Category: Campus

Over the second weekend in October, representatives from the 98 member institutions of the National Network for the Lilly Fellows Program (LFP) in Humanities and Arts gathered at Belmont University in Nashville, Tennessee to attend the program’s twenty-fifth annual National Conference. Among them were Houghton College’s two designated representatives: Linda Mills Woolsey, Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the College, and Stephen Woolsey, professor of English.

While the organization hosts their yearly national conferences at member institutions all over the country, the Lilly Fellows Program in Humanities and Arts is based in Christ College at Valparaiso University, a Lutheran institution in Valparaiso, Indiana. LFP’s mission statement declares that it “seeks to renew and enhance the connections between Christianity and the academic vocation at church-related colleges and universities.” The organization attempts to achieve this goal through three major initiatives: the National Network, the Postdoctoral Fellows Program, and the Graduate Fellows Program. The Postdoctoral Fellows Program is a two-year residential fellowship specifically at Valparaiso University, while the Graduate Fellows Program supports ten fellows who hold bachelor’s degrees from LFP member institutions over three years as they pursue doctoral work in the humanities and arts. Two past graduate fellows are Houghton alumni: Kyle Vitale (‘09) and Gerard Gentry (’10).

“One of the best things about going to the most recent conference was that I got to see Kyle Vitale and talk to him about his experience,” said Mills Woolsey. “He talked about the Lilly Graduate Fellows program as being a lifeline during such a discouraging time for students in graduate school in the arts and humanities.”

Mills Woolsey, having represented Houghton at conferences off and on since 2001, was elected to a four-year term on the National Network Board for LFP last year. As a board member, she attended discussions and panels at the 2015 conference, but also attended a day-and-a-half-long board meeting. The LFP National Board, which is composed of twelve members, meets twice a year. Meetings are packed with discussions in which they decide what initiatives LFP will fund in the coming year, what themes they will pursue for future conferences, and what prospective institutions they might accept into the network.

Although Houghton maintains memberships in other Christian national organizations, including the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities and the Christian College Consortium, LFP stands out as a Christian network that crosses denominational lines.

“Lilly overlaps with CCCU in that it does include some evangelical colleges, but it’s broader,” said Mills Woolsey of the organization. “You get to interact with faculty from Roman Catholic colleges, Lutheran colleges, United Methodist and Presbyterian colleges, and some of the Baptist colleges. It’s a more varied pool, but it’s amazing how much we share in common.”

The commonalities in these academics’ commitment to their faith and vocation are celebrated at LFP’s annual National Conference. This year’s conference, entitled “Created for Creativity: Music, Culture and Faith,” took place from October 9 through 11. In conjunction with Belmont’s strong music program, the conference focused on the theology of creativity. Participants had the opportunity to network by exploring Nashville together, sharing meals, and attending sessions that featured speakers who specialize in some aspect of the music profession. These speakers included the director of Belmont’s Religion & Arts Program, a music professor and choral director from Auburn University, a record label executive, and an award-winning songwriter and performer.

While each conference has its own unique theme, with past conferences discussing such diverse topics as racial justice and urban issues, music and worship is always an important part of the National Conference. According to Mills Woolsey, Roman Catholic and Protestant members alike share in ecumenical worship services together that are especially meaningful, and inspire a sense of fellowship among its participants.

This fellowship is ultimately what makes LFP special as a National Network, whether members experience it through worship, conversation, or a speaker’s message. Mills Woolsey affirmed this, saying:

“As a speaker, you want to draw your audience into a conversation that discusses what are our shared beliefs, and what are our shared problems and concerns, rather than focusing on the things that divide us.”

In the midst of a challenging time for higher education in the arts and humanities, LFP allows schools like Houghton to continue to grow in their mission, while connecting with other like-minded institutions. Fortunately, Houghton’s strong and lasting connection with LFP has and will continue to benefit the college’s lasting legacy in the liberal arts.

Dorm life at Houghton has changed since last semester. The student body has felt the impact of extended open hours on the weekends, yet an old open-hours standby has seen its last days. 5Bites, a student operation run through Houghton Student Enterprises (HSE), is now officially out of business.

