Author: Sarah Vande Brake

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News

Faculty Art Exhibit to Open

The Ortlip Gallery at the Center For the Arts will feature a new installation by art professors Ryann Cooley and Alicia Taylor-Austin. An opening reception will be held for the installation at the gallery tonight from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Both Cooley and Taylor-Austin said they sought to create art that is engaging. Cooley said he thinks of people who will see the art in this exhibition as “participants” rather than “viewers.” He said, “I’d like people to think about their relationship to the art as their relationship to the world.” To create a heightened sense of awareness and engagement, Cooley said there will be multiple elements of this exhibition to make it immersive, such as donning cleanroom suits before entering.

Cooley, associate professor in digital media and photography,  is an award-winning artist. His work has been exhibited internationally, as well as published widely, according to the college’s website. He works in the media of photography, video, sculpture and installation. He holds a Bachelor of Arts from the Brook Institute of Photography and a Master of Fine Arts from the School of Visual Arts.

Cooley’s  work for the xhibition is photography exploring  the effects of light, particularly the lack of light. He said his intention was to create art that could not be viewed online, but required personal connection. “There is value in being able to share art online, and photography is 2-dimensional and works well for this,” he said. However, according to Cooley, the purpose of his art is distinctly tied to the physical exhibition and the experience of participants’ reactions to the art.

Taylor-Austin, assistant professor of art in print media is, according to the college website, “a visual artist whose studio practice engages material as metaphor, transforming materials by hand through processes in print media, book arts, painting, drawing and sculpture.” She holds a Bachelor of Science in studio art from Roberts Wesleyan College and a Master of Fine Arts in visual studies from Visual Studies Workshop, in association with State University of New York (SUNY) at Brockport, according to the college’s website.

 

Taylor-Austin’s work “features sculpture composed of fiber and hand printed textiles,” according to Houghton’s website. According to Taylor-Austin,  her focus is  on building an ecologically responsible practice, using natural and renewable materials in all of her fiber based work. “I gather ideas and material from the natural world and its diverse spectrum of pigments, using color extracted from leaves, insects, trees and seeds,” she said. Cooley said that while he and Taylor-Austin initially saw their installations as quite different works of art, once they began setting up the exhibition they realized that their works are “two sides of the same conversation.” Taylor-Austin also said her goal in every exhibition design is to “create a space that invites conversation and contemplation.”

The showing is free and all are welcome to attend. Refreshments will be provided.

 

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Campus News

Forty Students To Graduate In December

Photo by: Anthony Burdo

Forty students will graduate at the close of this semester. A reception will be held on Wednesday, December 7 to honor these mid-year graduates and recognize their hard work during their time at Houghton.

The reception will take place in the South End Dining Hall, and will last from 6:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. with desserts provided. President Shirley Mullen, Provost Jack Connell, and a representative from Alumni Relations will each give brief remarks to the graduates, according to Eva Hillman from the Office of Academic Affairs.

The December graduates are made up of a multitude of degrees. Twenty-two students will graduate with a Bachelor of Science, fifteen with a Bachelor of Arts, and one each with an Associate of Arts, Master of Fine Arts, and Master of Arts. These students are from a variety of majors, the most common major being Communication, closely followed by Psychology and Business Administration, according to the Registrar webpage.

Tyler Ashley is a December graduate and a double major in Communication and Business Administration. He said, “I am very thankful for the opportunity to learn and grow at a place like Houghton.” He reflected on what made Houghton a special place to him, and stated the people he met during college and the relationships he formed are invaluable. After graduation, Ashley plans to work at an internet marketing company based in Lancaster City, Pennsylvania.

Another December graduate, Rebekah Bunal, is graduating in December after transferring to Houghton after begining her degree at another institution. Bunal is graduating with a degree in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL). She said, “My time at Houghton was great, but short. All my education professors are what helped me get through it all.”

Ian Smith, who is preparing to graduate with a degree in Inclusive Childhood Education (ICE), said he was motivated to graduate early because he completed all the classes necessary for his major.  “From being an RA in Rothenbuhler hall to making a fool of myself in two separate SPOT skits, my time at Houghton is one I will always remember fondly,” he said. Smith said he hopes to work as a substitute teacher in the Rochester area after graduation.

For Smith, and many other graduates, graduation means beginning a new chapter of life. “I will miss being in the Houghton community, but am very excited for what God has for me in the future,” Smith said.

Friends and family of December graduates are invited to attend the dessert reception to celebrate the graduates’ accomplishments. Attire will be business casual.

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Campus National News

FAFSA Changes Now In Effect

Recent changes to the Free Application For Student Aid (FAFSA) system have made the application available since October 1, 2016, instead of on the traditional January 1 release date.

