Category: Campus

“That’s my favorite picture of Willard.” Laura Habacker stands outside the front door of her office, gesturing at the larger-than-life portrait of Willard Houghton that hangs on the library walls. Her office is surprisingly warm and welcoming, full of light and crowded with row upon row of gray archival boxes, majestic old typewriters, and Dictaphones. “I’ve been putting signs up so people can find us!” Habecker says.  

While most archives are traditionally maintained to answer the questions and support the projects of the President, Habecker envisions a more open atmosphere. “This stuff is here to remind all of us why we do this,” she said. Still, only two keys to the room exist. One belongs to Habecker, and the other to President Mullen.

As part of an ongoing relationship with the New York Heritage Digital Collections project, Habecker also spends hours each week scanning tintypes and black-and-white photographs of the college and the towns, landscape, and people of the Genessee Valley. “I have a much broader perspective because I didn’t attend here,” she says. “I see the history with very different eyes than anyone else who’s been in this position.”

Habecker, who joined the library staff as resident archivist last year, has a cheerful smile and a youthful, contagious enthusiasm. “I love my job!” she says. “Every single day I get to go home with a cool story.” On several occasions last year, she says, she was so immersed in a scribbled manuscript or an unidentified photograph that she had to be reminded to pick up her son after school.

She has Willard Houghton’s treasured “pocket manual,” dated 1890, which contains sermon notes and Scripture passages and is positively riddled with typos. “He couldn’t spell for anything,” Habacker explains with a rueful smile.

Fascinating stories also abound in boxes sent from alumni and former faculty. “Can you get the scrapbook?” Habecker asks Jessica Robinson ’18, a library student worker who has been helping to organize the archives since Habecker joined the staff.

Robinson returns with a delicate green and red notebook, carefully wrapped in parchment paper. Inside, documented by fragile scraps of paper and a loose, carefree script, are the remnants of a young female student’s life. Clippings from the jokes section of the Houghton Star (an example:  A playbill for something called “Yuffalo Yills Wild And Wooly Circumambulating Circus Abomination,” featuring pink lemonade and a “Great Moral Drama” and whose staff was “not responsible for and pick-pocketing” that occurred during the show.

Hidden throughout the archives are sometimes surprising, always winsome reminders of the many ways in which these students were like us. One of these is the display of classic Houghton dry wit. In an entry entitled “In Freshman Math,” the student recounts a class period in which then-professor James S. Luckey (later the college’s second president) proposed enhancing Oberlin applications and preparing for advanced physics classes by studying analytic geometry, trigonometry, and calculus—“thus killing two birds with one stone.” Another student, described as “doleful,” replies: “It’ll probably kill three.”

Several pages later, a group of bonneted girls stare somberly toward the camera in one photo and then erupt into raucous, goofy giggles in another. Another photo finds them arranged around a favorite tree. “They called themselves the Allen Family,” Habecker says. On the facing page appear the girls’ names and nicknames, laid out together like the cast list of a play. They called one of the girls “Grandpa” and another one “Aunt.” I can’t help thinking of the many students I have seen cheekily sporting “Houghton Dad” or “Houghton Grandma” T-shirts.

Yet there are a few sobering reminders that, in many ways, they were not so like us. Tucked into a cedar chest in the back of the room, the college’s war flag is splashed with stars for every student who joined the army—along with three small triangles for the Houghton students who died in battles overseas.

In coming years, Habecker hopes to engage even more of the student body in exploring the college’s history. “The whole focus of the school is the student, so I want the students represented,” she said. “If it’s not for the students, then why are we here?”

To that end, the college archives are now open to students between 1 and 4 p.m. every Friday afternoon. Students are also invited to join in the adventure by sorting through documents, scanning and repairing photos, and moving records into acid-free storage.

Says Habecker, a gigantic grin on her face: “I’m willing to work with anybody!”

Last academic year an anonymous note was slipped under a student’s door which said, “You don’t belong here, n*****.” This sparked a flurry of conversations on campus about race relations that culminated in several students of color threatening not to return this fall. Following an investigation into these events, the college began the “the process of approving and adopting a new diversity statement,” according to Dr. Rob Pool (VP for Student Life). But, as of this reporting, the new diversity statement has yet to be approved. And going into the first day of classes this semester, members of college administration, including Student Government, were anxious about how many students of color would choose not to return.

A separate, but related, matter of diversity involved the firing of an RA by Student Life for her self-reported relationship with another female student. Since this type of relationship is deemed by the administration as “homosexual behavior,” the RA was determined to be in violation of her contract as an RA as well as the Houghton College Community Covenant, and was “relieved” of her position in Spring 2017. This created new fears among the campus’s LGBTQ population as to how welcome in the Houghton community they are. (according to anonymous LGBTQ student interviews). As these events were transpiring, the College has been involved in discussion of edits to the Community Covenant related to the acceptability of “homosexual behavior” on campus.

Clearly, the College’s relationship with its diverse students is strained. To this end, as reported by the STAR in recent editions, Dr. Robert Pool gave a presentation to the Student Government Association which was intended to address some of these issues. The college began considering “programmatically based” changes such as “resource allocation,” and the “shaping [of] our policy,” according to Pool. But in his recent Letter to the Editor, Shaphan Hestick (SGA Officer of Diversity and Inclusion) branded the administration’s response as close to “self-congratulation” without adequately addressing “what happens daily on this campus.” In an interview, Hestick elucidated his position further: “What policy has changed? None. We can’t just throw money at this issue and expect change. We need acknowledgment from the administration that Houghton is negatively biased against diverse students, not only our students of color, but also those who identify as LGBTQ.”

