I agree with the main premise of the piece “How Not To Be A Sexist Pig” — namely that attitudes ignoring or justifying behaviors like catcalls are wrong. However, for a piece that criticizes the unfair judgments some men feel entitled to make about women, it seems disturbingly full of generalizations of its own that relegate all men to the “sexist pig” category.
The piece, for example uses “us” to refer to women and “you” to refer both to men with demeaning attitudes toward women and men who (like many of the students and professors I know here) respect women as individuals. Every male, this language implies, either actively demeans women or cannot treat women as fellow human beings without a lecture on why disrespect toward women affects him personally. In saying, “The only difference between men and women is that [women] have to fight for our rights. Don’t make the battle harder for us,” the piece also presents men and women as enemies, or at best dismisses men as anything more than obstacles to women’s success.
Of course there are men who need to hear exactly how their ignorance and disrespect affects the women with whom they interact, or how their actions have relegated the women around them to a place of powerlessness. This piece addresses well some attitudes that reduce women to physical bodies without individuality or dignity. Unfortunately, it seems to ignore that men are also individuals, many of whom do respect women and are anything but “sexist pigs.”
Five Iron Frenzy. The band’s name honors a golf club swinging paranoiac. Its albums have names like All the Hype That Money Can Buy, It’s Funny but Not Very Creative, and Our Newest Album Ever! (exclamation point not mine). A few of its songs quote literary figures like Edgar Allen Poe and Shakespeare, while others feature imaginary scenarios with dancing glittery unicorns or hungry wizards.
And it’s a Christian band. Earnestly, realistically Christian.
If this description intrigues you, stop reading and go listen to Five Iron Frenzy’s new album, Engine of a Million Plots. If the description has confused, alarmed, or disgusted you, then please keep reading.
Five Iron Frenzy is a ska-core band, meaning they combine the reggae-like rhythms and prominent horn sections of ska with the fast, intense, and sometimes abrasive sounds of hardcore punk rock. The band formed in 1995, released nine albums between then and 2004, and after a nine year gap released a tenth album in November of this year. The latest album, Engine of a Million Plots, features twelve of the band’s characteristically weird, spirited, and astute reflections on life. The music—with its strong beat, catchy melodies, exuberant horn playing, and hint of melancholy—is fantastic. However, the album’s greatest strength is in the lyrics to its songs.
That is, once they make sense. Listening casually, I found the meaning of these songs difficult to grasp. This is partly because the words can blend into the music and partly because the words often seem nonsensical. The snippets “we are professors at robot spy college,” or “I fight tsunamis with an umbrella” for example, don’t convey much. However, reading the full lyrics revealed commentary on despair, arrogance, lost faith, and tightly held hope. The album presents a complex picture of Christianity—alternately joking bitterly about its failures, regretting times when it is lost, and triumphing in the confidence it offers.
Courtesy of relevantmagazine.com
The song “Zen and the Art of Xenophobia,” for example, mocks the hypocrisy and disdain of so-called Christians. With biting sarcasm, the lyrics say to “cling to your god and guns,” and to “lock and load—just like Jesus did.” The line “give me liberty…or something” highlights the loss of ideals, while the suggestion to “turn your wine back into water” evokes the self-righteous Pharisees’ rejection of Jesus’s miracles. The final words, “and Jesus was American,” are a sharp rebuke for a false sense of superiority.
With an entirely different tone, the song “Blizzards and Bygones” reflects on the loss of a once vibrant faith. The song is resigned in attitude, with lyrics like “you look around but find yourself all alone, and you hunker down, but the cold’s already in your bones.” However, the portrayal of faith is beautiful and loving. The song contrasts the time “back when the angels of heaven would sing” with a time of “frost and no thaw,” and describes “a flicker of desire…a faintly glowing fire for some truth” that remains even when faith is gone.
Of all the songs on the album, “I’ve Seen the Sun” caught me most unaware with the power of its lyrics. The details are vivid and chaotic—“I’m facing down death like a fly on the windscreen. You bring the Warheads, I’m bringing ice cream” or “I’m screaming down into the black abyss…bells are ringing.” But they bring to life the central lines, “I’ve seen the sun come down…And in the dark of night I hold to its return.” This radical hope appears again in the words “tell me that I’m doomed and I’ll keep singing. The fight won’t end with me.” Then, in the last line, the song boldly celebrates the source of such hope: “Savior says…everything’s gonna be alright.”
