happening in your own backyard,” York says. “Being able to share that with someone is what I am called for.”

In the center of Thomas Plaza, burning candles were placed on a pile of ice. A nearby sign proclaimed the vigil’s theme: “Melt ICE,” a reference to the unrelenting, and some would say, disturbing policies of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement that have recently separated Villatoro from his family.

A Honduran native who has lived without citizenship in the United States since the early 1990s, Villatoro was detained on March 3 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and deported last week [March 27].

Despite a past criminal record of two misdemeanor charges, supporters say Villatoro had changed his life, becoming a Christian and devoting himself to his family and his congregation. According to supporters, he would be an appropriate candidate for the reprieve offered by President Barack Obama’s deportation policy if an immigrant does not jeopardize national security or public safety.

‘Pastor Max’ known among 91¶ĚĘÓƵ students

Two student organizers of the vigil, senior Aliese Gingerich and junior Rachel Schrock, are among many in the 91¶ĚĘÓƵ community who have a strong connection to Villatoro. He is a co-pastor, with his wife, Gloria, of Iglesia Menonita Torre Fuerte, a small Hispanic congregation based at in Iowa City, Iowa. Gingerich and Schrock attend First Mennonite Church.

Villatoro “was someone who cared about the space and the people in it,” said Schrock. “He would ask you how you’re doing, and he would really listen. He cared about people, and he was a strong presence in the church.”

Gingerich, who spent this last summer working with Villatoro, mentioned the anxiety she felt for him during that time. Villatoro made no secret of his lack of citizenship, even in which he recounted his story of moving to the United States for a better life, meeting his wife, and starting a family. He and Gloria have four children, all U.S. citizens. Gloria, who is from Mexico, is living legally in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, according to the Iowa City Press-Citizen.

Schrock’s fear was realized when she was on a in Georgia, learning about issues that immigrants face in the United States. Ironically, she, along with sophomore Diego Barahona, were visiting a detention center when they learned the news.

Barahona, also a Honduran native, spoke at the vigil in English, with his remarks translated into Spanish. He expressed appreciation for the Mennonite community and their strong support of Villatoro.

Several protests and vigils have taken place over the past several weeks. Congregations in the Central Plains Mennonite Conference – the conference in which Villatoro’s church belongs – have actively showed their support for Villatoro and his family. The conference collected more than 40,000 signatures, including 8,000 from clergy members, from around the United States. Those documents were delivered to the ICE office in Omaha, Nebraska, just one week after Villatoro’s detention. The conference has also started a .

Immigration and Customs Enforcement determined the grounds for Villatoro’s deportation by citing his criminal record – a drunk-driving conviction in 1998 and record tampering, after purchasing a Social Security number in order to get a driver’s license, in 1999. Villatoro has since had a clean record and according to media sources, was unsuccessful in appealing a past deportation order.

Common ground with vigil supporters

In his speech, Barahona also addressed the plight of child immigrants, recalling his arrival in the United States at age 4 and a childhood visit to Walt Disney World, seemingly a paradise at the time.

“In contrast,” Barahona told the assembled crowd, “tens of thousands of child immigrants were not received by a magical kingdom. They were received by a kingdom that supposedly stands for the liberty of the oppressed, but hesitates to take in the youngest victims of the conflict they help create.”

Hannah Mack-Boll, a junior, who works at in Harrisonburg, said she appreciated the “poignance” of Barahona’s speech. She hears many stories similar to Villatoro’s, and remarked on how helpful it is that “we can now gather together to understand the importance of Villatoro’s story in the context of a broader issue.”

“It was encouraging to see such a strong turnout of students, faculty and staff to express our solidarity with Pastor Max and others who have been separated from their families,” said 91¶ĚĘÓƵ president Loren Swartzendruber, one of at least two university administrators to attend the vigil. “The stories shared by several immigrants were important for all of us to hear.”

Getting the word out about that story and rallying support has been one of Gingerich’s recent concerns. She spent two days before the vigil passing out 380 Spanish-language flyers to local organizations, businesses, clinics, grocery stores, and even taco trucks. She wanted to the community to be involved, and to provide a space for healing and reflection.

“Max’s story is a platform for all the other stories like his that don’t get coverage,” Schrock said.

It will be extremely difficult and complicated for Villatoro to regain entry to the United States, according to his attorney.