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News

Three Floors to Close in Student Dorms Next Year

Residence Life and Housing has decided to close two floors in Gillette and one additional floor in Roth for the 2014-2015 school year. The floors to be closed are fourth main and old in Gillette and fourth west in Roth, which is cut in addition to the first floor in Roth closed at the beginning of this year.

GilletteThe decision to close three floors was made “in response to a low enrollment figure for the current year,” said Marc Smithers, Director of Residence Life and Housing, and the closures are not an indicator of lower enrollment for the upcoming year.

Another reason for the decision was on the basis of the fact that there was “so much empty space in the residence halls,” said Smithers, leading to concerns about proper stewardship of the buildings. The closures should cut maintenance and custodial upkeep costs for the residence halls and will save heating and insulation expenses. In addition, three RA positions will no longer be required for the closed floors.

Smithers noted the positives, “Instead of cutting things, we’re pushing things together… It’s a way to save money, but we’re not getting rid of anything.” In addition, Smithers stated that too many empty rooms in a hall could be demoralizing to residents, in which case a more compact dorm could have its advantages.

The move could potentially affect current residents on the floors who would be hoping to “squat” their rooms for the next year. Smithers said that Residence Life and Housing is aware of this potential issue and thinking of appropriate solutions, though they have not arrived at an answer yet.

The floors will not be closed indefinitely and, according to Smithers, are expected to be reopened for the 2015-2016 school year.

 

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Opinions

Death, Joy, and Christmastime

Christmas (or Hanukkah or Kwanzaa etc., but for my purposes Christmas), is fast approaching. School has a tendency to push the holiday to the background, but very soon we will be suddenly remembering that we must buy gifts for parents and siblings and best friends before slogging home through December slush. And when we arrive, we will be faced with the reality of how we feel about this particular holiday.

Christmas is associated with joy and warm fuzzies, and comes with a wildly heightened atmosphere, more so than any other holiday in our society. It’s an atmosphere fed by people of ymany different backgrounds—Christians place exaggerated emphasis on family, love, and giving of oneself, and in general, everyone focuses on parties, food, festive décor, good cheer, and buying presents—of which consumer culture takes eager advantage.

In the movie Love Actually, a compilation romantic comedy set on the backdrop of the countdown to Christmas, the characters constantly use Christmas as both a reason and an excuse for their various behaviors. A secretary confesses her love to the Prime Minister, “Because, if you can’t say it at Christmas, when can you?” A groom’s best friend confesses his love to the bride, “Just because it’s Christmas, and at Christmas you tell the truth.” A boss urges his employee to confess her love to her co-worker, because “It’s Christmas.” Much is expected at Christmas. Much is connoted—people are meant to experience love and people are meant to travel to their childhood homes to gather around warm hearths and exchange heartfelt gifts with loving family members.

It’s a difficult time to have bad memories.

christmasThe hefty amount of people with disjointed families and/or scarring experiences can easily feel marginalized when the seeming majority is swimming in a dream of sugar plums and packages tied up in string. My parents announced their divorce in the fall of my 7th grade year. Christmas was the last day we were ever together as a family. Fortunately, my experience has not soured my feelings towards the holiday itself as much as it could have, and as much as it certainly has for others with similar or worse experiences.

Two years ago in a chapel service before Christmas break, Dr. Bruxvoort Lipscomb read her essay “On Death in December,” explaining her associations between death and Christmas. She listed three tragic deaths her life that had each occurred in December, and each involved a mother losing a son. Her essay focused on a painting of Madonna and Child by Bellini in which the Christ-child appears dead, and she pointed out that Christmas is, in reality, the celebration of a baby who was born so that he could eventually die. She concluded with confession that when she thinks of the births of her own children, she thinks also of their inevitable death. In that moment, it seemed to me an unnecessarily morbid distortion of what should be a joyful holiday.

A few weeks later, my aunt died.

I’ve since experienced my fair share of grief. My aunt was the second in a series of deaths of four loved ones over the past two years, and marked the first time that I glimpsed, from my stubborn place several rows back at the viewing, a disquietingly real body within a casket. Her death made true for me the words that Bruxvoort Lipscomb had shared: Christmas is indeed a season about “birthing death.”

