entertainment collegian life - grove city college · free entertainment, free root beer floats and...
TRANSCRIPT
John Foreman Switchfoot front-man performed in CrawfordENTERTAINMENT
April 7, 2017 The Grove City College Student Newspaper Vol. 102, No. 18
CollegianThe
Perspectives on Mike Pence Students have mixed reactions to the planned commencement speaker PERSPECTIVESIndia-bound Seniors Lindsey Reichert and Kelsey Patton are going to India this summer to teach nutrition and soccer LIFE
CommPencementVeep to address Class of 2017
NATIONAL REVIEW
Vice President Mike Pence will give the Grove City College commencement speech for the 2017 graduating class, according to an email from President Paul J. McNulty ’80.
Live from the SAC
Alexandra O’Brien Contributing Writer
Free entertainment, free root beer floats and free soft pretzels -- sounds like a perfect night to a Grove City College stu-dent.
Every year, students flock to the Breen Student Union to snatch an open seat to watch the famous AEX Live coffeehouse event. Tomorrow night from 6 to 10:30 p.m., the men of Alpha Epsilon Chi will host a coffeehouse for the Grove City communi-ty. Musicians from around campus will be preform-ing songs from various genres.
For over ten years,
AEX has offered much more than an average coffee house. The packed event offers the chance for unity among the college campus. Individual per-formers as well as group sets have the chance to showcase their talents to the audience. Sophomore AEX member Garrett OToole encouraged each student to attend Satur-day nights event.
“AEX Live is one of the few opportunities where student musicians can play in a full-band set-ting. As a result, the qual-ity of performances is top notch. Come for a little bit to see your friend play, or stay for the whole thing, all are welcome to come and enjoy the music and
fun atmosphere,” he said.The housing group has tried to create an event that will appeal to a di-verse crowd, filled with people from different
walks of life, and AEX be-lieves that supporting the different groups around campus is essential to the growth and development of a closer campus com-
munity. Throughout the night,
the coffee house expects to entertain over 800 stu-dents, community mem-bers and faculty.
There is no obligation to stay for the allotted time, as the audience is welcome to come and go as they please.
DANIEL HAYWARDTomorrow night from 6 to 10:30 p.m., the men of Alpha Epsilon Chi will host the AEX Live coffeehouse for the Grove City community. Musicians from around campus will be performing songs from various genres.
REACTS 2
Grovers react to Pence announcementMolly WickerNews Editor
President Paul J. Mc-Nulty ’80’s announce-ment last Friday that Vice President Mike Pence will be the 2017 Commencement speak-er produced a variety of reactions, particu-larly from members of the class of 2017 and alumni.
Many students were excited that the vice president, who is well known for his Christian conservative beliefs and stances on political is-sues, was invited.
Jamieson Weaver, a senior political sci-ence major, said she is thrilled.
“I’m excited to have Pence as our graduation speaker. I really respect
him as a politician and agree with a lot of his viewpoints,” she said.
Senior Alison Kjer-gaard, a political sci-ence major, said she doesn’t agree with all of Pence’s political views but is excited that such a high-profile speaker would be visiting Grove City College.
“A commencement speech isn’t about poli-
tics, it isn’t about con-troversial issues,” Kjer-gaard said. “It’s about us getting sent into the world to fulfill vo-cations, to step into a world largely unfriend-ly to our faith. We need encouragement to enter this world. Who better to give us encourage-ment than someone who is under worldly scrutiny, who is cer-
tainly ‘in the world’ and is striving to not be ‘of the world’?”
Pence has kept his faith and morality throughout his climb to the “proverbial top,” she said. “That’s ex-actly the kind of person to encourage us in our next step, to push us to cling to our faith and
PENCE 2
Joe SetyonManaging Editor
Vice President Mike Pence will address the graduating Class of 2017 at commence-ment on May 20, Grove City College President Paul J. McNulty ’80 an-nounced to the student body last Friday.