Photo by: Nate Moore
Photo by: Nate Moore

Because the FAFSA is available earlier, students and parents will complete it using tax information from two years ago. This means that this year, students and parents will fill out the FAFSA using their 2015 tax information, according to Financial Aid employee, Susanna Roorbach. The Federal Student Aid website said the new system offers several benefits. One of the benefits will be that the FAFSA will not involve as much estimation of finances since the taxes from two years prior will already be completed. Additionally, it will enable students to use the IRS Data Retrieval Tool to automatically import tax information to the FAFSA. According to a tutorial on the Federal Student Aid website, this tool makes the process of transferring tax information to the FAFSA faster and more accurate.

Some of the greatest benefits are for incoming first year students, Roorbach said. Before, prospective students had a narrow window between receiving their financial aid package from a school and the school’s deadline to enroll. The new system takes the pressure off for new students exploring their options. “It will allow students to have their financial aid award letters sooner and give them more time to make a decision,” said Roorbach.

For returning students, Roorbach said, “When we award financial aid at Houghton, we give students the best package we can up front and we typically don’t change that, but this could really affect federal and state aid.” Using tax information from two years prior means that it takes longer for a change in finances to affect a student’s federal and state aid. Roorbach said if a student has a circumstance where their income dropped significantly or they recently had high medical expenses, they can fill out a Special Circumstance form along with their FAFSA which will allow their aid to reflect these changes. On the other hand, if a student’s income rises significantly, this change will not catch up to their aid as quickly as in previous years, Roorbach said.

The Financial Aid Office is changing their calendar to accommodate these new deadlines, Roorbach said. She explained the new system will mean sending out financial aid packages from October until August. “It’s something we thought would be helpful for a while,” she said. “Now that it’s here it could be a little challenging to implement, but I think things will run a lot smoother once we have a year of using this system under our belts.”

These changes will likely be helpful to Houghton students across the board. According to the Houghton College website, students receive roughly $13 million in aid, grants, and scholarships.. Roorbach said returning students generally shouldn’t worry about completing the FAFSA until after Thanksgiving.

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Stories In Focus

Investing in the Future: Student Group Practices Investing at Houghton

Investing money may seem like an activity reserved for business professionals, but over the past fifteen years, Houghton College students have participated in this pursuit. Last year, Houghton College’s Investment Group outperformed professional investors by a wide margin, according to member Joseph Gilligan ‘17. This dynamic group uses their shared perspective as students to take risks and gauge the market in unconventional ways. The skills that they hone in the process make them better candidates for jobs and internships.

Photo from STAR Archives
Photo from STAR Archives

When the Investment Group was endowed by Houghton College in 2001, a select group of business students were given $20,000 to invest. Today, these funds have been increased to $350,000. To be eligible for the Investment Group, a student must hold a 3.5 grade point average and have taken several finance courses. Only juniors and seniors are accepted, with two exceptions in the history of the club. The first is Gilligan, who joined his freshman year. The second is Tyler Stetson ’20, who joined this semester. Both Gilligan and Stetson said they began investing in middle school. The group currently has 10 members, according to member Ryan Buckley ‘17.

To invest, the group must reach consensus. Their advisor, assistant professor of business administration Pil Joon Kim, has the ability to veto stock decisions made by students if he believes it is a poor decision, but this veto power has never been used. According to Jesse Toth ’17, that consensus is a very important part of the group dynamic. He said that senior members Buckley and Gilligan have differing views: “They present two sides of the argument, and you’re weighing the options. I’ve learned so much from watching them just going at it,” he said.

Buckley said his approach is more specific to companies, or microeconomics. Gilligan, meanwhile, prefers to focus on macroeconomics, or the big picture of economic trends. “Through our different approaches on investing, I always am confident in a stock choice we both agree on,” Gilligan said.

The group members attributed some of their success to their perspective as students. “Professionals wait until the hard numbers come in, but we look at the media and the big picture to predict where the best returns will be,” Buckley said. He gave two examples of stocks the group invested in recently that proved to be wise investments: Netflix and Disney. When Netflix’s monthly price went up, many people stopped investing in the company, Buckley said. However, as students, the members of the Investment Group knew that a few more dollars a month is a small price to pay for the ability to binge-watch shows. “People aren’t going to give up their Netflix,” Gilligan said.

The investment in Disney was also a choice that professional investors would not have made, because it was based on expectations rather than numbers. “We knew that Disney was opening a new park in China and lots of people would want to go to that. We also knew that Disney owned the Star Wars franchise and a new movie was about to come out,” Buckley said. These unconventional methods have helped them beat not only the stock market return, but top hedge funds, according to Gilligan.