While this truth may not have always been apparent to me throughout my life, I know now that it was the only reality for my mother. At childhood Christmases she would ever hang a small stocking for my deceased sister above the fireplace alongside the rest of the family’s larger, teeming stockings. She asked that we write notes to Baby Jesus and place them in the stocking, and I never understood the connection between my sister and Jesus, until two years ago. But for her, and for Bruxvoort Lipscomb, and for many others like them, Christmas has always meant something a little different.

It’s common for people with contrasting experiences to feel animosity towards one another. Those who have had mostly pleasant Christmases throughout their lives, as I have, tend to feel that those who appear more cynical are putting a damper on the Christmas spirit. Those who have not been so fortunate tend to feel isolated and misunderstood. Christmas needs to be sacred. Christmas needs to be changed. Christmas is perfect. Christmas is unimportant.

I don’t think Christmas is really either of these things.

Similar to the inflated perception of what a “Christian family” should look like, the concept of Christmas tradition is also far from what the Christian religion would actually call for. We started out with the basic idea for a celebration of Jesus’ birth, and tacked on pagan practices along the way, partly to aid with evangelical efforts, partly just for fun. Like Valentine’s Day, the holiday is now so strongly tied to distorted, Hollywood versions of love that do more harm than good. But Valentine’s Day is a simple holiday, based primarily on legends and trivial customs. Christmas is not such a throwaway holiday. Christmas has roots that are vitally important to Christian beliefs, and it should not be treated in the same way. Both overly positive and overly negative perspectives on Christmas are too simplified to do it justice.

I have found great hope in the Christmas story of Jesus’ birth and promise, but I have also found great hope in Bruxvoort Lipscomb’s version of Christmas, one that takes an honest look at the future of the baby Jesus. Taking both viewpoints together can lend to the holiday the depth and dignity that it deserves. Don’t cheat yourself this Christmas by focusing on only one aspect of your experience. To be sure, Christmas is a time of deep joy, but it is not a holiday to be taken lightly.

 

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Stories In Focus

Catholic Students at Houghton

Though Houghton College professes Christian Wesleyan religious affiliation, many students enrolled at the school inevitably differ in denomination, tradition, or religion in general. Such differences serve to produce a conversation between contrasting beliefs and a resulting respect for others regardless of his or her religious tradition.

One such presence, differing from the Wesleyan denomination, is students affiliated with Roman Catholicism. Approximately 30 students currently enrolled at Houghton College this fall identified themselves as part of the Catholic religious tradition.

Kayleigh Gurney, Houghton freshman and Catholic, explained some of her experience as a Catholic student in a Protestant institution. Sometimes people will “talk about Roman Catholics as some completely outrageous religion,” she said, but for the most part people at Houghton prove understanding and accepting.

Courtesy of stpatsbelfastfillmore.org
Courtesy of stpatsbelfastfillmore.org

College often serves a time for exploration in a student’s beliefs or practices, an idea that may contribute to the accepting nature of the campus. Andrew Gibson, senior, though raised Catholic, takes the opportunity to attend a Protestant church while at Houghton. “Most of the backgrounds and views are the same,” he said, “so it’s a fairly easy transition to be Catholic at a Protestant school.”

Though students like Gibson participate in a different religious tradition, others continue to pursue the tradition they know. A family from Buffalo recognized the need for a ministry to provide a link between Catholic students at the college and a Catholic church. Consequentially, the family requested that Saint Patrick’s Catholic Parish in Fillmore initiate such a ministry.

Officially beginning in 2007 and initially aimed at engaging students affiliated with the Catholic tradition, the ministry surprisingly brought in equal numbers of Catholic and non-Catholic Houghton students from the start. The result, according to the ministry’s website, was a “dynamic, organic, and personal Campus Ministry,” in which Catholic students desiring a connection with a parish community and non-Catholic students interested in exploring the Catholic tradition might come together with a “mutual respect for each other” and their differing religious traditions.

Debra Fitzgerald, current campus minister to Catholic students at Houghton College along with her husband, Dan, first encountered the ministry through her children attending Houghton. When the previous campus minister left the position, Fitzgerald had been actively involved and the former minister subsequently recommended her to take over.

