President's Blog: Distinctively Goshen

Jan 11 2026

I am learning eagerly and rapidly about AI and how it might change our work at Goshen College for the good. At the same time, I want to bring into clear focus what it means to be human. At GC, we are followers of the way of Jesus, who was God expressed in human form: born into a body, living among us and experiencing physical death. My word for the year is human. 

Dec 22 2025

I would like a top-down God. What Christmas offers us instead is a bottom-up God.

Oct 14 2025

Last week Pope Leo XIV issued his first major writing to the global Catholic church, an Apostolic Exhortation – an urgent word of encouragement – on love for the poor, Dilexi Te. As a Mennonite, this theme caught my attention. 

Sep 15 2025

We have experienced another hard week of gun violence in America. For me, it has been a week of intense emotions – heavy emotions as well as joy and hope. How do we escape the doom loop? How do we stop partaking when it is dished up to us from all sides of the media and culture that we swim in?

Aug 25 2025

Marvin Blickenstaff was my piano professor at Goshen when I began as a first-year student in the fall of 1979. Seeing him, and listening to his teaching and performance, transported me back to my 17-year-old self – a strange and vivid experience that was both disorienting and orienting.

Jun 19 2025

Every day is a good day to learn a little more about history. Today, Juneteenth, is an especially good day to listen to a story that has shaped our present day through a long and painful struggle for freedom. In the words of Opal Lee, the grandmother of Juneteenth, the freedom we celebrate through the telling of this story is freedom not only for enslaved people, or Black people, or Texans, but for everyone.

Jun 05 2025

When Kevin and I set out on a learning tour about Anabaptists in Switzerland and Germany, we were prepared to hear stories of persecution and cruel executions. What has surprised me are the stories of ecumenical reconciliation and active love that continue to spring forth from the Anabaptist movement 500 years later.

Jun 02 2025

Last week I had the privilege to participate in the 100th anniversary celebration of the Mennonite World Conference (MWC) in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany. This 100th anniversary coincided with the 500th anniversary of Anabaptism, with the joint theme, The Courage to Love.

May 27 2025

Listening to Joe describe the lives of these earliest Anabaptist leaders, I was struck by the ways that passionate learning extends from Zurich 500 years ago to Goshen College today. Young thinkers of that day, including Grebel and Manz, gathered in the mornings to study and translate, and in the afternoons to discuss the emerging meanings of the texts. How exciting that must have been!

Apr 29 2025

Last weekend, I had the privilege of making my final speech to our 2025 graduating class of seniors at our baccalaureate service. I will remember this class for their imagination, courage and enthusiasm. In planning this baccalaureate service, they chose the theme of joy. Here are a few of the thoughts I shared with them, as well as the gift I gave them.

Apr 09 2025

I am asking myself, in this moment of alarming and rapid change, “what is it that I need to be learning?”

Mar 02 2025

Photo by Ronak Valobobhai on Unsplash Recently Gallup published a global study of leadership from the perspective of followers. They surveyed people in 27 countries, asking them to describe a leader in any setting with the most positive influence in…

Feb 17 2025

We are writing jointly, as a Mennonite pastor and college president, to explain and support a recent lawsuit filed to protect our religious freedom to practice our faith in the sanctuary on this campus.

Jan 03 2025

My word for the year is RENEW. Renewal is part and parcel of the God-filled life. It is the stuff of life – we see it in the turning of the earth and the seasons and in death and birth.…

Nov 08 2024

Today is national First-Generation College Celebration Day. Nearly half of our students are the first in their families to go to college, and many of our staff and faculty are similarly first-gen. I am the second generation in my family…

Oct 30 2024

Last week, Dr. Wendsler Nosie brought us a gift and an invitation. The gift was his call to awaken to the sacred nature of the land. The invitation was to stand in solidarity with the Apache in their struggle to…

Oct 11 2024

As we pass the anniversary of the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, we are witnessing the predictable horror that unfolds when the arithmetic of revenge – “an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth” –…

Aug 26 2024

If you are a college president, which I happen to be, your inbox is full of alarms and advice about the winds of conflict on campuses this fall.

Mar 11 2024

I honor Anne Frank this Women’s History Month because hearing her voice speak across the decades through her house-turned-museum woke me up to the power of girls. My experience in those upstairs rooms made me see not only the world…

Jan 31 2024

Jim Collins, author of the business books Good to Great and Built to Last, defined a Hedgehog Concept as what differentiates great companies from good ones. He writes, “A hedgehog concept is not a goal to be the best, a…

Jan 17 2024

My word for the year is faith because it’s what I need. Faith is such a familiar word that it can sound bland, and so I’ll try to explain what I mean. Faith for me is the belief that God…

Dec 20 2023

This year I am newly awake to the reality that Jesus was born in Palestine under the occupation of an empire. And yet, throughout the Gospel stories of the Nativity, in the face of empire, people seek the light. They…

Nov 02 2023

The violence unfolding in Israel/Palestine is horrifying and heartbreaking. As a follower of Jesus, I stand for peace and am opposed to killing. And as Dr. Martin Luther King said, “There can be no justice without peace and there can…

Sep 12 2023

It is no secret and no surprise: Goshen College has been in many ways subverted – turned from below – by our inquiring and passionate students and faculty and the transformational changes they have brought about. John D. Roth, professor…

Jul 24 2023

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.

Apr 05 2023

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…

Jan 30 2023

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.

