Goshen College

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Goshen College

Motto Culture For Service
Established 1894
Type private coeducational liberal arts
Religious Affiliation Mennonite Christianity
Endowment $105 million[1]
President Dr. James Brenneman
Faculty 70
Students 1000
Location Goshen, IN, USA
Campus large town: 135 acres (0.5 km²) 1,150 acre Merry Lea Environmental Learning Center
Athletics
14 Division II NAIA teams,
called Maple Leafs
Website www.goshen.edu

Goshen College is a Mennonite liberal arts college in Goshen, Indiana with an enrollment of around 1,000 students. The college is accredited by North Central Association of Colleges and Schools and is a member of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities. Goshen College is owned by Mennonite Church USA. Based on Goshen College's standards for hiring, all professors at Goshen profess the Christian faith.

Goshen's Study Service Term (SST), probably its best-known program, takes students overseas for three months. Their time is split between the study of the nation's language and culture, and performing volunteer service. The program was pioneering when it was founded in 1968 before study abroad programs became widespread.

Home to the Mennonite Quarterly Review and the Mennonite Historical Library, a 68,000 volume library compiling the most comprehensive collection of Anabaptist material in the United States.

Goshen tends to maintain a fairly steady 55/45 ratio of women to men and of Mennonite to other affiliations.[2] The campus radio station is WGCS, branded as 91.1 The Globe.

Contents

[edit] Student Life

[edit] Academics

Goshen College offers 32 different majors and 35 minors. Some of the most popular programs are American Sign Language, business, biology, nursing, and environmental science. Goshen College recently approved a Master of Arts in Environmental Education and a master's degree in nursing.[3]

[edit] Athletics

Goshen offers a variety of varsity sports. Goshen is a member of the NAIA and Indiana's Mid-Central Conference (MCC), one of the NAIA's most competitive basketball leagues. Because Goshen is part of the NAIA, it is eligible to award athletic scholarships. Men's sports include Baseball, Basketball, Cross Country, Golf, Soccer, Tennis, and Track & Field. Women's sports are Basketball, Cross Country, Soccer, Softball, Tennis, Track & Field, and Volleyball.

Intramurals are also an integral part of Goshen's campus. Throughout the year, students participate in Baseball, Soccer, Ping-Pong, Volleyball, Frisbee Football, Badminton, Softball, and Raquetball. Rugball is an especially popular and dangerous sport among Goshen students. Invented by a Goshen College student in 2001, the game is a combination of rugby, football, and soccer, and has gained popularity on several other campuses.[citation needed]

[edit] Campus Life

Goshen College has many different clubs and extracurriculars for students to be involved in on campus. For media outlets, Goshen has its own school news paper, The Record, along with its own weekly news show, GC Journal, and its own radio station, WGCS. With the addition of the Music Center to campus, the college has offered a Performing Arts Series of nationally renowned artists from across the country. Previous guests include Nickel Creek, Colm Wilkinson, Chanticleer, Canadian Brass, Tokyo String Quartet, and Lincoln Center Jazz Orchestra with Wynton Marsalis.

[edit] Study-Service Term

Started in 1968, Goshen College's Study Service Term is a program that is unique to Goshen. Goshen was one of the forerunners of colleges in offering programs abroad, due in part to its Mennonite heritage of missions and foreign service, particularly Mennonite Central Committee. Study-Service Term (SST) is a requirement for all students at Goshen College. Students are required to spend one semester abroad in a country, where they study the language and culture for six weeks at a foreign university, and then do service for the remaining six weeks. Service can range from working at a hospital, nursing home, kindergarten, or missionary service. Countries Goshen College students can currently visit include Cambodia, China, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Germany, Jamaica (ASL majors), Peru and Senegal. Students from adult classes are offered a min-SST program to Mexico. Previous SST spots include Costa Rica, Cuba, Haiti, and Ivory Coast. Over 7,000 students and 230 faculty members have journeyed to 20 different countries.[1]

[edit] Campus facilities

Goshen College currently has three dormitories or residence halls for all students, two junior and senior dorms, apartment living, and several small group houses connected to the college.[4] Four-year residency was typical until the mid-1970s, when a growing student enrollment prompted school officials to forgo building new dormitories and allow upperclassmen to live off campus. In 2005, Goshen College announced its plan to return to four-year residency. Because of concerns for campus life, four-year residency was re-instituted for the class of 2008, despite opposition from students. With more students on campus, the school has spent over $10 million over the past several years building and renovating dorms. As of 2007, Apartments, Kratz, Miller, and Yoder dorms have air conditioning, and all dorms have wireless Internet and cable television.