Through her experience in the ministry, Fitzgerald emphasized the importance of the church’s availability to college students interested or involved in the Catholic tradition. “We try to incorporate the students into the life of the parish,” she said, “so that they feel like they have a church home while they’re away at school.”

While the main focus of the ministry lies in providing transportation between Houghton and the Fillmore Parish every Sunday for Mass, on Holy Days, and on Saturdays for Confession, the ministry also provides access to other related events.

Consistently focusing first on the needs of the students, Fitzgerald proves attentive to their busy schedules and academic concerns. “We’re fulfilling the needs that the students have without piling things onto them,” she said.

As a result of such a focus, events such as Donut Hour on Sundays after Mass, a time when students eat donuts and drink coffee provided by the church while socializing with each other as well as local parish members, often promote a low-obligation atmosphere, while intentionally building relationships between the church and the students.

Fitzgerald encourages both Catholic and non-Catholic students to take advantage of the ministry, to produce even more conversations and relationships between different religious traditions. She believes there is more opportunity and understanding now than before, especially between Catholics and Protestants.

“Houghton has a very good atmosphere in terms of social morality and seriousness of study, as well as respect for the whole Christian tradition,” said Fitzgerald.

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Opinions

Residence Hall Rules are an Insult to Integrity

Houghton College prides itself on being different from other schools. What makes Houghton unique is the school’s concentrated effort to help guide students into leading a holier way of life.

resA result of that effort is reflected in the college’s rules regarding the dormitories. Residence halls are not co-ed, and there is a four-hour window in the evening for those of the opposite gender to visit. During those visiting hours, doors are required to stay open, so that everybody can see what is going on inside the room. Open hours are not held on Mondays or Thursdays.

Now, there is one other place in the world that I have been to that has a similar policy regarding visitors. Granted, this is going to be an extreme analogy, but hear me out.

A psych ward.

To clarify for those who are reading this (and are now pretty worried about where this is going), I have never been admitted to one. I have visited one however, and have experienced what it’s like for the people inside. Imagine a place where you are checked in on by nurses, the doors always have to be open so that you can be watched, and visiting hours are limited for friends and family who want to see you. Now replace nurses with RA’s. How much different are the rules of the dormitories here at Houghton as compared to those of a psyche ward in a hospital?

“I understand what open hours are meant to do,” said Josh Bailey, a junior who now lives in the townhouses. “However, I also feel that they limit our freedom as mature college students, and restrict the opportunities that we have to grow up.”

What are the positives of the current open hour policy? It gives the residents of a hall a break from the opposite sex. There’s a level of privacy that can be experienced when open hours are not in session. I suppose the obvious answer is that we’re less likely to have sex, although based on the culture that has been established here, I don’t think that’s too much of a concern anyway.

Then again, isn’t it a little frustrating to be babysat? Isn’t the open door requirement kind of a slap in the face of our beliefs and character? Isn’t the four-hour window a little too restricting?

Houghton College prides itself on being different from other colleges. A different kind of student is attracted by this place; those who wish to live according to the values of Christianity. Shouldn’t we be given the opportunity to show that we can be trusted to hang out in a dorm at noon on a Monday?

Ashton Oakley, a junior who used to live in Lambein, suggests that open hours should be extended so that the only restricted times would be somewhere along the lines of 12:00pm-9am. This would allow us to still have a safeguard for the evening hours, but also allows us a greater level of freedom that people outside of Houghton take for granted.

In reality, since our classes take up most of the morning and the afternoon anyway, we wouldn’t take full advantage of the expanded open hours. However, it would be nice to allow students to feel as though they have more freedom than a mental patient.

 

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Stories In Focus

Dr. Wei Hu: Inspiring Students to Love Learning

The Cultural Revolution had recently ended in China. For the first time in ten years, students could enter college by taking a standardized exam instead of supporting a political system. Working parents studied beside teenagers newly graduated from high school. Wei Hu, a teenager at the time, recalls admiring the maturity of his older classmates, trying to follow their example, and with them cherishing the “privilege to go to college.” Now a professor with years of experience, Hu passes on his classmates’ legacy by mentoring and working alongside his students and inspiring them to love learning.

