Category: Opinions

On January 20, 2010, the STAR staff published observations of current events at Houghton and their predictions for the coming decade. Here we respond to the accuracy of their predictions and offer a few of our own for what 2020-2030 holds in store for Houghton College.

“Sciences – The new science wing will be built, but not before 2015. Hopefully the new wing will give Houghton the kind of reputation that will make it a candidate for conferences and conventions about environmental sustainability and technology in Western New York.”

In 2010, Houghton was fundraising to expand Paine with a new wing near Luckey. More recently Paine was going to be expanded to add a fifth floor. In the past year individual departments have downsized and reorganized within the building, making expansion unnecessary. Instead, the funds raised to support the sciences have been used to renovate and upgrade existing classrooms and labs within the building.

“Conversation Topics – Chapel requirements, drinking, and smoking will continue to be annual sources of conversation. Of the three, the chapel requirement is the least likely to be relaxed (excluding the possibility of moving to a Tuesday-Thursday chapel schedule).”

Houghton has showed no sign of shifting its stance against drinking and smoking or loosening its two-thirds chapel requirement. But as smoking has been alternatively demonized by broader society, then accepted again in the form of vaping, and then attacked once more for its health consequences on teenagers, it’s unlikely that people will push the college to allow tobacco use.

“The Color Green: Environmental and Economic commitments will create tension. Because money is and probably always will be tight, the school will have to be creative about its environmental commitments. Although it won’t become a marketable ‘distinctive’ until the money is there to fund dramatic investments in environmental technology, Houghton will, for the time being, focus on smaller scale environmental sustainability. Look for local food production, the Science Honors program, and partnerships between Recreation & Leisure, Sociology, and the Sciences to provide exciting ideas.” 

Sustainability has continued to come more into the spotlight as far as causes Houghton promotes. The past few years have seen small changes such as the installation of energy-efficient lightbulbs, and some more labor-intensive programs such as the planting of the campus garden, which during the fall semester supplied the Campus Center Dining Hall with fresh herbs. The Center for Sustainability has also opened its new office/lounge space on the third floor of Chamberlain, allowing sustainability to become a more visible component of daily life at Houghton.

“First Year Honors Programs Science Honors and EMW will remain the same while London will either be dropped entirely or replaced by another Mayterm-model program. Enough people at Houghton are suspicious of Honors study that attempts to start a new Honors program will face an uphill battle all the way.”

How the tables have turned. This May, the last-ever East Meets West cohort will depart for the Balkans. Meanwhile, the class of 2023’s freshman London Honors cohort is currently studying in England, and recruitment for future cohorts is underway. It remains to be seen whether proposals for new honors programs will be met with significant resistance.

“Foreign languages – All foreign language majors will be completely cut and will move to an entirely minor/concentration based program. However, other languages that are rising in frequency and practicality (Mandarin, Chinese, Arabic) will be added.”

As predicted, Houghton no longer offers foreign language majors. Additionally, Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) and Linguistics programs are being phased out. Spanish, French, and German are offered as minors (and Spanish as a concentration for Inclusive Childhood Education). However, the History and Political Science department is moving towards requiring foreign language experience for its majors.

“With the now-complete implementation of the four-credit system, and the increased time investment this system requires within one’s specific field, students who become unsure of their degree track in their second or third year will be unable to change majors without a significant amount of rescheduling, and possibly extra semesters and tuition costs incurred. One of the negative effects of this will be to create students who are dissatisfied with their majors, unenthusiastic about their departments, and to increase the amount of transfers to other schools.”

In 2010, Houghton had transitioned from mostly 3-credit courses to more 4-credit courses. By the time most current students enrolled, it was stepping back to a largely 3-credit system. Prof. Laurie Dashnau, who has taught at Houghton for 20 years, says that the experiment complicated transfer credits. It allowed professors to dedicate more time and attention to each individual course they taught, but departments found it more difficult to offer enough discrete courses to round out majors. A 3-credit system may not make it an easy matter to change majors as a sophomore or junior, but the current mix of 3-credit classes with some 2- and 4-credit courses (and even a handful of 1-credit seminars) seems to allow adequate flexibility for students to pursue their degree tracks and interests with an appropriate workload.

