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ISIS Beheads Egyptian Christians

Last weekend, a video surfaced of the Jihadist group, Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), showing the beheadings of 21 men. All of these men except one, according to National Public Radio (NPR), were Christian laborers from Egypt.

article-coptic16n-6-webBeheadings have not been uncommon for ISIS. On August 13, 2014 ISIS released a video showing the beheading of U.S. journalist and ISIS hostage, James Foley. On September 13, 2014, yet another video, this time showing the murder of British aid worker, David Haines, is released. Then once more on October 3 and once again November 16, 2014 ISIS released videos of the deaths of British minicab driver, Alan Henning, and U.S. aid worker, Peter Kassig.

This particular set of murders by ISIS differs than the previous. According to Abraham Bashr Aziz, who was present during the kidnapping and is also a brother of one of the deceased, ISIS was specifically looking hostages who were Christian. He said, “I heard them screaming, and I heard them asking about the Christians. They just came to kidnap the Christians.” The kidnapping, however, was not random. According to NPR, the gunmen who came to kidnap Aziz, along with his friends and relatives, had a list of names. Aziz was one of the names on the list.

Egypt’s response to the beheadings was one of violence and retaliation. According to CNN Sunday, Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi proclaimed his country “reserves the right of retaliation and with the methods and timing it sees fit for retribution for those murderers and criminals who are without the slightest humanity.” According to Reuters, an international news agency based in London, on Monday, February 16, Egyptian jet bombed Islamic State targets in Libya. An umbrella group of Islamists in Derna reported the bombing had killed women and children, and in addition warned Egypt of a “harsh and painful” response to come.

The terror from ISIS, however, did not stop there. According to CNN, an Iraqi official has recently confirmed that the town of al-Baghdadi, located in the province of Anbar, has been burned to the ground. With this town an additional 40 officers and tribesmen were burned alive. While the group has not posted photos of the murders on social media as they have in the past, there is reason to believe the Jihadist group is solely responsible for the murders and destruction. The proof comes from the social media updates bragging of their control of al-Baghdadi via photographs. These photographs included images of the recognizable government buildings in al-Baghdadi, along with corpses of the Iraqi joint forces located there.

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News

Olympic Gold Medalist Trains in KPFH

Olympic Pole Vaulter and gold medalist, Jenn Suhr, began training in the Kerr-Pegula Field House (KPFH) on weekday afternoons. According to Athletic Director, Harold ‘Skip’ Lord, Rick Suhr, Suhr’s husband and coach, called the athletic department in late September asking about the KPFH as a possible place for his wife and him to train. After multiple contacts, the Suhrs offered to be present for the homecoming ceremonies at the KPFH, including the ribbon cutting ceremony. The couple wanted to support the new facility, as well as the sport as a whole.

Jenn Suhr Front PageAccording to Lord, Suhr’s ties to Houghton go back to her high school years. Originally a basketball player, Suhr did not participate in track and field until her senior year. She had been recruited by Lord to play for Houghton when he was the head women’s basketball coach, but instead played basketball games in a Roberts Wesleyan uniform on multiple occasions at the Neilsen Physical Education Center.

Shortly after, she  began setting national records in track and field, improving over time until she reached her current status. At  the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, Suhr won the gold medal in pole vault. Then in 2012 Olympics, which took place in London, England, she received the gold medal in pole vault. Suhr also holds the world indoor record for pole vault, as well as five indoor and four outdoor pole vault records.  In addition to being a two-time olympian, Surh also anticipates a third trip to the 2016 Olympic games.

Suhr and Mr. Suhr  live in Rochester, but come to the KPFH about twice a week to train. As there are numerous field house complexes in the Rochester area, such as at Brockport University, Roberts Wesleyan, RIT, and the University of Rochester, Suhr choosing to train at the KPFH compliments the facility in many ways.  Lord said, “This [the KPFH] is as nice as any one of them, if not nicer.”

Jenn SuhrThe advantages of Suhr’s presence include increased visibility and publicity of the KPFH. Now that Houghton can now advertise hosting an Olympian on campus, Lord thinks filling up the building for both high school and collegiate indoor track and field events may be easier. “Prospective Houghton students still in high school, especially those we bring in for track meets, may be more drawn to the college because of this,” Lord stated. It is hoped high school track athletes visiting campus will be as impressed with the KPFH as Suhr is.  Lord added, “This is a very good field house for a NCAA division three school.”

Increased visibility for the KPFH is a primary goal for the Athletic Department. Though, as Lord remarked, Houghton is still “learning how to get the word out” and use the facilities to the maximum benefit of the students and institution. The hope is with the events and visibility of the KPFH, it will expose prospective students to Houghton, create a stream of revenue for the college, and stimulate both the local economy and the surrounding community.