Professor_HuHu, a professor of Mathematics and Computer Science, has spent years musing on his role as a teacher. One component of his role, he suggested, is that of learner. He stressed that he cannot acquire information and then turn his focus to delivering it skillfully to students. Instead, he must continually refresh his knowledge, particularly in the rapidly-shifting field of computer science. Even if he uses only a small fraction of his expertise, he said, he wants an abundant supply from which to draw.

Kristin Camenga, chair of the Mathematics and Computer Science department, emphasized the task that faces Hu. “Dr. Hu cannot depend on last year’s notes to teach almost any of the courses because the content has changed,” Camenga said. “He regularly changes the content and approach to the classes, changing software, adding new applications, and changing assignments.”

A second component of his role as teacher, said Hu, is to create valuable interactions with his students. While exploring how to do this, he realized that collaborative research was unique, effective, and complementary to the strengths he brings to teaching.

Hu’s goal is to give every student the opportunity to learn through research. In upper level courses, classmates often collaborate on a research paper. Hu also involves students in more intensive research during the summer.

Brian Dickinson, a junior majoring in Computer Science and Business Administration, described summer research as “a full time job. Working from 8:00am to 5:00pm Monday through Friday for the first several weeks is typical, though in later weeks there is usually a significant amount of reading and writing outside of work as the deadline for the final product approaches.” Hu participates in and guides the student’s work, but also encourages them to experiment as they create and modify their algorithms and write their research papers. Hu “has very high expectations for what can be accomplished, and they can seem incredibly daunting,” Dickinson said.  “In my experience with research however these expectations can always achieved and surpassed.”

Even when the results do not match the expectations, Hu has an answer: “That’s research.” Failure and unpredictability are part of the research process.

Since 2009, Hu has published 14 research articles with his students. However, the results of Hu’s interactive teaching style extend farther than these tangible signs. Students appreciate the content they learn in Hu’s classes, Camenga emphasized, but even more thank him for his “encouragement to be the best student they could be and not ‘settle.’”

 

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News

Enrollment Numbers Short of Anticipated Target

Courtesy of houghton.edu

With the start of the Fall 2013 semester came approximately 280 incoming students, a number that falls just below the anticipated enrollment target and consequentially may elicit questions concerning the welfare of Houghton College.

“The goal for the past couple years would aim for around 300 to 400 students,” said Ryan Spear, Assistant Director of Admissions, establishing the fact that the actual number of new students coming to Houghton this fall follows a trend of low enrollment.

The total of first-year students, transfer students, and those returning to Houghton after taking time off for various reasons, comprises this enrollment number.

Spear acknowledged that Houghton, as a Liberal Arts institution and as a college in general, faces challenges in regards to consistently bringing in students.  “If you look at the media, a lot of the news stories out there are challenging that college is even worth it,” he said, “…that’s one thing that has been a challenge, not just for Houghton, but for all institutions – proving that it is worth it.”

Eric Currie, the college’s new Vice President for Enrollment Management, added, “In some places and areas, education has turned into an expense, not a value… we have to help people see the tangible aspects and purpose in having an education at Houghton College, and for that matter, in Christian higher education.”

One example of Houghton’s recognition of this problem and approach to eliminate it, Currie later said, is that the college currently demonstrates its value in a new way, by investing in families for longer than what was previously normal.

“We take a proactive approach,” Currie said, “by allowing families to enter into in a longer process or journey that has been normal in the application process… Now with the financial pressures that are out there, we see that we have to have a greater persistence.”

That persistence carries over to other areas of enrollment as well.  Spear identifies another obstacle the college faces in bringing in students, and how persistence in that may produce different results as well.

“There are things that are happening locally, regionally, nationally, and globally that all affect enrollment at Houghton College,” said Spear.  “One of these trends is that more and more students are studying closer to home, and Western New York has experienced a population decline during the past few years or decades.”

Another one of Houghton’s marketing and enrollment strategies to counteract trends which may hurt the college’s enrollment is to contact specific types of students, such as those currently enrolled in a community college, who may plan on transferring to a four-year institution like Houghton.

“We have moved into some deeper relationships and partnerships with some community colleges in the area,” said Currie while considering one way in which Houghton works to bring in more students in the future.

