In the News

Students help rebuild “the little town too tough to die”

With Main Street completely flattened and only the headstone of the public school remaining, Pilger, Neb., is still “the little town too tough to die.”

The nickname was started long before two EF4 tornadoes struck the town on June 16, 2014, and had nothing to do with any disaster, but the motto has now become an inspiration as Pilger begins to rebuild. It is posted on a small hand-painted sign leaning up against the town bulletin board outside the trailer that temporarily serves as the town hall. The phrase is heard echoing throughout the community, even for those who have only been in town for a couple of days.

On March 8, eight Hesston College students led by Russ Gaeddert, Disaster Management Program director, traveled north to Norfolk, Neb. The students were there to volunteer with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS), which was invited to Pilger to help rebuild homes as the town recovers from what many may have considered to be certain death.

With a population of 378 when the tornadoes struck, more than half of Pilger’s homes and buildings were destroyed or significantly damaged by the tornadoes. The Pilger Store, village office, senior center, farmer’s cooperative, post office and St. John Lutheran Church were all heavily damaged or leveled.

The Hesston students were joined in Pilger by a group of volunteers from Manitoba, Canada, and Topeka, Kan., as well as site coordinators and crew leaders from Manitoba, Pennsylvania and Colorado.

While many students choose to head to relaxing locations during spring break week, these service-minded students chose a different kind of experience.

“I think working in Pilger gave me just as much satisfaction as going to Florida or somewhere more typical for spring break,” said Garretr Woelk (Goessel, Kan.). “It was good to serve with like-minded people as we helped rebuild and restore hope.”

“It’s one of the best experiences I’ve had,” added Rose Yoder (Bellefontaine, Ohio).

MDS has committed to building five homes so far in the Pilger area. Three of the homes are now enclosed and shingled, and two of the homes are almost completely sided. The combined group of 27 people was divided and worked at four of the homes throughout the week.

Each day began with group devotions and ended with a daily report and reflections. Roofing, shingling, siding, insulation and the beginning of drywall characterized the week’s work. Four Hesston students helped the long-term recovery team call the affected residents to see whether additional help is needed. Though some volunteers had almost no previous construction experience, MDS crew leaders and experienced volunteers provided training. The Hesston students returned fairly confident in roofing and siding homes.

“I think my favorite part of the trip was on my first day at house number two,” said Charissa Graham (Princeton, Ill.). “Even though most of us had no idea what we were doing on the roof, and even though we didn’t really know the other volunteers, we all worked so well together.”

In the evenings, the group traveled the 20 miles back to the Norfolk City Auditorium and enjoyed the accommodations in converted office spaces, but especially the gym. When not used by Norfolk community members, the gym was heavily used by MDS volunteers for volleyball, basketball, Frisbee and card games. These activities, along with music in the evening, helped the volunteer groups to build community.

MDS focuses on forming relationships, and just as Hesston students had the opportunity to get to know those from MacGregor, Manitoba, they also had the incredible blessing of getting to know Pilger residents.

“What I’ll remember the most is all the wonderful people we encountered who were so kind,” said Desiree Corona (Newton, Kan.).

Sitting down to a lunch around one table with the Pilger community was a highlight of the week for the students. Site directors Wayne and Carole Stucky say the community has pulled together even through making a weekly meal for MDS and are serving volunteers in any way they are able.

One man in Pilger drives around the town handing out Dum Dum Pops to the community and MDS volunteers. He has been known as “the sucker man” in Pilger for a while. The closest thing the small town has to a mayor has lent many tools to the MDS crew to make work go faster. Miss Alice, homeowner of what MDS crew members refer to as “House 1,” brings her famous cookies to the MDS worksites at least once a week.

As they left Pilger after many hugs and hard goodbyes, Hesston students felt as if they had become a part of the MDS volunteer family and the “little town too tough to die.”

by Shelby Miller

Nursing program receives approval for bachelor’s degree program

Hesston College received approval from the Kansas State Board of Nursing (KSBN) March 25, to launch a bachelor of science in nursing program (BSN) starting with the 2015-16 year. The introduction of the program to the existing associate degree program (ADN) will make Hesston the only college or university in Kansas where students may choose to pursue either the ADN or BSN.

“The nursing program has been a strength of Hesston College for decades, in terms of both the number of students served and the quality of instruction,” said Dr. Brent Yoder, vice president of Academics. “The expansion of degree options in this program is a natural growth opportunity. Hesston will still be a place that focuses on the first two years of a college education, but we are excited to meet the needs and desires of students who want to broaden their understanding of the nursing profession and obtain advanced credentials.”

