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About this blog:
Goshen College President Rebecca Stoltzfus offers regular and intimate reflections on campus, interesting people she’s met, conversations she’s part of and higher education today.
President Rebecca J. Stoltzfus, a 1983 Goshen College graduate, became president in 2017 after 15 years as a human nutrition scholar and administrator at Cornell University.
Email her: [email protected]
My thoughts have been circling around issues of gender for a while: a recent essay on masculinity, Haitian women competing in the World Cup, Barbie becoming human, Lionel Messi in pink.
One of my favorite questions to ask alumni is: “Who is the person who was most influential to you from your time at Goshen?” For our older alums, the most common answer is Mary Oyer, professor emerita of music, who…
That’s when it struck me: Clear is my word. Clear in the ancient faith . . . and in eye, clear. May our clearness be gentle or fierce, as needed.
Christmas, for us northern-dwellers, is the co-incidence of an astronomical event and the incarnation of God as a baby. Two truths, of very different sorts. When darkness is at its longest, the world turns, but almost imperceptibly. In a world…
I am experiencing Advent this year as a thin season. I love the image of heaven whispering. And that makes me think about all the angels at work in the Christmas stories. Angels with Mary, Zechariah, Elizabeth, the shepherds –…
Our campus and our broader community have been dealing with an unusual amount of grief this fall. This blog is adapted from comments I made in the special convocation on campus, “Holding Grief in Community,” on Oct. 26, 2022.
Anxiety has become a national crisis. This is the conclusion of a U.S. panel of experts, and it is also the manifest reality for many of us who are parents, community members, pastors, teachers, employers – let’s just say for…
In a time when student and family values nationally around higher education are shifting toward making a lot of money, Goshen College stands for something different. We do want our students to get good jobs. ... But we also offer…
As Goshen’s president, it is a continual pleasure to see our students make new connections – academically, socially, spiritually and professionally. In Indonesia this summer, I had the opportunity to experience this personally and deeply for myself.
Abortion policy matters to me as a Christian advocate for human dignity and nonviolence, a global health professional, a woman, a close friend of people on both sides of the political divide, and a college president committed to supporting our…
It’s now been a full week since an 18-year-old white man opened fire at a Tops Friendly Market in a mostly Black neighborhood in Buffalo, New York. I will not say, “This is not who we are,” because clearly, this…
One of the great things about gardening is that the garden talks back. I am constantly learning what works and what doesn’t work, grappling with the realities of my garden and myself, and yielding to them.
We are living through hard times. As researcher and author Brene Brown said in a January 2022 podcast, “People are not okay.” And that was before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Mr. Rogers famously said that in times of catastrophe,…
As I struggle to comprehend what is unfolding in Ukraine, I’ve had the privilege of traveling with our Vox Profundi Choir during our spring break tour along the East Coast. I revel in the energy, joy and discipline of our…
It seems to me that one of the truly useful things the church – including Goshen College – can do in the face of the climate crisis is lead us into a new story.
My word for 2022 began poking at my mind back in December. As I wrapped up work before the holidays, I was getting some feedback about my hard edges. In my journal I wrote repeatedly, “Let your gentleness be evident…
We all come from a family, of one sort or another. And we all go through periods when our family loses us — either literally or otherwise. They don’t understand who we are, or are surprised to discover what we…
If we are to save ourselves and our planet from the devastation we have wrought, it will require a redefinition of community.
“How can you be inclusive if you are Christ-centered?” This is one of the questions still ringing in my ears from a recent regional gathering. Is it possible that in this time of acute and painful need for us to…
Twenty years later, as we each reinforce and revise our memories from that terrible September day, let us be truthful and also tender about what we choose to never forget.
I ended my last blog with the question: how would Goshen College be different if we were more truly centered in robust and productive engagement across lines of difference? I suggest we need to become more intentional about three things:…
We have become afraid of deep differences because they too often manifest in words or other expressions that cause pain — wittingly or unwittingly. I submit that it is not our visible differences (race or ethnicity or gender per se)…
During this Pride Month, we at Goshen College celebrate the lives, love and impact of our LGBTQIA+ students, employees and alumni.
Thankfully, COVID transmission is finally much lower. Oddly, amidst all of the happiness and relief, this transition to the next stage of the pandemic is surprisingly hard. The adrenaline is gone, and I feel exhausted by the past year of…
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