The Roman Gingerich Recreation and Fitness Center is a $7 million facility constructed in 1994 with three full-sized basketball courts, four raquetball courts, a 200 meter indoor track, swimming pool, hot tub, and 2,800 ft² (260 m²) weight room. The fitness center is open to all students and staff, and is used by community members as well.

The $24 million, 68,000 ft² (6300 m²) Music Center, completed in October 2002, has become regionally renowned for its design and acoustics.[5][6] The Music Center consists of several main sections: Sauder Concert Hall, Reith Recital Hall, the Art Gallery, and various classrooms, practice rooms and offices. Several highlights are a central recording studio, MIDI labs, and Opus 41, a 1600 tracker pipe organ, the first in the world with tempering based on alumnus Bradley Lehman's research of Johann Sebastian Bach's notation.[7]

[edit] Satellite facilities

In addition to the 135 acre (½ km²) main campus, Goshen College maintains several other facilities. Merry Lea is the college's fully endowed 1,150 acre (4.6 km²) nature preserve located at Wolf Lake in Noble County, Indiana, about 30 miles (50 km) east of Goshen. In 2006, Merry Lea completed construction of a two-million dollar facility with classroom and living space. The construction was platinum LEED certified, representing the highest quality of environmental construction process currently available.[8] Merry Lea hosts various schools and organizations throughout the year, and offers a Masters program in environmental education.

Goshen's Florida Keys Marine Lab, located on Long Key, FL (Layton), provides learning space for the marine biology class during May term. Long Key, vacation home to Zane Grey offers an opportunity for students to discover the ecosystems that create the Florida Keys.

Other properties maintained by Goshen College include Brunk's Cabin in Cass County, Michigan.

[edit] Core values

In 2002 the college approved five core values that would become the vision of the college.[9][10] These five values: Christ-centered, passionate learners, global citizens, compassionate peacemakers, and servant leaders continue to define the college's future. These values were selected by Goshen College's board of directors because they identify the college's understanding of what it means to be a disciple of Christ.

Christ-centered 
Based off 1 Corinthians 3:11, this is the main value with which the college seeks to identify. The remaining four branch from this value.
Passionate learners 
Goshen College believes that its faith is supported and sustained by knowledge. As a center of learning, its goals are to educate and renew the minds of its students through a spirit of academic excellence. (II Peter 1:5-8)
Servant leaders 
In a world searching for future leaders, Goshen seeks to produce servant leaders, embodied by the example Jesus has shown. By following Christ's example, Goshen seeks to create a culture of joyful service. (Matthew 20:26-28)
Compassionate peacemakers 
Goshen College embraces biblical shalom, the peace that God intends to build for humanity. Goshen seeks to renounce the violent and oppresive powers of this world while living lives that are examples of God's peace. (Matthew 5:9)
Global citizens 
Goshen College teaches its students to go forth into the world offering their talents and gifts. Goshen seeks to respect the differences of others, while at the same time seeking common ground. (II Corinthians 5:18-20)

[edit] History

The history of Goshen College is a story that is intertwined with that of the Mennonite experience in America. Because both histories have been so important each other, it is necessary to explain Goshen's stories as related to larger American and Mennonite society. Goshen College is the second[11] oldest currently operational Mennonite school of higher education in North America. "Old" Mennonites had traditionally been suspicious of higher education, however by the late 19th century, opinion started to change. Decades earlier US mainline church denominations had started on a spree of founding colleges across America with hopes of developing well trained clergy for their congregations. As more "Old" Mennonites sent their children to other Christian colleges, they realized that without a college of their own, many of their youth would leave the church. Thus, prompted in part as a reaction to mainline Christianity, the "Old" Mennonites started the Elkhart Institute in Elkhart, Indiana in August 1894 to prepare Mennonite youth for college. Because of this vision, even though Goshen is today a Christian Mennonite liberal arts college, its historical relationship with the Mennonite Church has had a lasting impact which is still very visible today: home to the Mennonite Quarterly Review, Mennonite Historical Library, Archives of Mennonite Church USA, including Mennonite Central Committee archives, offices of "The Mennonite" and numerous alumni conections with the broader Mennonite Church.

