Author: Carina Martin

Over the past weekend, a select group of Houghton business students put their financial skills to the test and learned what it means to apply faith to the world of finance.

On Nov. 3, three students—Yonatan Fessehaye ’17, Tyler Stetson ’20, and Jonathan Niles ’17—travelled to Temple University in Philadelphia to participate in the University Trading Challenge. The challenge, open to graduates and undergraduate students, realistically mimics the world of capital markets and help participants hone their trading, portfolio construction, and risk management skills. Established in 2010, it also aims to “foster innovation and creative thinking for students looking at careers in the financial markets.” Students participate in an investment banking presentation, trading competitions focused on current events and foreign exchange markets, and a portfolio management challenge.

“It’s a good experience for students interested in finance because it’s a high-pressure situation and is very competitive,” said Stetson, who won the individual portfolio management competition and hopes to apply his studies in mathematics in the investment management or investment banking fields. “It was especially intense and humbling for us because we were the only undergrads there.”

On Nov. 5, Karl Sisson, Houghton’s Vice President for Advancement and External Relations, accompanied a larger group of students to New York City to participate in the 2017 Collegiate Faith & Finance Day, which was hosted by Archegos Capital Management, an international investment firm, and The Grace & Mercy Foundation, a grant-making charitable organization.

The highly selective event invited only students from four schools—Houghton, Columbia University, The King’s College of NYC, and the University of Pennsylvania—and included a variety of panels and presentations related to the topic of Christians in finance.

Participants immersed themselves in the action of the trading floor at Morgan Stanley and Nomura Security. In the afternoon, they visited the offices of Archegos Capital Management and The Grace & Mercy Foundation to enjoy industry presentations on diverse topics as mentorship, human capital, and Christian vocation. “They are a bright light in the midst of a lot of darkness,” Sisson said of the event’s sponsors.

To Wall Street . Bill Hwong and Andy Mills, the CEO and Executive Chairman of Archegos and two of the event’s main speakers, have spoken at Houghton chapel services in the past. Hwong also serves on the Fuller Theological Seminary board alongside President Shirley Mullen.

“Our students were fantastic,” Sisson said. “They represented Houghton exceptionally well in a setting we are not normally accustomed to.” Sumi Kim, president of the Grace & Mercy Foundation, echoed Sisson’s praise, commenting that her organization was “very impressed with the high level of engagement, energy and dialogue of the Houghton students!”

In the future, Houghton hopes to continue collaborating with the Grace & Mercy Foundation on outreach and service. “They see us as a partner school,” Sisson said. “They like what they see from Houghton students, and they are really intrigued by what we’ve done with refugees in Buffalo and Utica.”

On Sunday, November 5, through a partnership with Kingdom Bound, Houghton will host a stop on three-time Grammy-nominated Christian rock artist Crowder’s “American Prodigal” tour. The concert will feature hits from Crowder’s most recent album, as well as performances by special guests Jimi Cravity and The Young Escape.

As a part of the David Crowder Band, Crowder earned a reputation for his fresh musicality, elaborate instrumentation, and sometimes contemplative, sometimes cheeky lyrics. His newest offering, according to a review in CCM Magazine, “features every flavor ever served up by David Crowder at one point or another and then some, a delicious array of musical styles brought together to his inimitable gift for melody. Only Crowder could get away with such a set list.”

Since the David Crowder Band disbanded in 2012, Crowder’s solo efforts have made him a household name on his own. The worship ballad “Come As You Are,” featured on his album Neon Steeple, was nominated for the Grammy award for Best Contemporary Christian Music Performance in 2015. American Prodigal debuted at #5 on Billboard’s Top Albums and #1 on the Christian & Gospel Album charts.

Hosting popular artists gives Houghton’s music industry students a valuable opportunity to learn how to organize large events. “The music industry department tries to help bring a major modern act to Houghton each year,” said Hendrick de Schmidt ‘19, who is on concert staff. “This fall continues that tradition, which has previously included Michael W. Smith and TobyMac. We look forward to helping Crowder’s team put on an excellent show for all in attendance.”

The college has hosted many prominent Christian music artists in the past, exposing students to the broad range of musical styles within the worship and gospel genres. “I’m not a huge concert-goer, so I always appreciate when Houghton brings in amazing artists like Crowder because it’s so easy to go with friends,” said Jessica Robinson ‘18. “When I’ve gone to the pass concerts like, Tenth Avenue North and Toby Mac, I have loved the experience of worshipping God with so much of the Houghton community.  It’s an amazing experience with so many people filling the KPAC with their voices raised to praise our amazing God.  I’m excited to see how God works through Crowder and others who are performing.”