Dec 21 2022

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…

Dec 13 2022

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 –…

Nov 09 2022

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.

Oct 11 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…

Sep 06 2022

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…

Aug 01 2022

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.

Jul 07 2022

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…

May 22 2022

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…

May 09 2022

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.

Mar 14 2022

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,…

Mar 04 2022

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…

Feb 01 2022

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.

Jan 09 2022

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…

Dec 25 2021

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…

Dec 16 2021

If we are to save ourselves and our planet from the devastation we have wrought, it will require a redefinition of community.

Nov 10 2021

“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…

Sep 13 2021

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.

Jul 11 2021

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:…

Jul 05 2021

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)…

Jun 20 2021

During this Pride Month, we at Goshen College celebrate the lives, love and impact of our LGBTQIA+ students, employees and alumni. 

Jun 08 2021

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…

Mar 15 2021

In 1983, when I was a student at GC, I wrote my senior paper on the topic of gender. That was three years after Dolly Parton, Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin overthrew their male boss in the movie "9 to…

Mar 04 2021

In the midst of the heartbreak, tensions and tedium of the pandemic, I am alert to the changes happening within myself and in our society that may form the lasting legacies of this time. Some of these are causes for…

Feb 01 2021

The past year has, among other things, made me question how well I know my country and its foundations.

Jan 03 2021

The word I’ve kept circling back to is “Grounded.” 2020 knocked me around. I want to stand this year with two feet on the ground, knees slightly bent. I want to feel the earth supporting me; to know the firm…

Dec 21 2020

I am in need of a Sabbath Christmas. Maybe you are too. Here is my wish for all of us in this December of 2020.

Dec 07 2020

I am tired of the armor of masks and physical distancing. I want the armor of light! Our dark ordeal fuels an Advent longing further intensified by our many constraints. We simply cannot do the many things that we want…

Oct 29 2020

This afternoon I do not want to write about cultural divisions, social injustice, the pandemic or even Goshen College. I want to tell you about a man and an octopus.

Oct 18 2020

I refuse to succumb to the temptation to hitch my wagon to this political season and its outcome. I refuse, but honestly I struggle. As emotions swirl and fear about the outcome — or unclear outcome — rises, how do…

Oct 12 2020

How do we work with our anger in ways that are non-addictive, non-violent and even fruitful?

Sep 04 2020

I thought to myself: If we must live through this ordeal (and indeed, we must), this is the community I want to be a part of.

Jun 28 2020

At a time when threats to the life and people we love seem overwhelming and out of control, it is essential that we focus on those things that matter most, and those things that we can control. Our imagination is…

May 31 2020

I’m writing on Pentecost Sunday, filled with powerful images of breath and fire. I think of 100,000 people (and many more) who ceased to breathe. And one unarmed black man named George Floyd, who could not breathe under the weight…

Apr 28 2020

Teaching through this transition has been one great act of love on the part of Goshen’s faculty. Last week I reached out to a few of those involved in this massive undertaking and asked them to convey something of their experiences…

Apr 15 2020

Goshen College graduate Christian Yoder ’80 is one of many GC alumni turning his efforts toward medical and public health solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic. I recently sent him some questions. Here are some of his thoughts about what we…

Apr 05 2020

The most powerful ways to disarm our fear are spiritual. Christianity offers us tried and true practices such as prayer, contemplation, singing and approaches to Scripture that, when practiced deeply, move us into a strongly felt sense of love. People…

Mar 26 2020

We can’t skip the stages of grief, but we can be kind to ourselves and one another as we flow through them — sometimes in waves and loops.

Mar 22 2020

I keep a sticky note on my computer monitor with my personal checklist. It’s a reminder, especially when I am stressed or overwhelmed, to go through my checklist, take stock of these dimensions of myself, and to devote attention and…

Mar 18 2020

With all of the recent changes on our college campus due to COVID-19, I wanted to share a message with our seniors and graduate students in these challenging and unprecedented times.

Mar 10 2020

I’m not an expert on viruses, but I do have a lifetime of experience in public health. Public health is about the health of all of us, as a community. Public health does not deny our innate need to attend…

Mar 01 2020

Last week I accompanied the Voices of the Earth (formerly named the Women’s World Music Choir) on their spring break tour in Puerto Rico.

Feb 09 2020

Last week I was in Arusha, Tanzania to lead a research team meeting at Nelson Mandela African Institute for Science and Technology (NMAIST). I’ve been doing collaborative research on the health of mothers and children in Tanzania since 1992.

Feb 03 2020

Inclusion is not a quick or easy journey. One public statement — by me or our governor — doesn’t complete the work. More than any formal statement, it is the ensuing conversations, relationships and deepened commitments that create inclusive community…

Jan 21 2020

During our King Celebration 2020 this week, we were asked: "What is your work?" My work is to collaboratively lead Goshen College to be hospitable and just for all of our students and employees, regardless of race, first language or…

Jan 13 2020

We all know the feeling when we’ve been part of a conversation that really mattered — one in which people were fully present, spoke honestly and clearly, and where ideas were formed and tested. We need more of that —…

Jan 01 2020

“Embrace” by Brooke Rothshank, a miniaturist and 2000 Goshen College alumna. Find more of her artwork at: https://www.instagram.com/blrothshank/ Last year, I began this blog with the word “Hope.” Hope has been a sturdy companion, and if you need to dive…