Current students can look forward to the possibility that Suhr may enter  some inter-collegiate indoor track meets as an open, unattached competitor. Houghton pole vaulter, Judith Marklin, thinks it would be intimidating to compete with Suhr, but also would motivate her to be a better competitor, “I think that when you compete with people that are a lot better than you it really pushes you in so many different ways and seeing how she trains and just looking at her, herself, how much conditioning and strength training has to go into everything and how she really has to touch on all aspects.” She said, “ It’s not just focusing on pole vault technique, but everything. Seeing how to really focus on on all different aspects of your life , spiritually included, in order to become a good athlete, and then being able to compete against someone like that, you also have to step up your game and take into consideration all the different things you’re doing.”

Marklin also thinks competing with Suhr would also help people to get to know Suhr as person, not just an athlete, “I think a lot of times we like to put people that have achieved that amount of excellence on pedestals and not really see them as humans, but I think in competition you really get to see people’s strengths and weaknesses, so I think it’d be a good opportunity to see that in some ways we are just like Jenn.”

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Honors Curriculum Undergoing Changes

The Honors curriculum at Houghton underwent changes this semester. Weekly seminars, and a new, reemphasized, London curriculum are among the latest expansions, along with a proposal for a curriculum aimed at transfer students.

The Honors department’s decision to add weekly seminars materialized from honors students wishing that their first-year experiences did not have to end. Traditionally, first years go through an intense curriculum that doesn’t fit their schedule into their sophomore year. The curriculum’s emphasis has always been on “radically developmental experiences,” said Professor Benjamin Lipscomb, director of honors.

LukeLauer_Honors_GrayscaleIn order to keep the structure of the Honors present through the rest of their college experience, Lipscomb designed weekly seminars so that Honors students could get together and discuss challenging topics. “Students from different tracks and years mix together, studying topics of special interest to the faculty teaching them,” Lipscomb said.

The new London curriculum is also an exciting extension of the honors offerings. While it isn’t the same curriculum it used to be, Honors in London still embodies what study abroad semesters are all about: developmental experiences. “Students gain greatly from settling down in a foreign context for a longer period, from learning to navigate it independently to encountering the resources of world-class galleries and museums,” said Lipscomb.

The semester abroad in London might not have returned if it wasn’t for its powerful appeal to prospective students. No other college does anything like this. “It’s a highly distinctive offering that helps lodge Houghton’s name in the minds of prospective students,” stated Lipscomb. Honors in London gets prospective students to take a closer look at Houghton and the integrated, interdisciplinary curricula that the college has to offer and they could be a part of.

The proposal for Honors curricula intended for transfer students is waiting to be approved for next fall. The first-year curricula could not be used because they are built around the college’s core requirements, which many transfers complete at previous institutions before coming to Houghton. Also, a transfer student is more likely to be in a different place “developmentally and socially,” than a first-year student, said Lipscomb. Thus the need for different course offerings.

The transfer curriculum would entail one six-hour course to be taken in the fall; a little less rigorous compared to first-year students whose curriculum lasts the full academic year. The curriculum combines biblical studies and theology, since those are  requirements most transfers have not satisfied yet. Lipscomb said the “Reduced size and the fall semester placement are both acknowledgments of the needs of transfers, as is the pairing of disciplines.”

Ryan Spear, Associate Director of Admissions, thinks that the recent and potential changes to the Honors offerings will benefit current and prospective students. Spear concluded, “Houghton has a great reputation for offering unique learning opportunities and the expansion of our Honors offerings is a great way to reflect this culture.”

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Stories In Focus

Sherlock Series Three Disappoints

After a two-year hiatus, Sherlock returned to television at the beginning of this year to the jubilant delight of thousands of fans around the world.  For those unaware, Sherlock is a retelling of the classic stories by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in a contemporary setting. It provided the stage on which Benedict Cumberbatch, playing the titular character, burst into international acclaim, and it has not done poorly for the reputation of Martin Freeman in the role of deuteragonist John Watson, either. Written by Stephen Moffat (of Doctor Who) and Mark Gatiss, the show has thus far displayed a great ability to adapt Doyle’s original stories to a modern setting.

Courtesy of hollywoodreporter.com
Courtesy of hollywoodreporter.com

The third season had a tall order to meet. The dazzling success of the first two ended in the heights of mystery, as fans everywhere were left wondering how Sherlock had survived his apparent death while deceiving even Watson.  We all loved that ending, and looked forward to learning the explanation, as well as witnessing Sherlock’s return to his beloved London.