In the coming decade, Houghton will continue to search for ways to increase community engagement and worldwide connections in an endeavor to bring more investments into its shrinking main campus. It will need to consider the accessibility of the campus to diverse students. The steep hills separating Shen and Roth from the quad are natural obstacles which the college will be asked to creatively overcome. Serious renovations will have to occur in order to install elevators and other physical accommodations to buildings, especially the dorms. Houghton will also have to continue examining its practices surrounding gender identity and sexuality– how to apply housing rules to gender nonconforming students and open hours restrictions to same-sex couples. Even at what will remain a small college, there will be enough diverse students to call for practical solutions to issues that Houghton has not had to account for in most of its history.

One of the most divisive and bitterly fought over issues that Americans face today is the issue of climate change. As we look back through the last decade, we can see just how partisan this issue has become: President Obama committing the United States to the Paris Climate Agreement in 2016 only to have President Trump withdraw from the very same agreement in 2017 (making the U.S. one of only three member states of the United Nations not to be involved in the treaty, along with Syria and Nicaragua). This can also be seen in the Trump administration’s rollbacks of established environmental regulations, ranging from Obama-era strict carbon dioxide emissions standards for coal burning power plants (December 2018), to clearing U.S. federally controlled waters in the Arctic for offshore oil drilling (October 2018), and more recently, a dose of now frequent verbal attacks on water saving standards in new appliances (especially toilets) from the current president himself.

But why has this seemingly scientific issue of climate change bled into the realm of politics? It may be the same reason that many issues which seem far from political become flashpoints in political discourse: acknowledgement of the issue would demand a fundamental change in behavior. If one acknowledges that humans, through the burning of fossil fuels and the release of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, are contributing to (if not downright causing) the average global temperature to rise—exacerbating issues such as wildfires, rising sea levels and extreme weather events—one would presumably modify one’s behavior in order to lessen their impact on these events. (Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that traps heat by absorbing infrared radiation from the sun and storing it.)  Here lies the problem: coal and oil have been creating jobs and creating millionaires since the Industrial Revolution, when coal was first burned to power steam operated machinery. When something has the potential to allow you to make a living or even to become wealthy, it is very hard to turn your back on it and no longer support it, because your change in behavior, caused by your acknowledgment, damages yourself in some way.

President Trump ran on a platform appealing to many blue-collar workers in the so-called Rust Belt, promising to return to coal and recreate the jobs that had been lost in that industry. This message may have been responsible for his winning in key swing states such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Michigan in the presidential election in 2016. If candidate Trump had acknowledged that the burning of fossil fuels and the subsequent release of carbon dioxide contributed to rising global temperatures, and vowed to regulate emissions and coal burning, he very well may have never even secured the Republican party nomination, costing him the presidency.

On the same line, national and even local representatives running in districts historically supporting the coal industry have a smaller chance of getting elected if they recognize that the burning of coal and the release of carbon dioxide have a direct link to rising global temperatures. This is simply because their rhetoric goes against an important (albeit harmful) pillar of the local economy. Voting for or electing that anti-coal candidate would go against that district’s own self-interest, and if there’s one thing that human nature tells us, it is to protect our self interest above all else, perhaps at the expense of others—or even our environment.

Climate change is difficult to talk about. It can cause arguments, fracture relationships and cause deep divides to form between people and political affiliations. While I respect those who disagree that the burning of fossil fuels and the release of carbon dioxide causes changes to local climates and the global environment, I also invite them to think about why they believe this, and to research the many thousands of scientific articles, papers, and journals dedicated to this subject. 