The concert is also a part of Houghton’s Highlander Preview Day, which provides prospective students with a first taste of college life and events. “I’m really excited for all of the prospective high school students who will be coming to the concert and perhaps encountering Houghton for the first time,” said Emily Allen ‘20. “My first official visit day and tour were the weekend of the TobyMac concert in 2015, and I had a great experience. As a prospective student, it is encouraging to see Houghton bringing in a big name band like Crowder even though it is a small school. It shows how far-reaching we really are.”

Tickets to the concert can be purchased at the Kingdom Bound or Houghton websites. General admission tickets are $20. Gold tickets, which include early entry and an exclusive post-show, are $75. The doors of Wesley Chapel will open at 5:30 p.m., with the show starting one hour later.

“Before you know what kindness really is you must lose things, feel the future dissolve in a moment like salt in a weakened broth. What you held in your hand, what you counted and carefully saved, all this must go so you know how desolate the landscape can be between the regions of kindness.” So begins world-renowned Palestinian-American poet Naomi Shihab Nye’s seminal poem “Kindness.” This Friday, Oct. 27, Nye will visit Houghton College to share her insights on the art of poetry writing and her experience as a child of many cultures.

Though Nye makes her current home in San Antonio, Texas, she has frequently described herself as “the wandering poet.” And for good reason. The child of a Palestinian refugee father and a German-Swiss American mother, she spent her early years in San Antonio and Ferguson, Missouri, playing with African- and Mexican-American children. When her father’s mother became ill, he brought their family back in the West Bank, to a house on the tumultuous road that stretched between Jerusalem and Ramallah. It was at the age of six that she wrote her first poems, which focused on everyday subjects like friends and animals. Since then, her writing and speaking has carried her through Europe, Asia, and the Middle East.

This perennial fascination with heritage and obsession with the ordinary unfolds itself in Nye’s poetry. In her writing, Nye frequently lends a freshly surprising perspective to the humdrum, powerfully evoking the emotions and nostalgia that accompany familiar people, comfortable places, and household objects. “I want to be famous in the way a pulley is famous, or a buttonhole,” she writes, “not because it did anything spectacular, but because it never forgot what it could do.”

Embracing a diversity of subjects—from the cultural functions of storytelling to the role of the writer in a fragmented contemporary society—Nye’s poetry is known for its unornamented language and striking imagery.

In an interview with The Observer in 2014, Nye reminisced on her connection to Ferguson and the West Bank, two epicenters of social and racial conflict. “I felt like if I didn’t say something, what kind of writer am I?” she said. “Maybe the connection is slight, but I think the connection of domination and injustice is strong.” By focusing on the similarities between Jew and Palestinian, white and black, she aims to spark conversations about the loves we share.  

Naomi Shihab Nye’s books of poetry include Poems of the Middle East, Red Suitcase, You & Yours, and Words Under the Words. She has also published several essay collections, including Never In A Hurry and Are You Okay? More recently, she has begun to move into children’s literature with her children’s novels Habibi and Going Going, and her picture books Baby Radar and Famous. In all, she has authored or edited thirty volumes of poetry and fiction, and is currently working on a collection called Voices in the Air: Poems for Listeners.

Over the years, Shihab Nye has been honored by many prominent arts organizations. She is Guggenheim Fellow, a Lannan Fellow, and a Witter Bynner Fellow (through the Library of Congress); and the recipient of four Pushcart Prizes and a Lavan Award. She was recently named a chancellor of the Academy of American Poets. Nye has also made a name for herself as an educator, traveling around the world to lead lectures and workshops on the craft of poetry-writing and the nuances of cross-cultural communication.

“Nye’s ethic of care and compassion never ceases to inspire and challenge,” Houghton professor of writing Dr. Laurie Dashnau said. “I need to help others, my students especially, to experience ‘the tender gravity of kindness.’”

Students, faculty, and staff are invited to enjoy lunch with Shihab Nye at 12-12:45 p.m. in the Lennox Dining Room, immediately followed by a question and answer session in the Center for the Arts Recital Hall. A select group of English and writing students will also participate in a poetry workshop led by Nye later in the afternoon.

