Crude, thought-provoking, provocative, amusing, brilliant. All of these have been used to describe a specific piece in Herb Weaver’s ceramic exhibit in EMU’s Hartzler Library. The comments, jotted in Weaver’s feedback journal at the exhibit, are just a few of the community responses to Weaver’s piece entitled “Royal Flush.” Criticism of the work began in the March 29 issue of the Daily News Record. An opinion article harshly condemning “Royal Flush” sparked a debate over both the role of art as social critique and EMU’s policies about gallery content. The piece, only one of about twenty in the show, depicts President Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice in a ceramic urinal filled with missiles and other weapons of mass destruction. “Royal Flush” is engraved in the top with “Pissin’ for Peace” at the bottom. Two playing cards, a king with an American flag and a queen with an Iraqi one, and a floor mat in front complete the piece. Continue Reading...

Last Friday, March 28, students assembled in the Seminary building to speak on topics ranging from inclusivity to the place of creativity in the peace process to rethinking pacifism and methods of the peace process. The gathering was the EMU section of the C. Henry Smith Peace Oratorical Contest, a bi-national competition that includes EMU, Goshen College, Bluffton University, Bethel College and Canadian Mennonite University. First year and eventual winner Anna Engle, juniors Diana Terry, Ethan Zook and Emily Derstine, and seniors Kristen Swartley and Matt Pearson competed. The contest was judged by seminary dean Irvin Stutzman, theater professor Heidi Winters Vogel, and Dianne Zimmerman, a member of the Board of Trustees and professor of communications at Millersville University. The event is organized by MCC USA, while the cash prize is provided by a trust set up by Dr. Smith, a former professor at Bluffton University. Continue Reading...

Spring has arrived, finally. All the traditional signs are appearing—robins, blossoming trees, warmth, sunshine—as the earth breaks out of its dormant state into new growth. This isn’t what I noticed first though: even before any physical signs, a new exuberance crept slowly into my days. Suddenly everyone was more joyful, eagerly anticipating the beautiful days just around the corner. This joy has been infectious, and with warmer days materializing, it continues to grow. Spring fever is almost a frantic energy that we can’t quite harness, but it wakes us up and shakes us out of our quiet existence. For me, this spring has been a mixed bag of feelings. I’ve caught spring fever like none other and spend most classes staring out the window anticipating my afternoon run, but I’ve also felt an intense sense of longing for Spain. I spent nine months last year living and studying Spanish in Barcelona, Spain. Barcelona is an incredible city, cosmopolitan to the extreme and crammed with life of every type. It is under Spanish rule by definition, but is culturally and politically a city of Catalunya, an autonomous community within Spain. The people are a mix of old-fashioned, ethnic Catalunyans, proud of maintaining their Catalan language, traditional foods, and history, and European bohemians, drawn to the city by its Mediterranean coastline, football team, and eclectic art and music scene. Continue Reading...

Based on recent changes to EMU’s housing policy, only those students who are both 21 and a senior credit-wise will be permitted to take up residence off campus. Previously the policy allowed juniors to live off campus as well as seniors if they were 21, but beginning next semester, all juniors will be returning to dorm life. While some juniors will be residing in Hillside and Selah, Redmond, and Martin houses, other juniors who would normally be signing leases at apartments and houses around Park View will be returning to Parkwoods, the newly minted upperclassmen complex, and other dorms around campus. Although the destruction of The Building Formerly Known as Oakwood will change the dynamics of undergraduate life, this influx of juniors has the potential to dramatically change student life on campus for one reason: many of these juniors will be 21. Except for renting a car, there is almost nothing that this age group is no longer forbidden to do by law, which could pose quite a problem for Residence Life and its staff members. Continue Reading...

A first for EMU, theater major Pam Mandigo’s senior thesis project has brought an experimental edge to the theater major and set a new bar of achievement for EMU’s small theater department. Despite its size, the theater department has been consistently churning out glorious works of art, and in a new way, Mandigo’s work has brought a new and refined edge to art at EMU.

Mandigo’s play, Butchering Crows, is a laboratory production, which in a sense says that as a work of art, it is still very much in progress. Mandigo’s debut as a playwright has been anything but shy, for Crows takes on intense issues that are challenging for an experienced artist, let alone a young and budding artist. Tackling love, grace, forgiveness, and sexuality is no easy feat, and Mandigo has certainly taken the challenge in stride. A two-act play, Crows is a story of two angels in love, two human lovers, and a drugged and impregnated woman. One can guess that this may be a tragedy of some twisted sort, but it is a largely successful attempt at a metaphor of a world without Christ, grace, and forgiveness. The confusion built into this world without grace is deliberately incorporated to immerse the audience in to the strange reality built by Mandigo.

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Over the past few days, people have gathered near the Elmwood dorm, standing in the spring sun and eating hotdogs dripping with ketchup. These people have been coming to cheer on the EMU softball team, which is currently 21-8 overall and 9-3 in the ODAC conference. The team roster includes 21 girls, and the team is young with only nine upperclassmen. Despite this inexperience, their ODAC winnings are on pace to exceed last year’s record of 10-8. The team started practicing a little before Christmas break and currently have about two and a half hour practices. Before game days, they always do a specialized “pre-game practice” to prep them for the upcoming game. Sophomore Nicole Shelton said, “Our practices give us a great work out. We do a combination of hitting and fielding drills in every practice.” These workouts and practices are keeping the girls ready for the upcoming ODAC tournament on April 25. Continue Reading...