It’s a brand new decade! Hopefully the years 2020-2030 will bring all of us great joy, fantastic memories, and a deeper relationship with Christ. The past ten years haven’t all been horrible; there were some interesting years, some sad years—but there were happy years too. For myself, 2010 seems like forever ago—I was ten years old! I had no idea what I was doing with my life, and I certainly didn’t know I was going to be attending Houghton within the same decade that I survived middle school (oh boy… I do not miss those days of colorful shorts and little black mustache designs everywhere). 

Ten years is a long time. A lot of changes can happen, in fact a lot has changed. My suggestion? Let’s figure out what things we’d like to leave in the last decade and what things we’d like to start doing for the next ten years. 

I’d like to start by addressing a phrase that I personally struggle with. Have you ever been discussing a serious matter with another Christian and it leads them to say this phrase:  “Oh, that’s awful. I’ll pray for you.” This is right up there on my list of top pet peeves (right under when tall people get in front of me and then proceed to walk slower than a snail). To the recipient of that flippant phrase, it sounds like the listener either doesn’t care, or doesn’t want to take immediate action to help. While nothing is inherently wrong with this phrase, perhaps in this new decade instead of saying we will pray for someone, let’s take a minute and pray right then and there! Either with the person or by yourself for them if they are uncomfortable with doing so. It can be quite intimidating, but I think it’s worth trying.

Another thing we can leave behind is the need to say something is okay when it really isn’t. Allow me to explain: too often, I have found myself hearing news that I didn’t want to hear. My response to these types of situations is typically saying “oh it’s okay,” to avoid making the other person feel bad. While the gesture is sweet, it can become very taxing on yourself. For example, let’s say it’s as simple as someone canceling plans at the last minute that you had planned months prior. A typical assumption would be to reply with this phrase, rather than saying what we really feel. For myself, I’m working on the ability to be more honest. It’s not rude to explain why and how something negatively affects you; of course, you don’t need to “cancel” the person, but if you tell them how you truly feel, they will know how to handle the situation better in the future.

That brings me to my last suggested item to leave in the previous decade—canceling someone.  Last semester, I was meeting with a professor in Java and the topic of “canceling someone” came up. Together we agreed that it is a harsh thing to do, especially from a Christian perspective. But even for those who don’t consider themselves religious, it can be a horrible habit to get into. What exactly does a person have to do to become canceled? Where does forgiveness fall, where is the line between something simply being offensive and something warranting being canceled? Many more questions come to mind with this recent ideal; I implore you to think it over. Have you canceled someone or a group of people before? Was it worth it? If you haven’t, do you think there would be a situation that justifies canceling someone? These are good questions to think about as you begin your journey into this new decade, and perhaps the new you. 

Alright, time to turn our minds to the future—to 2020 and beyond! What might we continue to do, or maybe start doing for the first time, in this new decade? Well, this list can be quite extensive, so I have simply name a couple of my personal suggestions. The first: learn when to say yes and when to say no. 

Differentiating between the two can sometimes be a challenge; we don’t want to disappoint anyone, so we agree to do things we secretly would like to turn down. On the flip side, we say no to things that we want to do for the sake of others and their personal desires (or we spent so much time doing the things we said yes to that now we are too exhausted to participate in something we actually want to do). So how do we know when to say what?

Personally, I believe the choice comes down to how I truly feel. While it can be kind to think of others, it’s important to also think of yourself. Constantly thinking of others can lead to a person becoming drained—learning your own personal limit can be a 2020 goal! In fact, a friend of mine was discussing this very problem at lunch. As I was listening to her, I realized both how important it was for her to grow in the ability to differentiate between saying yes and no, and the importance of myself being aware of the temptations and struggles of others around me. 

You may be thinking “Jacie, you’re contradicting yourself! How am I supposed to think more about my own needs and become more conscious of others’ needs too?” I’ll admit, the two ideas do seem to oppose each other, but the key is balance. Yes, it is wise to be able to look after yourself, and pay attention to your physical, mental, social, and spiritual needs, but don’t forsake paying attention to others. This is not to say that you are responsible for others, but it is suggesting that it doesn’t take much to carefully analyze how your personal actions could affect someone else. 