A bachelor’s degree program is new territory for the college, but one that is a logical step for Hesston College Nursing. The impetus behind the change stems from a 2010 report from the Institute of Medicine that set a national goal of 80 percent of the nursing workforce having a bachelor’s degree in nursing by 2020. Likewise, according to the American Association of Colleges in Nursing, Hesston alumni and other two-year graduates nationwide are pursuing bachelor’s degrees in increasing numbers.

“With the industry shift, both ADN and BSN options are needed to meet employer demands and industry standards,” said Bonnie Sowers, MSN, RN, nursing program director. “Placement options for clinical training are being limited for some associate degree programs at a number of major medical centers. The BSN program will allow Hesston College to continue providing nursing students with exceptional clinical learning opportunities, and ensuring they are highly prepared and employable.”

Hesston College’s discussion toward a BSN offering began in the summer of 2013. Nursing faculty diligently researched necessary additions for creating a four-year degree curriculum as well as steps to gain approval and accreditation. The college’s Board of Directors granted approval to pursue accreditation and state approval following the September 2014 meeting. Following a two-day site visit, the college received approval from the Higher Learning Commission in early February. The KSBN also conducted an on-campus site visit in February.

The BSN program will launch in August 2015 for students who will begin their first of four years at Hesston, as well as for those students who have completed their 60 hours of required college course work and are ready to begin their junior year of nursing. The college anticipates launching an RN-to-BSN program in the fall of 2016 or 2017 for students who have their ADN and are looking to earn a bachelor’s degree.

Student applications for the program are being accepted immediately. For more information, call 800-995-2757.

“We are pleased to be able to add this option for nursing students,” said Sowers. “Hesston College has always been committed to offering excellent preparation for students in their chosen fields of study, and this allows us to continue doing that for nursing students.”

Civil rights seminar sheds light on history

The historic “Bloody Sunday” of March 7, 1965, happened more than 30 years before Hesston College students were born – even pre-dating some of their parents. Yet 50 years after that tragic day, the spirit of those civil rights heroes lives on. Hesston College students, faculty, staff, alumni and community members joined with thousands of others to commemorate important moments in the fight for civil rights and gained a new understanding for that important part of American history during a week-long Civil Rights Seminar over the college’s spring break, March 7 to 14.

“I was exposed to a part of American history that is not easily thrown into a school textbook,” said freshman Irena Xhari (Lezhë, Albania). “There were many lessons I learned by walking down the streets that hold bloody memories and walking into churches that have been witness to injustice and yet continue to trust in God while full of hope and vision.” The seminar, led by Hesston College faculty members Tony Brown and John Sharp and 1972 alumnus Bruce Rogers (Goshen, Ind.), started in Selma, Ala., March 7. The group joined tens of thousands from across the country for the commemoration of the marches from Selma to Montgomery, Ala., on the 50th anniversary of the first march. Known as “Bloody Sunday,” the first march was marked by extreme violence endured by those peacefully protesting the injustices endured by the African-American community.

What would be an emotionally heavy, yet enlightening and inspiring week for the Hesston College contingent, started with stories of the march. Original marchers recounted heartache, courage and inspiration in their experiences. The Hesston group was moved by their history and buoyed by words of hope and unity for the future from President Barack Obama in Selma that day.

Participants followed the original path from the Brown Chapel A.M.E. Church down city streets and across the Edmund Pettus Bridge along US Highway 80. In this place 50 years earlier, children, teens and adults were attacked by sheriff’s deputies and highway patrolmen with billy clubs, cattle prods and tear gas in a struggle for civil rights that had been guaranteed by the 15th Amendment 97 years prior.

“I have a new appreciation for the common people who put their lives on the line for the cause of freedom and equality,” said Sharp, history and Bible instructor. “I also see more clearly how the powers were exposed – authorities, whose primary task was to protect and work for the common good, used violence to punish nonviolent activists who were challenging the U.S. to live its vaunted claims of freedom and justice for all. I understand in a new way that the struggle for justice must continue.”

A visit to the National Civil Rights Museum at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, site of Dr. King’s assassination, was among many highlights of the week. “As I looked at old photos and learned about the civil rights history, what was interesting to me is that both sides were fighting for what they believed was right,” said Carlota Ponds, Alumni and Church Relations office manager.

Other experiences throughout the week included churches, museums and historic sites in Birmingham, Montgomery and Selma, Ala. In Birmingham the group attended Sunday morning worship at the 16th Street Baptist Church, site of a 1963 bombing that took the lives of four young girls, and toured the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute and Ingram Park where officials used fire hoses and police dogs to attack demonstrators. Montgomery stops included the Rosa Parks Library and Museum; Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, Martin Luther King, Jr.’s first congregation; and City of St. Jude Historic District (Montgomery, Ala.) which provided nondiscriminatory health, education and social services during the height of the Civil Rights Movement. The group also interacted with Mennonite churches in Meridian and Philadelphia, Miss., that were formed in the 1960s as missions to end discrimination with voices and deeds of peace.

by Emily Kauffman and Rachel McMaster

Below - Former Hesston College Bible faculty member Marion Bontrager and freshman Irena Xhari cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Ala.