Goshen College in the early 1900s
Goshen College in the early 1900s

H.A. Mumaw, a practicing physician, first conducted the small operation. In 1894, a group of 15 "Old" Mennonite ministers and laymen started a corporation which they named the Elkhart Institute association. The first diploma was handed out in 1898. Lured by businessmen to relocate several miles away to Goshen, Indiana, the Institute moved in September of 1903 and added a junior college course list, renaming itself Goshen College. By 1906, the Mennonite Board of Education took control of the college, dissolving the Elkhart Institute Association. A complete college course was established in 1908 and the first Bachelor of Arts degrees were conferred in 1910. The Academy program of Goshen College was discontinued in 1935, however after 1910, most of Goshen's students were enrolled in college courses. From 1914-1919, partly out of response to its constituents, Goshen College attempted a "School of Agriculture" which sought to prepare Mennonite young people to return to their rural communities. The hope was that such a program would spark a technological revolution among some of the farmers. Unfortunately the program was never a success, and after World War I the program was cut, five years after it began.

The school closed down during the 1923-1924 school year by the Mennonite Board of Education due to many problems, but reopened the following year. One of many factors in closing the college was due to the larger modernist (liberalism and fundamentalist) theology of the 1920s, which also affected Mennonite theology. In response to this crisis, many of the Goshen's faculty and dozens of students relocated to Bluffton College, now Bluffton University. As part of the larger ongoing reaction against liberalism through the early twentieth century, Hesston College and Eastern Mennonite School were formed among "old" Mennonites, although staunch traditionalists realized that no higher education was particularly safe. When the institution was reopened, it was marked by the new leadership of Harold S. Bender, a man whose influence upon the "Old" Mennonites was significant for much of the 20th Century. Bender carefully piloted the stormy waters of theology by stating after Goshen College reopened that Mennonitism was not liberalism. Bender later went on to say that fundamentalism also contributed to problems with theology, and created the The Anabaptist Vision, a "third way" which sought to spell out the direction for the future Mennonite Church. More than arguing doctorine, Harold Bender and a younger group of intellectuals at Goshen College sought to shape the Mennonite faith that was more ideological than instituional. The goal was to articulate a faith that could stand the test of academic scrutiny in broader society while also carefully upholding traditional beliefs of the church. Out of this ideology, Bender started the Mennonite Quarterly Review. Throughout this time, Goshen remained the epicenter of "Old" Mennonite theology and higher education, and became known as the "Goshen Historical Renaissance".

During the 1940s, Goshen was one of Mennonite Central Committee's key places to form a "relief training school" that helped to train volunteers for Civilian Public Service, an alternative to conscription that many Mennonites did because of their beliefs regarding Biblical pacifism and nonresistance. In 1980, Goshen College was granted care of Merry Lea environmental Learning Center, a 1150 acre nature preserve which now offers Goshen's Mater's degree in Environmental Science. In 1993, Harold and Wilma Good, longtime friends of the college, left their estate to Goshen. the estate was estimated at roughly $28 million, the majority in stock of the J.M. Smucker Company because Wilma was a daughter of the company's founder. The college sold the stock and added the funds to its endowment, more than doubling it at the time.[2] The campus experienced a building boom in the later half of the 1990s through the present, with an estimated $30 million dollars worth in new or renovated structures on campus. this time saw the addition of the Roman Gingerich Recreation-Fitness Center, the Music Center, the Connector, and the renovation of all dormitories. The college is currently in the midst of a new campus master plan and plan of study which will define the college's priorities for the coming years ahead. Today, more than 20,000 Goshen College alumni have been counted, residing throughout the world in more than 85 countries, and the campus has flourished from less than 50 acres to 135 acres with 18 major buildings. The college now offers 32 majors and 35 minors of academic study, with quality professional programs and facilities.[3]

[edit] See also

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ Mennonite College Endowments Substandard Mennonite Weekly Review. Retrieved on 2006-07-10.
  2. ^ Diversity at Goshen College. URL accessed on 2006-02-19
  3. ^ Goshen College to launch first master’s degree program, in environmental education
  4. ^ Residence life
  5. ^ Goshen College Music Center
  6. ^ Construction
  7. ^ Opus 41 Pipe Organ
  8. ^ Merry Lea’s Green Buildings
  9. ^ Goshen College Self-study Report 2004-2005
  10. ^ Core values
  11. ^ Bethel College is the oldest; incorporated in 1887 and opened at its present site in 1893. Goshen College was the first Mennonite college in North America to confer a four year degree.


[edit] External links


Mid-Central College Conference (NAIA)
Bethel College • Goshen College • Grace College • Huntington University • Indiana Wesleyan University • Marian College • Spring Arbor University • Taylor University • University of St. Francis
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