The snack shop, previously located at the front desk of each dorm, sold items such as chips, popcorn, Poptarts, ramen, soda, and other soft drinks. Desk proctors employed by the college  acted as cashiers for 5Bites. Marc Smithers, Assistant Dean of Students, stated, “The ‘desk’ has been an institution at Houghton for the last 15 or 20 years. It wasn’t till a few years after that started that we began selling things at the desk because we realized that we were paying these students to just sit there, when we could also provide another service to the students,” as well as earn money, which originally went toward hall programming. “The desk” at first existed to provide security for the dormitories. Before the swipe card system, dorms were open all day and only locked after 11 P.M., according to Smithers. “With the swipe card system, the dorms were locked all day, and ‘the desk’ began to make less and less sense,” Smithers remarked.

The closing of 5Bites was “strictly budgetary”, Smithers said. 5Bites did not cover the wages of the desk proctors, who were mostly paid through work study hours. Smithers contacted Professor Ken Bates, faculty advisor for HSE, over the summer to inform him the Student Life department would no longer employ desk proctors. Unfortunately for 5Bites, no arrangements could be made to continue selling its products.

When asked if HSE had any plans to resurrect 5Bites, Bates stated “5Bites would love to continue doing stores in residence halls, but without desk proctors, it just isn’t going to happen. If they had to hire students to man the desk, they’d pretty much be losing money.” Bates did note that HSE is beginning to expand its operations to concessions for athletic events at the Kerr-Pegula Field House.

Ashlee Duttweiler ’16 was hired to be the head desk proctor in Gillette Hall. Responding to questions of the rationale behind the suspension of the desk proctor jobs, she confirmed the issue of inadequate funding. “What concerns me the most, is that desk proctors didn’t just sell 5Bites. They also were dorm security. They were the ones signing people in for open hours,” she said. “From what I’ve heard, it’s kind of sketchy, as far as people just coming in and no one really knowing who’s in the building. I feel like there was more control over what was happening when people were at the desk and you had to leave your I.D. [with the desk proctor]. As far as safety goes, I feel like that was just better.”

Student response to the closing of 5Bites, as well as the removal of the desk proctors, as been mixed. Sophomore Bethany Schoonover observed “It’s smart for the college to have taken it [desk proctor employment] away, but that also means that students have fewer jobs.” Schoonover did not feel that the presence of the desk proctors “was stopping anything” nefarious, but rather thought that responsibility fell more onto the RAs of the residence halls.

Fellow sophomore Benjamin Eby concurred. “They [the desk proctors] didn’t really do anything. The rules keep honest people honest. At least people no longer feel patronized.”

While there is disagreement over whether the security the desk proctors may have added was necessary, the current situation will remain as is for at least the rest of the academic year.

TobyMac will perform at Houghton College on Sunday, October 11, along with artists Britt Nicole, Colton Dixon, and Hollyn on his “This Is Not a Test” tour.

TobyMac, a Christian hip-hop artist with two Grammy awards and Billboard Music awards, is known for songs like “City on Our Knees”, “Eye on It”, and “Speak Life.” Accompanying TobyMac is Nicole, a Grammy-nominated Christian pop artist, recognized for her songs “The Lost Get Found”, “All This Time”, and “Ready or Not.” Dove Award-winning Christian rock artist, Dixon, was made famous for his appearance on American Idol and is now known for songs such as “Through All of It”, “Never Gone”, and “You Are.” Also on the tour is Hollyn, an upcoming Christian recording artist who is featured on TobyMac’s most recent album, This Is Not a Test.

The concert will be the first of the 2015-2016 academic year and is the second concert to be held in the Kerr-Pegula Field House. According to Marshall Green, Community and Public Relations Specialist, the concert “will be a sold out show at just over 4,000” with “only a few select tickets left.” Senior Lizzie Yordy said, “I thought it was cool that a big-name artist like TobyMac, and even Colton Dixon were coming to Houghton. It’s good advertising for Houghton in a sense.” Sophomore Connor Barnes stated “Initially I was extremely excited just because he’s my favorite Christian artist and I thought it was really cool that a school as small as ours was able to bring in an artist that big.  After the Tenth Avenue North concert last year, when they asked for recommendations for artists to come the next year, I actually wrote down TobyMac, so I’m pumped that he’s actually able to come this year.”

