I am constantly asked, why theater? Why not film? Why choose such an impractical major? Do you ever want to be employed?

Why theater at such a small school? Of all the places to study theater, why 91����Ƶ?

While I used to be annoyed by these questions because of my own doubts, I now enjoy answering these questions with confidence.

Theater may not seem practical in the sense that I will leave college and enter directly into a money-making field with a defined career path, but I am absolutely certain that theater has gifted me many more practical and applicable life and career skills than many of my peers.

Simply having a theater education provides many useful, practical and empowering skills.

An answer I often provide to the question of why such an impractical major, I list the many skills I have thanks to my impractical major: budgeting, time management, problem solving under pressure, creative problem solving, the ability to carry out a large project start to finish, collaboration, creating a friendly and professional work environment with a diverse array of personalities, and the ability to clearly and effectively communicate.

These are skills not limited to the theater, but skills applicable and necessary for any career.

Furthermore, I am assured theater has given me the tools to empower, educate and create positive change and that is why I chose 91����Ƶ Theater.

Many people are shocked when I tell them I am not looking for a career on Broadway, but want to use theater to create good in the world.

To this I often hear, “How can such an impractical thing make a difference in the world?”

Her experience reflects the new ways and new places that education takes place these days for 91����Ƶ students, including , , grant-funded research and practicums, and being part of a cohort at a site to which 91����Ƶ faculty come for classes.

Enns, from Winnipeg, Canada, lived in the nation’s capital at . While taking two courses at the center, she worked at , an interfaith coalition that seeks to end anti-Muslim sentiment in the U.S. As an intern with the organization, she used her experience as co-editor of , 91����Ƶ’s student newspaper, to produce a bi-weekly newsletter, compile fact sheets, and otherwise pitch in on the group’s various initiatives.

An internship through 91����Ƶ’s Washington center is more than just a taste of real-world work and an opportunity to develop contacts, ideas, and credentials for life after college. It’s also a launching point for deeper examination of the relationship between faith, values, and career.

“How do we as Mennonites engage the state, and how much do we build our alternative systems?” asked Enns, whose great-grandparents were part of the mass migration of Mennonites from Russia to North America during the turbulent years after the Bolshevik Revolution.

What relationship, exactly, should a person of faith hold toward advocacy in a secular environment, she wonders. Doesn’t faith like hers, one that prescribes action on behalf of “the least among us,” require this sort of entanglement with the wider world? But does this very entanglement with the wider world undermine the foundations of her faith?

Enns doesn’t have answers to her questions yet, but she knows she would like to continue doing faith-based advocacy after she graduates this spring. In fact, her plans at this point are to join .

During her four-year career at 91����Ƶ, Enns took advantage of other non-traditional ways of learning.

Soon after she arrived on campus as a first-year student, she took an optional field trip with her Restorative Justice and Trauma class to a penitentiary, where she participated in three days of a Quaker-developed “Alternatives to Violence Program” with inmates.

In her sophomore year, Enns satisfied 91����Ƶ’s cross-cultural requirement by creating her own semester-long study experience in the African nation of Chad, where her parents were serving with .

For 10 weeks between her junior and senior years, Enns was part of a offered at 91����Ƶ that gives college students a chance to be an intern, mentored by a pastor, in a congregational  setting. Her assignment was at .

91����Ƶ offers a variety of other new ways and places for students to pursue their education.

More and more graduate students are taking their courses online, usually studying from their homes. The was the first unit at 91����Ƶ to offer distance learning, and now most of 91����Ƶ’s also offer courses online.

Nurses who are studying for a master’s degree in nursing leadership and management don’t have to come to campus very often (or to .).  The program is designed for working nurses who need to maintain family commitments and remain on the job. Jeanette Nisly ’96, for example, is and raising two children with her Guatemalan husband.

Sometimes the students are surprised to see that online learning actually offers more interaction with class members and professors than a traditional classroom. A faculty advisor provides ongoing support for students and helps with logistics, technology questions, and other issues. Students also receive support from staff, graduate writing tutors, and library staff.

Other non-traditional learning opportunities at 91����Ƶ:

• , which offers a mix of study through the annual Summer Peacebuilding Institute at 91����Ƶ and experiences in the students’ home countries. The first group, in 2012, included 12 women from Africa and the South Pacific. They were selected from more than 100 applications. Funds for the program are provided by USAID and the German development organization, EED/Bread for the World.

• . The latest example, announced in February, is a $20,000 grant from the United Service Foundation that will send eight undergraduates to foreign locations (Colombia and Iran in 2013), supervised by an 91����Ƶ-linked mentor. The grants are for peacebuilding and development majors, who are required to complete off-campus practicums.

• . Many of the students enrolled in 91����Ƶ’s programs run from Lancaster, Pa., don’t actually go to classes at the center’s facility in a business park. Students in the pastoral studies program, for example, attend classes this spring at Lancaster Mennonite Conference offices or sites in Philadelphia, Hatfield, and Morgantown. The three-year program, called , is for new pastors or prospective pastors.