Five Iron Frenzy’s new album is simultaneously profound and playful, depressed and confident, accusing and joyful. A brief description should have made obvious that the band doesn’t take itself too seriously. Arguably because of this, Engine of a Million Plots offers a thought-provoking look at the real brokenness surrounding Christianity and the real salvation we find in Jesus Christ.
Bowing his head over the chapel pulpit on Monday, November 11, Michael Jordan gave thanks for the sacrifices of those in the military, confessed the mistakes of this and every country, and asked earnestly for peace. His prayer observed Veteran’s Day and the Canadian Remembrance Day. Also, whether intentionally or not, it honored those at Houghton involved in the military while showing respect for those here with pacifist convictions. This is a necessity for a college that strives to offer support to individuals with ties to the military but also to recognize those who have other perspectives on Christian involvement in the military.
“The Christian tradition as a whole has within it two long standing traditions regarding the use of violence and the military—pacifism and just war theory,” explained Shirley Mullen, president of the college. “As a Christian college, I believe we have a responsibility to familiarize students with both of those traditions.”
One way the college does this, while providing for the needs of students in or aspiring to join the military, is through the Reserve Officer Training Corp (ROTC) program. The ROTC program on campus began in the late 70s, following years in which Houghton students participated in ROTC through St. Bonaventure University.
“The benefits [of ROTC] are too great in number to achieve an accurate count,” said Alyssa Kiser, a senior cadet in the Houghton ROTC program. Formerly part of a high school JROTC unit, Kiser said “[JROTC] taught me to be honest, be courageous, and how to be proud of not only my achievements, but the achievement of the team working together to reach a goal.” Kiser said the benefits of her college ROTC involvement include “a four-year scholarship awarded right out of high school (for contracted cadets), a monthly stipend (for contracted cadets), relationships with people from all over the United States and abroad, a guaranteed job after graduation, and skills that will last a lifetime.”
Others at Houghton do not share this enthusiasm about ROTC. “There have been some in our community and some in our alumni constituency who believe that we should not have ROTC on campus,” Mullen commented. “My own position on this is the following: If we were a college of one of the Peace Denominations, then we would not have ROTC…But the Wesleyan Methodist denomination has historically had within itself both pacifist and just war advocates. So our denomination does not dictate our position on this issue…In supporting ROTC, I have always encouraged our ROTC group to be proactive in creating a forum where these issues can be discussed. So that the presence of ROTC is, itself, an educational opportunity for students at a Christian liberal arts college.”
Connie Finney, professor of education, is among those who question the role of ROTC at a liberal arts college. Finney described herself as “not personally against the military, but…against some of the ways it functions.” While making it clear that she respects and cares about the individuals involved in the ROTC program, Finney commented “The ROTC program being housed at a Christian liberal arts college is a bit puzzling to me in the sense that my understanding of the military is that you are not encouraged to be an independent thinker – you are encouraged to follow orders. It would be difficult to have a well-functioning military otherwise. This does not, in my mind, seem consistent with liberal arts thinking.”
Whatever their views on Christians in the military, Houghton students, faculty and staff are generally supportive of individual members of the college community who are involved with the military. The support takes various forms. It may be prayers in chapel and elsewhere. It may be, as Kiser described, “excusal from classes in understanding of training events for the military, attendance at military functions, silence when performing in color guards (the parading of the National flag), and not disgracing the personnel in uniform.” It may be the respect which John Van Wicklin, faculty advisor for ROTC, said “starts from the President of the College and works its way down.” It may be former ROTC advisor Robert Danner’s challenge to Houghton cadets: “that they be good leaders in the Army, and good witnesses for Christ…”
The Cultural Revolution had recently ended in China. For the first time in ten years, students could enter college by taking a standardized exam instead of supporting a political system. Working parents studied beside teenagers newly graduated from high school. Wei Hu, a teenager at the time, recalls admiring the maturity of his older classmates, trying to follow their example, and with them cherishing the “privilege to go to college.” Now a professor with years of experience, Hu passes on his classmates’ legacy by mentoring and working alongside his students and inspiring them to love learning.
Hu, a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, has spent years musing on his role as a teacher. One component of his role, he suggested, is that of learner. He stressed that he cannot acquire information and then turn his focus to delivering it skillfully to students. Instead, he must continually refresh his knowledge, particularly in the rapidly-shifting field of computer science. Even if he uses only a small fraction of his expertise, he said, he wants an abundant supply from which to draw.