The concert also falls on the first Highlander Preview Day of the year, which is on Monday, October 12, so prospective high school students who register for the visit day will receive a free ticket to the concert.  According to Betsy Rutledge, Assistant Director of Admission Events and Office Operations, Highlander Preview Day is “what was formerly known as ‘Encounter Day’” where prospective students will attend chapel, participate in a class, and get a first look at the Houghton campus.

Rutledge said “We always have a visit day on Columbus Day because high school students are off school.  When Kingdom Bound Ministries and Houghton were first talking about hosting a large concert the day before Columbus Day, we in the Admission Office got really excited because we knew it would be a good opportunity for prospective students to come to campus, enjoy the concert, meet our current students, stay overnight, and experience a little bit of what Houghton has to offer them.”  The Highlander Preview Day will bring in 220 students and their families, the “largest prospective student visit in Houghton’s history” according to Rutledge.

Prospective students will attend the concert Sunday night and stay overnight with current Houghton students, having their visit day activities on the following day.  Barnes said, “I think that’s good first of all because we can get people to visit but at the same time it’s something new, a new type of concert that students here can go to too, so that’s cool.”

The concert will be held in the Kerr-Pegula Field House on October, 11 at 6 p.m.

“And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season; his leaf also shall not wither; and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.” This verse from Psalm 1 is what opened the report on Forestry Management. This quote encapsulates what the committee is trying to do in regards to maintaining Christian stewardship of the land surrounding Houghton under their responsibility. The committee, an ad-hoc group made up of sustainability coordinator, Brian Webb; professor of biology, James Wolfe; director of technology services, Don Haingray; and vice president for finance and planning, David Smith, who have put their expertise together in order to protect the environment surrounding the college. The forest is well-used by students and faculty for bonfires, nature walks, and exercise on the many trails. From an outside perspective, one might never know there were any problems with the way the forest is growing.

Essentially, the forest has become overcrowded. The trees are now so tightly packed not enough sunlight is reaching the forest floor, meaning there is very little undergrowth or new trees growing. This is unhealthy for the forest because in ten or twenty years when the older trees die, there will be no young trees growing to take their place.

According to Webb, it has not always been this way. “If you look at pictures of Houghton’s early history you see blank, empty land,” he said. “Because all the trees were cut, and when a forest is that extensively cut, the way things regrow tends to be very artificial. We have an even age forest because they were all planted at the same time. It’s a product of the way humans cut the Houghton forest 100, 150 years ago.” The natural ecology of the forest has been disrupted, and the Forestry Committee is attempting taking the steps to help reduce the damage.

The committee’s focus is primarily on the overall health of the forest. Many of these necessary improvements can be made through a sustainable harvest plan. They developed a plan to thin out some of the trees in order to provide room for new trees to grow, in addition to providing the already existing trees with more space to grow healthily. Selective cutting, when done properly, will benefit the forest significantly, it will allow more light to reach the forest floor and help the smaller, younger trees to be healthy. The college will also benefit by selling the timber they cut down, with the revenue they receive going back into improving the forest environment.

In order to carry out this plan of safe timber removal, the committee has hired a New York State Forester. Already, he has done a detailed assessment of the forest, creating a specific breakdown of the different types of trees growing, which ones are growing well, and which are not, as well as gathering information on invasive species. The forester will mark the trees to be harvested, manage the timber company throughout the process, and ensure the entire logging process creates as minimal a disruption to the environment as possible.

The forester also identified ways to minimize the negative effects of tree removal, including minimizing the erosion caused by loggers, improving wildlife habitats, and dealing with invasive species. They will also avoid disturbing the everyday use of Houghton College property.

Though no date has yet been set for the timber removal to begin, it will take place either in winter or in summer. During winter, the ground will be frozen hard, which minimizes the damage vehicles can do to the forest floor. During summer, however, there will be few students still on campus, and will minimize the disturbance the logging process will make.

“This is a long term plan to care for this part of God’s creation. There is no ‘quick fix’,” said Smith.