• Taking trauma courses all over the world. In the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, established a program to help community leaders deal with the trauma of disasters and conflict. Called , the program has trained more than 7,000 people worldwide. The training seminars take place at 91����Ƶ, across the United States, and all over the world in places like Lebanon, Haiti, and Mexico.

On March 13, 2013, the 91����Ƶ president’s cabinet approved the conflict-free resolution presented by Eastern Mennonite’s Conflict-Free Campus Initiative. The resolution states that the university “will support companies that use conflict-free minerals, specifically in the area of hardware-technology purchasing and consumption.”

Conflict minerals include: gold, tin, tungsten and tantalum. These minerals come from areas of violence and conflict, specifically the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). These minerals are used in cell phones and laptop computers and can finance multiple armed groups, many of whom use violent and inhumane methods to capture areas rich in minerals, possibly facilitating more conflict.

91����Ƶ is the first Mennonite higher-education institution to sign the initiative. Other participating schools include Stanford, Duke, Emory and the University of Pennsylvania.

The Conflict-Free Campus Initiative on campus was founded by Josh Kanagy, a senior psychology major from Timberville, Va., and Julia Schmidt, a senior history major from Pandora, Ohio, in the spring of 2012.

“I would love to see this movement continue to spread and ultimately see an end to the war in the Congo,” said Schmidt in an interview with The Weathervane, 91����Ƶ’s student-run newspaper.

Original story courtesy Chris Yoder, staff writer for The Weathervane.

Hello. My name is Lani, and I am a writing major. No need to be alarmed. I am just like you, only one day I’ll graduate with a major so superior, interviews will be held in banquet halls around tables laden with nectar and ambrosia, and all job offers will be inscribed on gold flecked parchment.

Do not believe me? Stop and think of how important writing is in our daily lives. We write papers and essays. We write labs and reports. We write notes, letters, and e-mails creating excuses as to why we missed class on Monday at 8 a.m. Professors write lectures and assignments, and we respond to them with notes and reading-responses.

Besides speech, smoke signals, and body language, like the indications the awkward sophomore in your life wellness class wants to be more than project partners, writing is a huge part in how we communicate with one another. One spelling mistake signals “jbdkds,” or juvenile skill, and longer flowing language points to one having a vast knowledge of the English language, hence creating the manifestation of an intellectual.

Being a writing major means I get to take truly enjoyable classes, such as Creative Writing and Poetry, as well as classes with more broad subjects, such as News and Feature, which covers a span of professional writing styles, not just journalism.

Being one the first to pick up the major, I had not a single moment of doubt. What job does not need a writer in its office, company, or space station? Writing majors can find employment in advertising, business, and counseling; and those are just the beginning of the alphabet of opportunities. There is teaching, the sciences, law, and just about every establishment could use a trustworthy editor for all its publishing needs.

Still not sold? Consider this: the writing major can fit in with any other major you might wish to pair it with. With only 36 credit hours, the major was designed to be an adorable younger sibling of your larger major, rather than an obnoxious older sibling fighting for attention and credit time. If you’re an English major, you will have already noticed how simple it is to pick up the Writing major, as quite a number of the classes correlate and weave together effortlessly.

Writing majors can do internships that can easily be organized in conjunction with a communications degree, such as work on 91����Ƶ’s literary magazine, the Phoenix, the Shen yearbook, or the Weather Vane, one of the finest news establishments this side of the woods. I am currently doing an internship for my communications minor, and what am I doing? Writing. All of the internships above, while fun and extracurricular, can also be participated in for credits. Many of the above also happen to have fantastic advisors, have great music played during gatherings, and pizza is often fed to its staff. For these alone should you consider a change in life goals.

At the end of last semester, I was accepted into a program called Kairos Place, a week long writing retreat in a beautiful decked out cabin nestled in the countryside, complete with home theaters (yes, plural). Those of us accepted spent well over six hours a day writing in different parts of the cabin on our respective projects, interrupted for delicious meals we took turns creating. In the evenings we relaxed and played games and music. Being a writing major meant the possibility of receiving credit to have a week of free writing and great food.

Thanks to short hand texting and spell check, decent writers are about as hard to come by as succinct history professors. The reason universities have college writing on their core curriculums, and why 91����Ƶ has writing intensives, is because it appreciates the importance of writing as a part of academia and understands its importance both in and outside of a university setting.

As students and faculty, we know the difference between a paper written on three hours sleep, and one given time for proper research, editing, and care. This understanding of the power of writing extends to the professional world; being eloquent in both speech and text extends to that world, and is important whether you’re creating proposals for a new business, crafting a lesson plan for high school algebra, or handing in an article on why being a writing major was the best decision I could have made in my four years here.

Professor of Theater Barb Graber

Long-time musical director and theater department chair Barbara Graber has temporarily relinquished her positions as chair and director due to health complications stemming from a car accident in 2003.

Graber has handed over her responsibilities as director to L.B. Hamilton. Academic Dean Marie Morris has stepped in as 91����Ƶ