Any writers would have been challenged to deliver on fans’ expectations, and unfortunately, Moffat and Gatiss didn’t quite manage it. Compared to the prior two seasons, the third one has thus far been a relatively unremarkable example of television. Catering to the curiosity of the fans, Gatiss spent the majority of the first episode, The Empty Hearse,  focusing on Watson’s reaction to Sherlock’s return. As one of those curious fans, I was absolutely delighted by the emotion and concurrent humour involved with said reaction, but given the brevity of the episode, it was surely a mismanagement of time. It would have been business-as-usual in a show which featured seasons of normal length, but Sherlock only has three episodes per season, and I felt as though this writing decision cost them. Because the episode focused so much on Sherlock’s return, the drama of the actual case—in which Sherlock is to prevent a terrorist bombing of parliament à la Guy Fawkes—is hurried and unfinished. We never learned enough about the antagonist to actual fear that he might succeed, and by the end of the episode he still felt like an empty threat. Consequently, the resolution rang hollow as well.

The second episode,The Sign of Three, was slightly reminiscent of The Reichenbach Fall (the 2nd series finale) in its coverage of multiple cases which Sherlock hadn’t been able to solve. While it only seemed right that the writers should deliver handsomely on the wedding of John Watson, this episode again felt unfulfilling. The majority of it was retrospective, delivered in the form of history’s most awkward wedding speech, and it felt quite taxing by the time Sherlock wound to a close. Despite the fact that they tied all of the cases together at the ending and Sherlock was able to prevent a death during the reception itself, the entire episode still seemed as though Moffat and Gatiss had drawn inspiration from Michael Scott of The Office. While entertaining, it seemed out of place in Sherlock. Overall, the second episode was very disappointing. Most of the episode meandered without a clear antagonist to anchor it, and when he did show up it was without much hubbub or recognition. He was less engaging than a monster from Scooby-Doo, and the episode suffered for it. In most shows, I would call this a “filler” episode, making it a real shame that they wasted both the Wedding of John Watson and Sherlock’s first Best-Man speech on it.

Between the meandering and unfocused script of the second episode, and a first episode which, with its spectacled man and ominous music at the end, might well have been written to fulfill a checklist of “How to Introduce a Scary Villain,” the season has been much less enjoyable than the preceding two, and has felt much less engaging. That is not to say that it is a selection of terrible episodes, because it really still is far superior to most other contemporary television shows. Rather, in the third season, Gatiss and Moffat failed to meet the high bar which they themselves raised impossibly high in their first two seasons.  They put in a very good effort, though, and so I recommend that everyone who has not yet seen the season put the popcorn on and watch it ASAP—so long as you don’t hold it to the same standards as you might the first two seasons.

 

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News

Honors Undergoes Revampment

Despite a recent program cut back in September, the college is looking to reinstate and perhaps add another honors program to its offerings as well as renovate the current structure of honors at Houghton. During a meeting with the college board of trustees in late October, it was strongly suggested by the members that a third honors program with a European focus be reinstated. “We had already been working on revisions to honors before the board of trustees met in October. We’ve been concerned that despite the quality of our three first-year honors offerings, enrollments have been weaker than we would like over the past three years,” said Linda Mills Woolsey, dean of the college and one of those who met with the board. She cited the current economic climate and increased competition with other schools’ honors programs as likely causes.

Courtesy of londonandpartners.com
Courtesy of londonandpartners.com

In a recent proposal for a comprehensive revamp of the honors program, Benjamin Lipscomb, professor of philosophy and director of honors programs at Houghton, explained that although “[t]he students we have enrolled remain (by and large) impressive, … there have been too few of them to populate our three gateway programs, and we have not been able to be as highly selective as we were in the past.” In an interview he added, “We did form a waiting list for the first time in a while this last year… but there had been a couple of years in which basically there was no waiting list. We had … a three-tiered system [for admission] in which there was ‘yes,’ ‘maybe,’ and ‘no.’ We had a year or two there after we switched from London to Contemporary Contexts … at which it was basically, ‘yeah, probably, we think you’re a yes’ or ‘no.’”

Although not set in stone, under consideration as replacement for a third honors program is a semester-long study abroad option similar to the London honors program cut back in 2011. “A number of trustees look back to the recruiting success of London Honors and would like to see us have a distinctive program with the same recruiting power,” said Woolsey. She added that the program “will probably be a return to a semester abroad with a focus on modern and contemporary culture, a stronger global focus, and some service components.” Eric Currie, vice president of admissions, also added that “in trying to recruit some of the students who have had significant scores that go for full tuition at other schools … some of this semester abroad opportunity … has an engagement level that seems to spark their interest.” Such a program will take a while to redevelop, however. “I reported to the board that we were undertaking revisions and their request was that we speed up the timeline,” Woolsey said, adding that the intent was to have the new freshman honors program available to students in 2015-2016.