Kristin Camenga, chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science department, emphasized the task that faces Hu. “Dr. Hu cannot depend on last year’s notes to teach almost any of the courses because the content has changed,” Camenga said. “He regularly changes the content and approach to the classes, changing software, adding new applications, and changing assignments.”
A second component of his role as teacher, said Hu, is to create valuable interactions with his students. While exploring how to do this, he realized that collaborative research was unique, effective, and complementary to the strengths he brings to teaching.
Hu’s goal is to give every student the opportunity to learn through research. In upper level courses, classmates often collaborate on a research paper. Hu also involves students in more intensive research during the summer.
Brian Dickinson, a junior majoring in Computer Science and Business Administration, described summer research as “a full time job. Working from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday for the first several weeks is typical, though in later weeks there is usually a significant amount of reading and writing outside of work as the deadline for the final product approaches.” Hu participates in and guides the student’s work, but also encourages them to experiment as they create and modify their algorithms and write their research papers. Hu “has very high expectations for what can be accomplished, and they can seem incredibly daunting,” Dickinson said. “In my experience with research however these expectations can always achieved and surpassed.”
Even when the results do not match the expectations, Hu has an answer: “That’s research.” Failure and unpredictability are part of the research process.
Since 2009, Hu has published 14 research articles with his students. However, the results of Hu’s interactive teaching style extend farther than these tangible signs. Students appreciate the content they learn in Hu’s classes, Camenga emphasized, but even more thank him for his “encouragement to be the best student they could be and not ‘settle.’”
After recent renovations, Houghton’s new Alumni House is almost ready to welcome former students and their families.
Previously used for student housing, the Alumni House underwent significant changes to become what President Shirley Mullen, described as a “place on campus set aside specifically for alumni—for them to network among themselves and with students.” Mullen says the house will give returning alumni a place to stay with their families in addition to “making it clear that we value alumni.”
Numerous alumni have contributed to funding the renovations for the house, which Mullen estimated to cost between $550,000 and $600,000. Daniel Noyes, executive director of alumni relations, said that “the project was 100% funded by gifts from alumni, particularly alumni from families who have a strong connection with the college.” The names of rooms in the house honor nine of those families: the Luckey, Essepian-Tysinger, Stevenson, Ries, Larder, White, Mills, Alderman, and Mullen families.
Joshua Derck, building trades leader, said that the renovations on the Alumni House were extensive and included work on walls and ceilings, heating and cooling systems, plumbing and electrical services, and windows, siding, and gutters.
The house also received changes to meet “ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) requirements: a fully accessible room as well as access to the building,” Derck said. “So the updates were for usage and cosmetic. This is a virtually new building.”
Anna Maria Johnson, a 2001 Houghton graduate who lived in the Alumni House while it was still student housing, said that she has “mixed emotions” about the changes to her old home. She talked about the “incredible community” that formed among the women living in what was then called Walldorf House and described the shared dinners, Bible studies, and book discussions that added to her “formative…and meaningful experience” there. However, she also said it is “fun to think that we could come back and have a reunion in the house where we lived.”
A week into the fall semester, new faces are everywhere—including amongst faculty. Departments across campus had hired or wanted to hire new professors this year, some departments to address a growing shortage of faculty members and others to fill the gaps left by recent retirees.
The education department filled four positions this year for a total of seven full-time faculty members. Last fall, the department had only three. Dr. Cathy Freytag, chair of the department, said all faculty members hired this year were “replacement hires that were necessary for [the department] to continue to deliver [the] current program.” The education department, she added, was “given priority with hires due to the significant faculty shortfall” and the need to show the Teacher Education Accreditation Council that the department is “fully staffed with highly-qualified faculty members.”
The chemistry department aimed to hire two more full-time faculty members, despite having not yet begun an official search. Dr. Karen Torraca, chair of the chemistry department, says that with just four full- and part-time professors the department is “still not offering [a] full range of courses” this year. She adds that the department “would like both new hires to be interdisciplinary with Biology” and for one professor to focus on courses for the growing biochemistry major.
Two faculty members joined the School of Music this academic year. During the past two years, they and one other faculty member filled positions left by three retiring professors. Dean Stephan Plate of the School of Music noted this is an “exciting time in the School of Music” as the new professors and “everyone who’s always been here” share their passions and their talents.