In the past, the Investment Group has had many opportunities open up to them due to their success, Gilligan said. “Two years ago, we were invited to Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, and Archegos Capital.  It was a great experience where we learned great trading techniques, gained a better sense of the nature of the work, and provided us with a great opportunity to network with top investment banks and hedge funds,” he said. He also said last year Hedge Fund Manager Bill Hwang visited the group. “It was a great experience to present our stock techniques to a person I have read about in books,” Gilligan said.

This semester, the Investment Group is on the cusp of discovering for themselves and implementing a brand new model. Their advisor has worked out a yet-unpublicized model of investing to predict where the price of a stock is going, and Toth said that Kim has asked the Investment Group figure it out for themselves using Excel. “Having a model that no one has used before,that’s huge. We can take advantage of that,” Toth said.

This semester, the Investment Group will have the opportunity to participate in a stock market competition at Temple University. The team will consist of Buckley, Gilligan, and Stetson.

“We will be competing against all of the best schools in the nation, but I am confident that with our investing strategy that we will win,” said Gilligan.

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Stories In Focus

Shaping the Future: Houghton Student Summer Internships

Passing up an internship for a paid summer job may be common among college students, but it often means missing out on valuable experiences. This summer, Houghton students Chandler Jones ’17 and Melissa Maclean ’17 took internships in their fields, and agree that their experiences have shaped how they see their future career path.

Jones, an international development and communications major, interned at International Justice Mission (IJM), a Christian human rights organization headquartered in D.C. She worked as the Community Mobilization Intern.

img_3292img_3290“In any country where the legal system is corrupt, IJM goes in to help restore justice,” Jones said. According to the organization’s website, IJM is an anti-slavery organization that combats violence against the poor and vulnerable. Jones participated in lobbying congressmen and senators about the Ending Modern Slavery Act while interning for IJM. This role fit well for Jones, who hopes to one day work as an international human rights lawyer.

Jones added her experience at IJM made her feel sure that she was called to fight for justice through the legal field. She had known of the organization since her mission trip to Cambodia after graduating high school, where she helped care for victims of human trafficking. When she discovered that IJM rescued the girls from brothels, Jones began to pay attention to IJM’s efforts and dreamed of working there. Gary Hagen, the author of her favorite book, The Good News About Injustice, is the CEO of IJM. According to Jones, her internship built her communication skills and confidence, while also enriching her spiritually.

“Being with people my age who are so motivated and want to change the world is so inspiring,” she said.

Meanwhile, MacLean, also an international development and communications major, worked as an intern at two organizations throughout the summer, Heritage Christian Services and Motion Intelligence. MacLean worked under the director of communications at Heritage, which is an organization that provides services for people with autism spectrum disorder in Rochester. She also interned at Motion Intelligence, a company that does groundbreaking research with the State University of New York (SUNY) Upstate Medical Center in the field of diagnostics. Motion Intelligence focuses on concussion testing, autism, and athletic performance. MacLean acted as a freelance videographer for the organization.

“It’s been an incredible opportunity to explore my interests and get a genuine feeling for whether this would be a good fit for me,” MacLean said of both internship experiences. She said she realized she enjoys working for a specific cause like autism spectrum. “It’s molded my spiritual life, molded my work ethic, molded my compassion, honed my professional skills, and given me opportunities to network,” she said.

Both Jones and MacLean said their internships helped them to see what kind of work they felt passionate about and strengthened the skills they will need for the future.

“Even if you get an internship in something that has nothing to do with what you do in the future, that networking is so incredible,” MacLean said. “There’s nothing bad I can say that came out of the experience.”

 

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Opinions

The Need for a Second Language

Americans are notoriously monolingual. The United States Census Bureau reports that as of 2009, only 20 percent of Americans spoke a language other than English at home. By contrast, the 2012 Eubarometer Report indicates that 25 percent of Europeans are trilingual.

Why is America, which began as a “melting pot,” so linguistically homogenous? Most Americans are exposed to a second language in the form of multiple years of language classes at the high school and/or college level. But according to CIA Director Leon Panetta, the United States may be the only nation in the world where it is possible to complete high school and college without any foreign language study – let alone without mastering of another language. I believe that is the reason for our cultural mindset.

Sarah Van de BrakeTo many of us, learning a foreign language is something to check off a graduation checklist or put on a resume. I would urge people not to think of language simply as an academic subject. A foreign language is a new way of thinking. Language learning has benefits for the individual. It enables a person to gain a new perspective, learn a valuable skill, and even decrease their risk of getting Alzheimer’s, according to a research report by Suvarna Alladi published in the journal Neurology. But these are not the only, or even the best reasons to study a language. The ability to communicate with people who are not native English speakers can be a way to invest in and validate them.

At Houghton, there is an Integrative Studies foreign language requirement, which can be fulfilled in multiple ways, according to Houghton’s website. A student can take the standard classroom setting route and complete an intermediate-level class in Spanish, French, German, Greek or Hebrew. If they studied a foreign language in high school for four years, this can fulfill the requirement. Studying abroad is another option; Houghton’s study abroad program in Tanzania program is very popular.