Musical ensembles to present 2015 spring concert

Hesston College will showcase its long and continuing tradition of outstanding musical ensembles with a concert at 7 p.m., Thursday March 19 at Hesston Mennonite Church on the Hesston College campus.

The program will feature the college’s Chamber Orchestra under the direction of Rebecca Schloneger, the Hesston College Chorale under the direction of Ken Rodgers and the Bel Canto Singers under the direction of Bradley Kauffman.

The concert, which is a chance for the community and college to connect through the sharing of music, is free and open to the public.

Little Women to allow audience to reconsider the definition of success

Hesston College Theatre will present three showings of the musical Little Women March 27 to 29 at Hesston Mennonite Church. The show will be at 7 p.m., March 27 and 28, and 3 p.m., March 29.

Based on Louisa May Alcott’s classic novel, Little Women is the well-known tale of the four imaginative March sisters and their mother who struggle through the Civil War while their father is absent as an army chaplain. The sisters each have unique personalities, and the show centers on aspiring writer Jo as she pursues her dream, is rejected and realizes what true success looks like.

“It has been a total delight to see the show growing and growing,” said director Laura Kraybill. “The consistent energy around the show has been a huge gift.”

Kraybill, Hesston College Theatre faculty member is co-directing the show with music director and music faculty member Matt Schloneger.

Little Women is a tale of family togetherness and perseverance that is wonderful for all ages. Kraybill hopes the show will allow the audience to “re-evaluate what success looks like and how much success has to do with the love given and received in life.”

Tickets are $15 for adults and seniors, $8 for students and $5 for Hesston College students. They can be purchased online or by calling 620-327-8105.

A cast of 19 students will be featured, as well as a live orchestra made up of students and community members.

Little Women cast:
Jo March – Taylor Zehr, Wauseon, Ohio
Professor Bhaer – Galed Krisjayanta, Sukarta, Indonesia
Amy March – Emma Roth, Goshen, Ind.
Meg March – Meredith Spicher, Belleville, Pa.
Beth March – Eleya Raim, Oxford, Iowa
Marmee March – Anna Martin, Harleysville, Pa.
Mr. Laurence – Micah Raber, Millersburg, Ohio
Laurie Laurence – Nathan Patron, North Newton, Kan.
Aunt March – Abbie DeWild, Kalona, Iowa
Mr. John Brooke – Ben Helmuth, Goshen, Ind.
Mrs. Kirk – Savannah Sizer, Littleton, Colo.
Clarissa/ensemble – Kiara Boettger, Harrisonburg, Va.
Braxton/ensemble – Elliot Liechty, Harrisonburg, Va.
Rodrigo – Caleb Schrock-Hurst, Harrisonburg, Va.
Knight/ensemble – Jared Hurst, Sharon, Pa.
Hag/ensemble – Kristy Clouse, Kalona, Iowa
Troll/ensemble – Charissa Graham, Tiskilwa, Ill.
Rodrigo 2/ensemble – Irena Xhari, Lezhe, Albania
Ensemble – Jeremy Delly, Port-Au-Prince, Haiti

Little Women is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International.

Kansas Poet Laureate to present on “home”

Hesston College will host Wyatt Townley, Kansas Poet Laureate, on campus Friday, March 20. Townley will read her poetry at an 11 a.m. forum and lead a 3 p.m. workshop for select Hesston College students. Her presentation and workshop center around the theme “home.”

Forum will focus on Townley’s work and the work of other poets that “invites us to come home to the poetry that underlies our lives in an age of distraction.” Recognizing home as a long-held Kansas value, Townley reflects on poetry, saying, “ Poetry is a place we can return to in all kinds of weather, with its innate power to heal and comfort, transform and inspire. Its porch light is always on.”

The theme of home will extend to Townley’s workshop, entitled “HomeWords.” The short poem, the “American Cinquain,” will be used to discuss large themes, in accordance to the state poetry project.

Townley has published three poetry books. Her work has been featured in settings such as National Public Radio, Ted Kooser’s “American Life in Poetry” column, The Paris Review and Newsweek, and has been twice nominated for The Pushcart Prize.

“Townley’s presentations and workshop will build on themes of ‘home’ explored as last year’s First-year Experience theme and offer a rare opportunity for students to learn firsthand from a nationally lauded poet,” said Karen LeVan, Hesston College English faculty member.

The Kansas Humanities Council, a group that supports community humanities programs, makes the Kansas Poet Laureate position possible. To learn more about the council, visit kansashumanities.org.