Perhaps now would be a good time to wrap things up, as I’m sure you have a lot more to do (watch Netflix, socialize with others, take a nap… maybe do some homework, if you’re feeling ambitious). I can leave you all with two short lists.

Things to leave behind in the last decade: using the phrase “I’ll pray for you” in place of real concern/prayer, saying things are okay when they really aren’t, and canceling people. Things to start/continue doing in the new decade: learning when to say yes and when to say no, balancing self-care and awareness for others, and last but not least, taking time to focus on the new you. Happy 2020 everyone, good luck in this new decade!

“The chief end of man,” the Westminster Shorter Catechism declares, “is to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” I believe that is true, but how does one glorify God? It’s a phrase we throw around without much understanding. I would suggest that people glorify God chiefly by enjoying him. If I’m right, then it is critical that the Church identify and combat those things which harm our ability to enjoy him. Here, I want to uncover how pride does that. I also want to propose that the twin doctrines of human depravity and God’s sovereign grace can help combat a significant source of that pride.

Pride harms our ability to enjoy God by crowding out our vision of God’s all-satisfying, joy-giving beauty. It replaces that with a vision of our own profoundly unsatisfying beauty. So even though were created to savor the pleasures abundant at God’s right hand and to experience fullness of joy in his presence (Psa. 16:11), many try to satisfy their hearts with the inferior joys found in pride and self-reliance. The well-worn quote from St. Augustine’s Confessions is apropos: our hearts are indeed restless until they rest their affections on God. Pride makes that impossible; we cannot enjoy God fully when any of our attention is on ourselves. To glorify God as we ought, then, we must identify and combat every source of pride.

A common source of pride is the belief that the human heart is able to desire and pursue God. It is easy to see why many Christians believe this. We all, to some degree, want a sense of agency in our lives. It’s natural. But natural and healthy are not synonymous. “God, and God alone, is fit to take the universe his throne,” Steve Green sang, and all God’s people said amen. But it’s easier said (or sang) than understood. We’re happy to affirm that God is sovereign over suffering. We’re happy to affirm that God is sovereign over whom we marry. But our salvation often isn’t considered when we work out the implications of God’s sovereignty. In our pride, we would rather maintain agency there. But when our pride places any of the agency for our salvation in ourselves, it strips from God the glory that is rightly his.

To combat this source of pride, I offer two complementary doctrines. The first is the doctrine of human depravity. This doctrine is, unsurprisingly, avoided by most of us. It is deeply unsettling to be told that apart from Christ we are “dead in our trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). Our hearts rebel against the idea that “there is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God” (Rom. 3:10). Who wants to confess that they are by nature a child of wrath (Eph. 2:3)? To avoid this, we misconstrue Ephesians’ language of being dead in sin to mean that we can desire and pursue God, even if only a little, without being already resurrected by the Spirit. But we can’t avoid it if we’re to effectively minimize our pride. The more clearly we see the vast expanse between our depravity and God’s holiness, the more awe-inspiring will be his act of salvation. Understanding our depravity will produce a heart with no room for pride.

The second doctrine is that of God’s sovereign grace. This is the teaching that no one can come to Christ unless the Father draws them (John 6:44).  We contributed nothing to our regeneration. The Spirit gives us rebirth according to the good pleasure of the Father and we cannot affect it (John 3:8). The Spirit alone can make the glory of God in the face of Christ appear so attractive that we can’t help but place our faith in him. This leaves no room for our own agency in salvation. The more we understand this doctrine, the less our pride will limit our ability to glorify God.

Together, these two truths – human depravity and sovereign grace – undermine our pride. We often minimize these doctrines because they can cause discomfort or fear. But they shouldn’t. Rather, they should be one of the deepest sources of all-pervading joy, which in turn will enable us to glorify God by enjoying him forever.

David is a sophomore majoring in intercultural studies with concentrations in Linguistics and PreMed.