During his presentation for SGA several weeks ago, Dr. Pool shared the updated retention data for students of color this Fall semester. While Houghton’s overall retention rate has consistently been one of the best in the nation (Chronicle for Higher Education), its record with students of color has been less-than-optimal. For this semester, students of color made up 32% of all students who withdrew. Compared with the percent of the student body that is diverse (19%), retention among the college’s diverse students was proportionally worse than for the student body as a whole. When compared to the data for the last 10 years (or 20 semesters), this fall semester was the worst semester in its retention of diverse students. In other words, the college’s retention of diverse students has never been worse.

In response to what he sees as a failure of properly responding to the plight of diverse students, Hestick has recently engaged in a protest by ending his involvement with many of his duties in SGA as well as his positions in several college councils and committees until “we make peace with the struggle of diverse students.”    

One year ago, Houghton College’s Admissions Office decided to change their policy on standardized test results. The college now allows a student to decide whether they want to waive their SAT or ACT scores during the admissions process, allowing students to instead submit the CLT (Classical Learning Test) for their test scores.

This shift allows students more options and an increased chance of admission to Houghton. It is especially helpful for students from diverse backgrounds, especially those who come from refugee households or underprivileged homes and may need to overcome greater obstacles to take the SAT. Students who choose to opt out of the SAT have their academic scholarships capped at a certain amount, but they are made aware of that before waiving and is an option for them.  

Based on last year’s admissions statistics, thirty-eight students applied test optional or waived their SAT scores. Out of those thirty-eight students, twenty-one were admitted. In the pool of admitted students, the average GPA was 3.2 and 76 percent had a GPA of 3.0 or higher. During the fall of 2017, 3.8 percent of all incoming students applied test optional; during the fall of 2018, 8.4% of students chose

The Admissions Office believes that number will grow even higher in the future, and that the consistently standards of academic quality testify to the new policy’s success.  Incoming students still boast high GPAs, but many are being admitted whose SAT scores may have inhibited them in the past.

This is especially true of the many refugee students at Houghton College Buffalo and Houghton College Utica. Under New York law, each of a college’s campuses must use the same admissions policy, which posed a struggle for the Buffalo and Utica campuses. Ryan Spear, Houghton’s Director of Admission, was concerned that even students with exemplary GPAs would not be able to overcome the obstacle of a standardized test in their second language.

“In many ways you can buy a better score [on the SATs],” Spear said. “If you’re a student with the ability to pay for SAT classes or a book and you have a guidance counselor helping you, you are going to do better than a student without those privileges.”

He also stressed that “Admissions is a holistic process, and allowing for expanded test options allows for that,” and noted that the Buffalo and Utica campuses are on board and Houghton College Buffalo had an eighty percent success rate with the program already.

Claire Brower ‘18, an international development major, said, “It really doesn’t affect anything once you get to college.” In many ways, Brower is exactly right. Spear also noted that in college, work ethic is often just as important as intelligence. Many successful students have a good work ethic, which a standardized test can never examine or quantify. A student should be allowed to work their way up in college, and sometimes getting a better option at the start can help that.” Carrie Smith ‘18, a psychology major, also succinctly summed up the support she has seen for the policy: “Tests shouldn’t define you.”

In January 2018, Houghton will launch its new Student Ambassador Program.

After receiving ample feedback from current students who had heard about Houghton through word-of-mouth, the Admissions Office sought to capitalize on this strength. The purpose of the new Student Ambassador Program is to increase admissions through conversation with current students. It gives Houghton students a focused and deliberate mission: engage with prospective students and encourage them to apply to Houghton.

Nikki Garns ’18 explained that this new program “gives students access to increase their involvement at Houghton” as well as enhancing their “communication skills” and developing “their professionalism as someone who is representing a professional institution.”

Through this program, current students have the opportunity to promote Houghton to prospective students through interpersonal connections. “Admissions is something that everyone at Houghton—whether they work here or go here—is a part of, whether they know it or not,” Bjorn Webb ’18, a current intern at the Admissions Office, said. “And the Student Ambassador Program is a way for students to actually see their role in the process, and see how big of a difference they can make.”

Callie Lloyd ’18, also an admissions intern, agreed with Webb. She added that many current students are already, in their own way, stepping into the role of an ambassador unknowingly. “I think we all already talk about Houghton whenever we’re home,” she said. “I think this program just gives people an incentive to be more intentional about it, and reach out to students who might be interested in coming to Houghton.”

For high school students, talking with a current student could open the possibility for otherwise unexplored avenues of conversation. Teri Koetsier ’18, also an admissions intern, said, “Talking about Houghton specifically is going to mean a lot to high school students because as soon as they hear that you’re a student and you’re going through campus life, through classes, through sports and other activities, they’ll actually start to believe what you’re saying and start to open up and ask real questions about Houghton.” Having these conversations with prospective students is a way, Webb claimed, “for current students to take ownership of our school.”

Stepping into the role of a student ambassador is a way for students to “experience getting out of your comfort zone,” Joe Miner ’18, admissions intern, said. “This program gives students the invaluable experience of making connections, and making conversations about what many of us are already passionate about.”

Ambassadors are given “access to incentives by simply having conversations with high school friends or potential transfers about your personal experience at Houghton and encouraging them to apply,” Garns said.

“When I think of the benefits of being an ambassador, I don’t even think of the professional benefits,” Miner concluded. “Instead, I think of general interpersonal benefits that come from this experience where you can truly grow as a person from it.”

All students are encouraged to apply for the Student Ambassador Program. Applications will be accepted until November 21, and selections will be finalized on December 6.