In the end, both Currie and Spear agreed that Houghton College faces its challenges in appealing to incoming students and in competing with other education or career-oriented options, yet both expect and currently see positive outcomes.

Although enrollment numbers fall on lower ground than Houghton hopes, Spear remained confident.  “It’s a challenge for Houghton to recruit – that’s for sure,” he said. “But we think that God is using Houghton in a powerful way in the world.”

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Opinions

Different Schools for Different Fools

Quote templateCollege has become a rite of passage in our society.  The Common Core Learning Standards, supported by the U.S. Department of Education and adopted by 45 states, places a strong emphasis on college readiness.  Middle school and high school teachers and career counselors feel obligated to convince young adults to attend postsecondary institutions by highlighting our crumbling economy. “No one gets a job these days without a college degree.”  We have all been forced to watch power points of the statistics that showcase the benefits of the academy.  Higher percentages of people with some sort of college degree get jobs.  The more advanced your degree, the higher your salary.  I would not be surprised by any recent graduate who felt slightly entitled to the jobs and salaries promised to them by these statistics.  (However, the fact that these statistics show up when I am considering paying more money to further my education makes me wonder about how the numbers are interpreted.)  College is becoming more and more necessary to an individual’s place in society.

Some blatantly suggest that the academy is the only option and that a postsecondary liberal arts education is the very best of that option.  I honestly have been told that choosing Houghton College was the best thing I could do for myself and for the world.  Can anyone truly come to know who they are and how they relate to the world without the reflective attitudes fostered at such an institution?  Others wonder whether the academy is worth the time and money that so many people commit to it.  Does academia really convince people to look and act outside of scholarly work and into real life and practice?  Or do most scholars eventually turn back to the books to solve the problems in which they have little to no actual experience?  Those who ask these questions consider the academy self-indulgent and irrelevant.

Some days, I appreciate my education here more than others and might be inclined to agree with the most committed scholars of the academy.  Other days, I cannot remember why I have submitted myself to the possibly meaningless endeavors of postsecondary studies.  Most days, I do not feel strongly in either direction.  Why question it at all at this point in my education?

Personally, academia has helped me to discover the kind of person I want to be.  It has been partly through my post-secondary studies that I have come to understand more fully what humanity, faith, and society are, and what they mean to me. This, I believe, affirms the merits of the academy.  However, I would never suggest that someone like my sister, who discovers every day through dance what it means to be human and relate to others, join the same academy I enjoy.  Or that my friend, who uses his natural mathematics abilities to create stage sets and build houses, should use his hands instead to write a scholarly article.  Perhaps there are majors and programs at post-secondary institutions that simply give people the degree they need to follow the work at which they will truly excel, the action that brings them life.  In such cases, colleges and universities become small stepping-stones rather than a way of scholarly life.  To some people, maybe more even than will admit it to themselves, academia simply fails to give life meaning the way our culture claims it will.

It is not my intent to depreciate the benefits or significance of the academy.  After all, I have continued my studies here at Houghton and have enjoyed much of it.  It is simply to challenge the pedestal upon which the academy rests in our society.  Are postsecondary studies intrinsically and universally good?  I think not.  The academy is not inherently good or evil; I have found few things in this world that are.  The goodness, usefulness, and purpose of anything will most often depend upon the personality and style of the one that chooses to invest in it.

Things to Eat

When asked by prospectives what Houghtonites “do for fun,” students can direct them to the carefully worded “101 Things to Do” on the Houghton website, sporting events, CAB activities, lectures, and concert series. Or students can tell them the truth that, for the most part, they simply make their own fun, and one of the ways they do this is by preparing food. Houghton students make a lot of food.

From Muggins and waffle-ice-cream birthday concoctions in the Dining Hall to cookies, pastas, vegan muffins, banana breads, curries, rice, Mac-n-Cheese, and stir-fry, Houghton students, like so many in the world, find community through food.

Facebook is awash with pictures and comments on the food Houghton students create and share. The location and equipment of Shenawana Hall’s basement kitchen is more of a hall rumor than a source of community, but the other dorms, townhouses, and CLOs are full of students meeting their basic human needs with flare, generosity, and plenty of pure vanilla.