Some students are opposed to having a foreign language requirement because they are not sure it will have any practical application for them, or because it is difficult to fit into their schedule. Some have to take online classes or Mayterms to gain foreign language proficiency. Some students with learning disabilities may have trouble meeting the requirement.

However, I believe that this requirement is good—it can add richness and depth to a liberal arts education. However, everyone learns differently. It would be valuable to allow for focus on the cross-cultural element of language learning rather than on the academic side.

Students should be able to fulfill a language credit in other ways. Journey’s End Tutoring, a volunteer program that interacts with and tutors refugees in Buffalo on Saturday mornings, is definitely a cross-cultural experience. Some students might find this approach more fulfilling and engaging than a classroom experience.

After all, teaching foreign language is meant to get students interested in cultures and peoples besides their own. It should also teach them creative ways to communicate and get them excited about what they’re learning.

Sophomore Alanna Paris, a Spanish major, explains why foreign language is important to her: “Learning a language is not just about thinking a certain aspect of it is ‘cool’ or languages are interesting. It is about people,” Paris said.

She described an experience she had with two kids in Children’s Church who did not speak English, and the frustration she felt at not being able to communicate. “I remember thinking one day I could be the difference that made someone more comfortable in an uncomfortable and lonely situation. Instead of simply seeing a problem and being sad I could help others and make a difference in their lives,” she said.

If you have already fulfilled your Integrative Studies requirement, or do not have time in your schedule for language, consider that taking a class is not the only or even the most valuable way to connect with another culture. Getting to know someone whose first language is not English can be a meaningful cross-cultural experience. Learn from people in small ways, such as becoming familiar with a few words here and there, listening to their stories, and learning to be sensitive to another culture’s nuances. So get to know that person at church who doesn’t speak English, or talk to an international student, or meet and tutor refugees through Journey’s End Tutoring. It will be worth your time.

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Campus News

81 Pounds of Food Wasted

On Tuesday, Houghton College Eco Reps and Sodexo partnered for a “Weigh the Waste” event to raise awareness about food waste.

weigh the wasteThis week was Sodexo’s Wasteless Week, a week where the company is especially mindful about how to cut down on waste that occurs in the dining hall. This year, food waste was the focus.

To collect data about how much food is wasted during one meal, volunteers from Eco Reps collected the waste from students’ plates before they were sent to the dish-room. The waste was collected in buckets, which were then weighed.

According to an article published by Jean Buzby in the journal ScienceDirect, almost half of all calories produced by animals and less than one-fifth of those produced by crops in the U.S. go to waste. During Tuesday’s dinner, 81.25 pounds of food was wasted. “That weighs as much as a small human,” said Gabrielle Papia ‘19. According to this data, 12.6% of the food that was prepared went to waste.

“I want to thank our Student Sustainability Intern and the Eco Reps for facilitating the Weigh the Waste event. We hope that this event encouraged student awareness and behavior change as they make food choices and select amounts of those items,” said general manager of Sodexo, Kathie Guyler.

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Campus News

Integrative Studies Under Review

Over the next two years, Houghton College’s Integrative Studies (IS) curriculum will be restructured to better meet the needs of students.

According to Susan Bruxvoort Lipscomb, Director of Integrative Studies, the current IS system has caused issues. According to Lipscomb, students often have trouble creating their schedules, and the system is at once “excessively complex and generic.”

Fancher2RGBIn June Lipscomb and a group of faculty attended an institute in Oklahoma to study ideas about general education revision. Lipscomb said the vision proposed by the faculty returning from the institute is of a curriculum that is simple, unique, and works well for students. She said general education could be spread over all four years, rather than it being something to “get out of the way” as soon as possible. Lipscomb wants to make IS meaningful to students and to make it “reflect Houghton’s identity and mission.” She noted one way to accomplish this could be to allow experiences outside of the classroom to fulfill general education requirements, for example students could volunteer for Journey’s End Tutoring as part of fulfilling an outcome for global engagement.

However, not all faculty members feel these changes are necessary. “I am not entirely persuaded that it [the current IS system] didn’t work,” said former director of IS, professor Peter Meilaender. “I would be quite happy for things to stay the way they are.” Meilaender also said he does not think the system is as confusing as some have suggested.

Both Meilaender and Lipscomb agreed making changes will be difficult because “so much is at stake.” The new proposal will have to be approved by faculty government.

Senior James Pratt agreed with Lipscomb saying, “Every semester I have trouble with my schedule.”  However, sophomore Alanna Paris, disagreed and said,“Overall I’ve found Integrative Studies straightforward and attainable to achieve. The general education courses are usually interesting and make my overall experience more enriching.”