Smith also said once the suitable harvest plan is set in motion, it will still take many years for the forest to return to its original healthy ecology. It won’t happen all at once. The plan recommended by the forester will take place over the next fifteen years, the first five years spent as they mark, harvest, and observe the changes to various parts of the forest. They will then spend ten years letting nature take its natural course and carefully observing what further changes may need to be made. It will likely take many generations of careful forest management before the forest is able to “take over on its own, and produce as it should,” as Brian Webb noted.

This summer, The Greatbatch School of Music experienced the resignation of the Dean of the School of Music, Stephen Plate, and his replacement by Armenio Suzano Jr., an interim professor of Music History.
Concerns for choosing the right person to fill Plate’s position were felt on all sides. According to Linda Mills Woolsey, Dean of the College and Vice President for Academic Affairs, they were searching for someone who could continue to be a leader and serve the students to the best of their  abilities, specifically in the areas of program renewal and student recruitment.

After Plate formally announced his resignation in May, Mills Woolsey informed President Mullen, and they began to discuss the best way to take the next step forward. “At that point we had just gone through NASM (National Association of Schools of Music) self-study for accreditation,” Mills Woolsey said. “So we needed to turn over the leadership in a way that would allow us to complete that process well.”

According to Mills Woolsey, it was decided that Suzano would be promoted to the position due to his capable communication skills and his attention to detail.

Priscilla Wortman, a second year graduate student studying vocal performance, said she knew Plate before she attended Houghton as  the Dean of her undergraduate school. When asked about how she felt about the position change from Plate to Suzano, she said “To see this actually happen was nice. He’s a really good fit for the school.”

Suzano talked about his plans moving forward as Dean and Director of the Greatbatch School of Music. While keeping the traditional feel the School of Music has always been important, they are also looking to trending contemporary markets. Such markets include the Music Industry major, a bigger role for Gospel Choir to play, and even a Worship Arts and Technology major.

The Music Industry track is currently available strictly as a minor, but Suzano is working on the third and final step and the projection is that mid-December, Music Industry will be an approved major.

Within the next year, Suzano sees the Greatbatch School of Music starting the process to include a minor in Worship Arts and Technology. The date for this to be a major is unknown at the moment, but the work is anticipated to go into making this a major as well.

This year the Gospel Choir, which is led by graduate student Malcolm Bell, has become one of the ensembles of the School of Music, according to Suzano. Although Gospel Choir is outside the realm of traditional conservatory-style music, being ethnic-driven, Suzano believes God is using this choir on campus, as a ministry.  Suzano said when he attended chapel this semester and worshiped with the Gospel Choir, he was met with a “solid block of sound, of anointing, of joy, of the presence of the Holy Spirit, and that is the product of the ministry of Gospel Choir at Houghton College.”

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.”

In 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.”

There have been several major policy changes which may affect students and their eligibility for financial aid and participation in athletics.  The changes have been made primarily for the sake of the students, but will also be adjustments for professors.

Faculty will now be required to meet an earlier submission deadline for end of semester grades.  Margery Avery, Director of Academic Records, said faculty at other institutions are given between 24 and 72 hours at the end of the semester to make their final submissions. Houghton faculty have been given ten days.

In the meantime Academic Records is trying to inform students and their families of their eligibility for financial aid or of their ineligibility for participation in sports.

According to Avery, there are scenarios where student-athletes can be eligible and actively participating in athletics (i.e. playing in games) prior to grades being submitted. However, once grades are submitted it is discovered they are no longer eligible and their participation is terminated.

Freshman Christopher Henderson appreciates this policy change.  “I think it’s great,” he said.  “The sooner you know, the better it is, the more you can be prepared for what you have and what kind of money you’re gonna have coming in and how to pay for college.” 

Final grade submissions for the fall semester are due December 23. Ideally, this will also allow faculty to better enjoy their Christmas.

There has also been a change to when students can add and drop courses.  The date for adding and dropping a course has been moved forward, giving students less time to make adjustments to their schedule.

According to Avery, it has become obvious adding a course two weeks into the semester makes catching up with material very difficult for students.  Also, professors who are trying to help students catch up with the material have a difficult time balancing between aiding the student who joined later and the students who are still trying to move along in the curriculum.  Although, not everyone may agree, Avery assured the purpose of these policy changes are intended to be favorable for both students and teachers.