Showalter Villa will also host Townley at 3:30 p.m., Thursday Mar 19. Question and answer sessions and book signings will follow both Townley’s Hesston College and Showalter Villa presentations. The forum is open to the public and will be in the Hesston Mennonite Church Sanctuary.

English faculty to participate in Mennonite Writing Conference

Hesston College, along with Fresno (Calif.) Pacific University, will co-sponsor the seventh in a series of Mennonite writing conferences in the United States and Canada at Fresno Pacific University March 12 to 15.

The conference focus on the theme of Movement, Transformation and Place and will include readings, scholarly paper presentations, panels, writing workshops, performances, storytelling, book signings, excursions, an open microphone and conversations.

Keynote speakers to be featured during the conference include Peter Everwine, a Fulbright senior lecturer in American Poetry at the University of Haifa, Israel. David Mas Masumoto, an organic fruit farmer south of Fresno and author of nine books will also present. In 2013, Masumoto was appointed to the National Council on the Arts, the board for the National Endowment for the Arts, by President Obama. Robert Zacharias, Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Waterloo and Visiting Scholar at the University of Toronto, will also be featured.

Karen Sheriff LeVan, Hesston College English faculty, is part of the planning committee for the conference, while other members of the English faculty, André Swartley and Donovan Tann, will present at the event.

Swartley’s presentation titled “The Importance of Place: Even in Fiction, Travel Leads to Growth” covers the importance of place in storytelling and independent publishing.

Swartley is the English as a Second Language program director at Hesston College. He is the author of The Island of Misfit Toys (2005, Bound to Excel), Americanus Rex (2009, Workplay Publishing) and Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl (2012, Workplay Publishing). His fourth novel will be released in October 2015.

Tann’s presentation titled “Little Gidding: Transforming Religious Space in the Early Modern World” will present some of his research that focuses on the religious writings of an early seventeenth century English family.

“The Ferrar family’s intentional religious community played an important role in the period’s complicated religious politics,” Tann said. “In my presentation, I will explain how this family’s transformation of space illuminates contemporary ideas about the definition and boundaries of religion itself.”

Academic team gives scholarly presentation

A team of Hesston College academics presented on direct assessment at the Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Network for Academic Renewal Conference in Kansas City, Mo., Feb. 19 to 21. The team was comprised of Dr. Brent Yoder of Hesston, vice president of Academics, education instructor Marissa King of Newton and business instructor David LeVan of Newton.

Using experience as a guide, the Hesston College presentation, “Getting Started: Implementing Direct Assessment through a Summer Assessment Workshop,” highlighted the conference theme of “From Mission to Evidence: Empowering and Inclusive General Education Programs.” The presentation described Hesston’s experience with assessing student work in classes and how to use the data to make improvements.

Inspired in part by a challenge from the Higher Learning Commission accrediting agency following full reaccreditation in 2010, the college began researching and incorporating direct assessment tools to assess student learning outcomes. After revising institutional learning outcomes, the college revised the general education curriculum to closely align with those outcomes. Each general education class created an assessment assignment focused on institutional outcomes which serve as artifacts for the summer assessment workshop. The college has now completed two annual assessment cycles, and the data from the annual workshops informs teaching and learning in several ways.

“We have begun to use the results from summer assessment and the CLA+, an exam that directly assesses student work in a number of our learning outcome areas, to inform our work during faculty in-service days prior to the start of each semester, especially as it relates to working with students to improve their written communication skills,” said Yoder.

The presentation offered advice in implementing similar programs and processes for effectively obtaining and using data and make continuous improvements.

Instructor presents at Japanese conference

André Swartley, English as a Second Language program director at Hesston College, presented at the After JET (Japan Exchange and Teaching) conference in Chiba, Japan, Feb. 9 and 10.

JET is a one-and-a-half-year teaching fellowship through the Japanese government where native speakers of other languages, especially English, teach in Japanese public schools. The After JET conference seeks to expose JET teachers in their last year to options in education after their term expires. This year, the conference hosted about 450 attendees. Swartley was an assistant language teacher in the JET program from 2012 to 2014, preceding his work at Hesston College.

Swartley’s presentation focused on paths of study that could lead to various teaching careers in English-speaking countries. Covering areas including teaching certification, teaching fellowships and non-teaching education jobs, the presentation outlined career options and how assistant language teachers can pursue them.

Swartley was one of about 15 speakers and consultants selected to speak at the conference from several countries and fields of expertise.

In addition to presenting, Swartley, who is also an editor and fiction author, provided one-on-one consultations to conference attendees who wished to discuss careers in education, writing or publishing.

Swartley is the author of The Island of Misfit Toys (2005, Bound to Excel), Americanus Rex (2009, Workplay Publishing) and Leon Martin and the Fantasy Girl (2012, Workplay Publishing). His fourth novel will be released in October 2015.