In the future when people cast their gaze back in time to analyze our generation, memes will undoubtedly be one of the flagship artifacts of our culture. First of all, what is a meme? Of course, most of us will just know. We’ve seen them, we’ve shared them, we’ve created them – new relationships exist because of them. However, despite their prolificacy, coming up with a way to define a meme is actually quite difficult.

Most results from a quick search roughly explain memes as pieces of media that spread for humorous or political/social commentary purposes via the internet. Different sources cite different “pieces of media” among the first memes, including Pepe the Frog (2005), the Hampster Dance Song (1998), or the Dancing Baby (1996). Some people claim a meme has to send a message, but if so, what message is communicated by the Hampster Dance Song? Or Johnny Johnny memes? Certainly some memes send clear messages, especially those featuring the classic bold white text, but clearly some of them do not – at least not in any easily recognizable way. I was amused to find that the Wikipedia page on memes includes a subsection on “dank” memes, which describes them as pieces of media that are “so nonsensical that they are hilarious.” And what about “meta” memes – yet another subgenre of memes that are in some way self-aware and self-referential. It was when I was introduced to this baffling subgenre of memes and tried to make sense of what was happening before my eyes that I first started thinking about some of the striking similarities between our culture’s memes and the artistic/communicative expressions of other eras.

Unsurprisingly, our generation is not the first to enjoy ironic, nonsensical humor and self-referential forms of expression. During the interwar period of the early 20th century a new movement in art and philosophy called Dadaism emerged as a kind of artistic anarchy or anti-art. Where previous art movements sought to create beauty, the Dadaists created aesthetically offensive images. Where others wanted their art to have a great purpose, the Dadaists pushed the boundaries of what was required to be meaningful. Where others looked at Dada creations and cringed, asking, why? the Dadaists responded with an avant garde, why the heck not?

Most famous and perhaps most representative of the Dada movement is a, uh, “readymade” sculpture by Michael Duchamp, created by turning a urinal on its side, and entitled “Fountain.” Other Dada works include collages of magazine and newspaper clippings, industrial scrap twisted into semi-human figures, and, also by Duchamp, a parody of the Mona Lisa where the famous woman is featured with a mustache and goatee. Classy. I dare you to look up this “painting.” It gets even better. But this was exactly the kind of nonsensical twisting of traditional values that the anti-bourgeois, anti-institutional, anti-art Dada movement was aiming for. Although, like memes, some Dada art was decidedly more serious, aiming for a sarcastic commentary against the war, a different strain of the same social/political angst also led to the subgenre of art whose only message, if it contained any at all, was directed at the medium itself. Why make a urinal into a sculpture? Precisely because it doesn’t make sense. The audience wouldn’t know what to do with it, but ultimately, that is the very reason they would love it

So are memes the same as dada art? No, there are several important differences. We do not have a manifesto or great studios, and I doubt any of us are intentionally anti-establishment when we share memes. Dadaism was a movement (ironically) of an artistic, intellectual elite, while the sharing of memes today is a ubiquitous part of popular culture.

However, I am suspicious that there are a few significant similarities between us and the Dadaists, despite the one hundred years between us and the revolutionary advent of the internet. In the same way that avant-garde Dadaist conceptual art pushed the boundaries of beauty and meaning, our own forms of expression leave some people confused. It is ridiculous. We love the nonsensical. We love expressions that don’t take themselves too seriously. We love badly animated videos of semi-human creatures doing ridiculous things. We love memes. They don’t have to be meaningful. Part of us loves them even more if they are not. Like sideways urinals self-referentially commenting on the power of art, if memes like the Dancing Baby and Johnny Johnny have any meaning at all, it is to comment on the power of the medium: the internet itself.

So if you like dank memes, maybe you will like some Dadaism as well. And, as a side note, while you’re in the art gallery, perhaps you can take a quick gander at other kinds of art. Don’t be surprised if you see other sides of ourselves reflected in parts of the past.

Gabi is a senior majoring in intercultural studies and English.