Courtesy of tripadvisor.com
Courtesy of tripadvisor.com

A Christian lifestyle and the Houghton location invites many to an even more thoughtful and gracious relationship to food and food sources. Shopping at the co-op embodies necessity, community, and blessing intertwined and is a lifestyle choice which engages the local economy in a stewardship-minded fashion.

Houghton students were provided with ample opportunities to explore both their relationship to food and food’s relationship to faith during PRAXIS week. The upcoming season of Lent is a time of fasting and contemplation, a chance for all participants to reevaluate their personal idols, dependences, and priorities through food restriction. Yet even during Lent, fasting is meant to be followed by feasting, and the Christian Sabbath becomes a focused time of fellowship and community.

My roommates gave me a taste of this community the other day with a spontaneous snack, made from ingredients as local as possible — our yard. They doled out “snow ice-cream,” Paula Dean-approved and Professor Lipscomb-recommended,  from a large Christmas-red bowl. We topped it with a reheated peanut-butter-and-chocolate mixture — the failed coating for a batch of Puppy Chow — and sat around the table, giggling like children and eagerly devouring the sweet, cold concoction.

So on Sundays, when your Lenten fast is put on hold for Jesus-approved feasting, make your own fun by making your own food — like snow ice cream! — to share with Houghton friends and family. To make snow ice cream: Combine 12 cups snow and one 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk. Serve with topping of choice.

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News

Continued Closure of the Flats Explained

Early in the spring of 2012, Houghton College made the decision to close the flats for student housing. This was disappointing news to much of the student body for multiple reasons.
“The main reason for the uproar was because of the misconceptions surrounding the decision to close the flats” said Jim Vitale, junior.

College Flats. Courtesy of www.hagerengineering.com
College Flats. Courtesy of www.hagerengineering.com

The bulk of students’ arguments seem to revolve around financial issues and a lack of understanding thereof, especially given that the flats appear to have remained open and functional.
The decision to close the flats was sparked by a need to decrease spending across campus. Each department was asked to account for their spending and to make some cuts. In a campus-wide email sent out this last week, Dr. Robert Pool, who recently became VP for Student Life, said that, “We have also had to make some sacrifices.” He continued to say that “Necessary cuts were made with a wise eye toward optimizing learning and trimming excess.”

The decision to cut the flats boils down to occupancy management practices.
“We made the decision based on the information we had at the time” said Gabe Jacobsen, director of Residence Life.
During last spring—when the cuts were decided—there were roughly 90 rooms that were left empty in the resident halls.
“When we were making the decision to close the flats, we realized we could have done it the year before and still been able to house everybody; it just wasn’t on the radar” stated Jacobsen, “even if the incoming freshmen class surpassed 400,” a number larger than any of the current classes, “we would still be okay”

There are currently some possibilities being considered for ways in which the institution could change the structure of the flats to accommodate for future use. One suggestion proposed would be to change the requirements for living in the flats. Currently students must be in their second year at Houghton with a minimum of 60 credits and not be on disciplinary probation.

Nevertheless these changes exist only as possibilities for the future. According to Jacobsen, “at least as of this year the capacity of housing will outmatch the current projection for the incoming class.” However, the school will remain flexible. If the need for extra housing arises, the prospect of reopening the flats is not completely out of the question.

Currently the former student residence has been re-purposed for short-term housing for various groups and organizations that Houghton hosts such as youth groups and sports camps. Having the flats available for this purpose makes accommodating guests during these events more feasible for the Residence Life department. Previously the unused parts of the Gillette basement were utilized for this purpose.

Furthermore, being in such a remote location severely limits housing options for new faculty members, and so the flats have recently been utilized for long-term housing for transitioning faculty members.

“Having the flats available has made the transition to Houghton easier for several new faculty and administrators since I was essentially able to tell them ‘we have a place that you can rent for a while,’” said Dale Write, Executive Director of Human Resources and Administration.
Not only has closing the flats benefitted the institution by enabling Houghton to house faculty long term and providing room for groups and organizations to stay while on campus, but also, according to Mr. Wright, “The combination of additional revenue and expense reductions have surpassed our expectations.”