This past Monday, October 2, Houghton’s extension campus in Utica, New York, opened its doors to a group of students who are new not only to college life, but also to the American experience.

Following the success of Houghton’s Buffalo extension, which opened in 2013, the new extension was designed to serve the growing refugee and immigrant population in downtown Utica. The extension will offer two-year Associate of Arts degrees to members of the community, particularly immigrants and refugees whose access to a Christian liberal arts education would normally be restricted by their lack of finances or prior academic opportunities. Over the next few years, the extension plans to admit around twenty-five students annually.

Dr. Mark Caruana, Dean of the Utica campus, came to his role from a previous position as senior pastor at the Tabernacle Baptist Church in downtown Utica. During his twenty years of ministry, he has focused on developing multiethnic ministries and helping his congregation welcome nearly nine hundred ethnic Karen immigrants who had escaped refugee camps in their native Burma. Caruana’s experience also earned him a place as a representative to the Burma Refugee Commission of the American Baptist Churches/USA and a spot on the board of directors of the Mohawk Valley Resource Center for Refugees, which provides a range of essential services and resources to recently arrived families.   

The Utica extension’s first incoming class was drawn from diverse backgrounds. The majority are English language learners, and most have not benefitted from a formal post-secondary education. Nearly all are first-generation college students. Many have fled danger or poverty in their home countries. However, Caruana believes that the students’ experiences have also given them the strength and courage to tackle these new challenges. “These same students are resilient, hard-working, engaged, and hopeful,” he said.

Over the past several years, the city of Utica has earned a reputation for its robust integration programs and welcoming attitude toward refugees. Immigrants from many countries and ethnicities now make up nearly 20 percent of the city’s general population. Around four hundred are resettled within the Utica borders each year, many from areas of the world that have been ravaged by war, disease, or other hardship.

The curriculum blends Houghton’s traditional liberal arts approach with a unique emphasis on workplace preparation and English speaking and writing proficiency. Students can earn degrees across a wide variety of disciplines, including literature and writing, history, philosophy and theology, communication, mathematics, and fine arts. Specialized business classes will prepare graduates to enter the workforce or start their own ventures, while intensive tutoring sessions will help them keep up with the demands of a high-quality education. Students will also participate in internships around the city, helping them to gain experience in the private sector.

Although Caruana’s main ambitions center around giving students a rigorous education and preparing them to enter the workforce, he also values the opportunity to embody Christian hospitality and service. “Ministry is always relational and contextual,” he said, adding that he hoped to build not merely a college campus, but also a “caring learning community in which we know our students by name and walk alongside them in a supportive role.”

“I believe Houghton College Utica is another expression of Houghton’s core commitment to serve its neighbors in Allegany County, across New York state and the nation, and around the globe,” Caruana said. He also invited anyone connected to Houghton to participate in the new extension’s goals and mission: “We are part of Houghton College and welcome Houghton students and faculty to visit us and experience Houghton College Utica for themselves.”

Starting this fall, Houghton’s incoming first-year students will experience history in a whole new way.

Rather than rotating through the standard gamut of “first-year” courses—such as Western Civilization, Literary Voices, and Metaphysics, Morality, and Mind—incoming students will participate in a three-semester integrative studies course that fulfills requirements in history, literature, and philosophy. True to its name, the “Enduring Questions” course was designed to help students contextualize further studies and situate themselves within the wider Christian liberal arts tradition.  

The course was primarily designed to “get students to think about some of the questions that are important to us,” said Dr. Linda Mills-Woolsey, professor of English and former academic dean. The course’s scope is chronological rather than topical or thematic, progressing from the earliest histories of the ancient world to the literary masterpieces of the 20th century. “All things being equal, this kind of thing has worked very well,” Mills-Woolsey said in reference to the program.Yale University, for instance, has for several years required its first-year students to participate in a uniquely integrative “Directed Studies” program, which was created to guide them through the study of literature, philosophy, history, and political theory. Similar programs have thrived at other private colleges in recent years.

In speaking about the course, Mills-Woolsey emphasized the importance of giving first-year students “a context, a picture they can plunge in-depth into later.” She elected to use a mixture of pedagogical practices in her teaching, from full-class Socratic discussions and short lectures to small group conversations focusing on specific attributes of the text. According to Dr. Peter Meilaender, each professor drafted their own unique syllabus, reading list, writing assignments, and exam materials based on the historical events and cultural milestones that they considered to be the most vital to a study of the Western cultural tradition.