In addition to a third freshman honors program, also under consideration by the college is a full four-year honors program. Starting with one of the three main “gateway” honors programs (Science Honors, East Meets West, or a third new program), students completing one of the programs will be offered the opportunity to take one-credit “seminar” classes on a specific topic. Completion of a predetermined number of seminars will allow students to graduate with an honors diploma and transcript. Seminar topics will be varied, but will most likely be in the social sciences or humanities. However, it was stressed that it was hoped that honors students from all disciplines might be able to participate in the seminars. “Arts could be in it too, and there’s every possibility for people in the natural sciences, mathematics to pick one or two works that would be accessible to someone who hadn’t been through the whole curriculum,” said Lipscomb. “We’re going to try to make that set of offerings as diverse as possible. … The point is mix and mingle, not to extend the gateway programs as segregated phenomena.”

While Lipscomb says the four-year honors program has been approved “in principle” by the board, obtaining official approval is still in the works. However, it is expected that proposals for seminars will be submitted this spring and will be included in the course offerings for the next academic year. “We’re going to send out an email blast the beginning of December to prospective students who are thinking about honors, letting them know … there’s this extension of the program … and we’ll be talking about it on the recruitment weekends.”

Also in development, but still not yet in the works, is a potential honors program for transfer students and Houghton students who display honors potential later on in their undergraduate careers. “As we predict, watching national trends, we might see more and more of … people for cost reasons doing a couple years at a community college and getting an associate’s degree,” said Lipscomb, and the intent of a transfers program would be to accommodate such trends. Also included in the target demographic for such a program would be so-called “late bloomers:” students who, according to Lipscomb, “get a ‘no’ in the honors recruitment process because they clam up in their interview… [when] it turns out they… get into college coursework and discover themselves and turn out to be really excellent students.” For now, the idea of a transfers honors program is still very much in its infancy, with the reinstatement of a third honors program and the creation of a four-year program being among the current priorities of the college.

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Contemporary Contexts Program Cut

With recent low enrollment numbers in Houghton’s three first year honors programs – East Meets West, Science Honors, and Contemporary Contexts – the college has decided to cut Contemporary Contexts for next year to focus on recruitment and effectiveness on the two remaining programs.

Science Honors focuses on researching and analyzing scientific data, while students build a model on what they are researching.  The other two programs, Contemporary Contexts and East Meets West are integrative; they combine courses on philosophy, art, literature, political science, or history, and involve experiential learning overseas during Mayterm.

CC_Josh_DuttweillerOriginally, Houghton College started its first honors program in the mid-1990’s.  This was the First Year Honors Program (FYHP), which was a semester abroad in London. The program became very popular amongst prospective students. Professor Ben Lipscomb, director of honors, said, “We found that we were interviewing and turning away people.” So as demand and interest grew for the honors program, East Meets West was created, said Eric Currie, vice president for enrollment management. This not only allowed options for the incoming freshmen, but also allowed the college to enroll more students into the honors programs.

Another program, Science Honors, was then added a few years later “to recruit students for a particular set of majors,” said Lipscomb. So in response to the higher rate of college enrollment, the number of honors programs increased from one to three programs.

Honors programs themselves “exist for two overriding purposes,” said Lipscomb. “One is to recruit ambitious, high-performing students to the college,” and the other is “to produce great sophomores.”

Previous students who were accepted into honors echo Lipcombs’ remark.  “I would not have come to Houghton if I hadn’t gotten accepted into the honors program,” said Collin Belt, a junior who was in Contemporary Contexts. Essie Fenstermacher, a previous student of East Meets West of last year, said, “Applying for the honors program made me focus more on Houghton. Having to put in that extra effort made it more of an investment.”

Lipscomb commented that in recent years, however, “recruitment numbers have been lower and that reflects itself in the honors selections process.” With student enrollment in the college decreasing and with honors programs being expensive to run, “let’s fill two programs more adequately instead of having three programs slightly under-enrolled.”

Dean of the College, Linda Mills-Woolsey, added, “If we can get the two programs fully enrolled or almost fully enrolled, we can have the same number of honor students as this year.”  This year’s total enrollment of 48 students in the honors programs is significantly lower than the projected 73 students.

In hopes to increase the recruiting process for the honors programs, Contemporary Contexts, which evolved out of the FYHP, will be cut for next year.  When talking about choosing which program to cut, Mills-Woolsey emphasized that “the things that has handicapped Contemporary Contexts is having it change every year. That has made it harder to market.” Dr. Lipscomb added, “What Contemporary Contexts struggled to do was to be a recruiting tool for the college.” And because of “its western travel destinations, it was consistently more expensive to run.”

Lipscomb continued to add that Science Honors has “bumped up the number of physics majors over the last four or five years, and we are interested in seeing how it will do with less competition.”

Mills-Woolsey stated that “whatever the future holds for honors, it needs to hold that sense of stretching and that sense of adventure.”