“Many faculty,” Meilaender added with a smile, “have wondered how much history students actually remember.” By presenting historical events alongside the philosophical musings and literary works that influenced them, these professors hope to build a more cohesive—and comprehensive—contextual structure. Students work their way through readings from the book of Genesis, the Iliad and the Odyssey, the love poetry of Sappho, and the philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, among others.

“In some ways, though, it’s not completely new,” Mills-Woolsey said. “I’m teaching stuff that I would have taught in London.” Every faculty member who was hired to teach the course, with the exception of President Mullen, had previously spent a term teaching in the London Honors program. While Humanities 101 does not boast the same totally immersive experience as the overseas honors program—and also lacks its intense reading lists and writing requirements—it does mimic its integration of multiple connected disciplines.

Attempting a survey course so ambitious in scope must, of course, entail some logistical and organizational challenges. “It stretches the professors a little more,” said Mills-Woolsey, “because nobody is an expert.” However, many of the course’s professors have completed extensive study in multiple . Mills-Woolsey’s graduate studies examined literature within a historical context, while President Mullen attained degrees in both history and philosophy and Meilaender’s professional work has focused heavily on the intersection between political theory and literature. “When you’re a small faculty,” Meilaender said, “you have to do a lot of different things.” In this case, that might mean learning to teach across your discipline or illuminate the ties between Athenian philosophy and ancient military strategies.

“It’s a challenge trying to balance, to get [students] to be involved,” Meilaender said, while still ensuring that everyone in the class is “getting deep enough into the meat” of the material. How has the process gone so far? According to Meilaender, students “were actually pretty enthusiastic.” Mills-Woolsey also spoke highly of her students’ comments, calling them “very perceptive.” In the future, both hope that asking—and answering—these questions alongside students will open new doors for further study.

Tomorrow night, the student-led “Houghton’s Got Talent” show will premiere. According to the college calendar, the show will take place from 9-11 p.m. in Wesley Chapel. Travis Trotman ‘17 said he organized the event during his internship with the Campus Activities Board (CAB), “for my (communication) major”.

“I had to create two events throughout this internship. AC Taylor, my supervisor, and CAB are helping me run the talent show,” he said. According to Trotman, the show will be “almost like Spot but without a theme.” There will be judges and prizes, with a variety of acts including “some singing, some dancing, [and] some standup comedy.” Trotman even teased the possibility of a few duo and group acts, and praised participants’ originality. “Usually in SPOT you see mostly singing and videos. There are no videos. This is a talent show.”

Trotman has recruited Zina Teague ‘12, Hunter Gregory ‘17, Sarah Duttweiler ‘17 and Dean Michael Jordan as judges. Trotman will host the show, and Joe Miner ‘18 and Andrew Sherman ‘18 will serve as “the hype people.” The judges will select their favorite performer to receive a prize. “By the end of the night, there will be a winner,” Trotman said. “There will be some acts and talent you wouldn’t have seen in Spot for a while,” he stated.

Soliciting performers for an event so late in the semester did prove difficult. Trotman originally advertised with posters and an all-campus email, but received only three entries. After asking friends for performer nominations, however, he was able to connect with many more talented performers and hold a preliminary audition.

Trotman is keeping the name of participants confidential, “so it’s for the most part a surprise for the campus.” However, he revealed that the participation pool contains a mix of under- and upperclassmen. “There are a lot of freshman and sophomores,” Trotman said. “After this, people will really know the talent we have.” Until the end of the night, the prizes will remain confidential as well.

Trotman hopes that “Houghton’s Got Talent” may become an annual event. In past years, a similar event called “Houghton Superstar” was popular, and he hopes to breathe new life into that tradition. “I hope to pass on the torch to someone who attends the show,” he stated. “I hope someone else from CAB will pick it up and it will become an annual thing.”

When asked what he was most looking forward to, Trotman said that he was excited “for crowd interaction and reaction to people performing. But I’m also just excited for the judges and how they’re going to interact with the performers, and also pick a winner.” Other students are also looking forward to the new event. “It’s going to be a great show!” Joe Miner ‘18 said. “CAB has put a lot of work into this event and I think it will be a huge success. If you’re looking for a laugh, a cry, or to have your breath taken away, come to Houghton’s Got Talent.”