McNulty first alert-ed the senior class via email, then sent anoth-er later in the day to the entire student body.
“I’m delighted to inform you that Vice President Mike Pence has accepted our invi-tation to deliver your Commencement Ad-dress on May 20th,” McNulty said in his email to seniors.
McNulty told The Collegian that the pro-cess for getting Vice President Pence to come to campus has been in the works for months.
“We initially contact-ed the Pences after the election just to plant the seed about the pos-sibility of delivering the commencement ad-dress,” he said.
Knowing that the then-vice president-elect was busy organiz-ing his office, McNulty said that “we waited to contact them again until after the inaugu-ration,” then sent ad-ditional reminders in February and March.
After the announce-
The CollegianPage 2 April 7, 2017
Series aims to help students in understanding of Islam
Ciara Resler Staff Writer
For the first time at Grove City College, the Understanding Islam series is being offered for students. The event provides an opportu-nity to learn and un-derstand more about the Islamic culture. The series consisted of three different opportunities providing insight on different aspects of Is-lam.
The first lecture took place on Monday in Crawford Auditorium starting at 7 p.m. and was given by Mr. Wasi Muhammad, the ex-ecutive director of the Islamic Center of Pittsburgh. He has degrees in Neurosci-ence, the History and Philosophy of Sci-ence, and Religious Studies. His lecture focused on the specific practices and religious beliefs of Islam.
The second part of the event was a pan-
el on Wednesday in Sticht Lecture Hall featuring two couples: Micah and Christen, and Dave and Lorrie.
Micah and Christen met in North Africa and were teachers there for about a year. They mar-ried shortly after and have lived in the U.S. ever since. They have devoted their time sup-porting and advocating for Muslims.
Due to their personal experience both in the States and overseas, they have aimed their mission at promoting relationships and un-derstanding between Christians and Muslims through the teachings of Jesus Christ.
Dave and Lorrie have been serving impover-ished and underserved communities both lo-cally and globally for nearly 25 years. They were living and work-ing in the Middle East amidst a population heavily influenced by war. That population was one of the 10 poor-
est in the world. There, they worked on a proect project designed to cre-ate long-lasting jobs.
They work with a for-profit Kingdom business venture that is focused on non-food biodiesel fuels.
At their panel, both couples discussed and answered ques-tions about Islam from a Christian per-spective.. They also discussed how Chris-tians can seek out and form relationships with Muslims within their community.
The last part of the program involves a more experiential com-ponent, and will take place tomorrow from 8:30 a.m. until 4p.m.
Students will be com-ing to Pittsburgh to volunteer at a kids club hosted by Muslim and Refugee children, and will be helping them to lead crafts and game sessions.
There will also be a time of worship and a Bible lesson to attend.
REACTSmorals in a world that stands against those things,” Kjergaard said.
“As an evangelical Christian, he embod-ies Grove City College’s beliefs and reflects the message our adminis-tration tries to convey on a daily basis,” senior Arthur LaMotta wrote in an email to a Col-legian staffer. LaMot-ta said having Pence speak to the graduating class “is a privilege and a blessing.”
Other students took a more negative view of the selection of Pence as commencement speak-er, citing his political history and association with President Donald Trump.
Pence, a former con-gressman and governor of Indiana, has been criticized for advocat-ing policies that are considered unconstitu-tional by many progres-sive and left-leaning voters. While serving as the governor of In-diana, he worked to cut income tax, bar the resettlement of Syr-ian refugees in his state and ban same-sex mar-riage. Since his time in the White House began,
Pence has supported a largely “America First” framework when it comes to foreign policy, built around the idea of a robust American mili-tary. Pence also has supported increased border security mea-sures, voted to repeal gun control laws in Washington, D.C. and worked to dismantle education Common Core standards. Many observers believe he was selected as Trump’s running mate to secure support from evan-gelical voters who had reservations about the thrice-divorced and largely unchurched Trump.
“It baffles me that Christian institution, that supposedly values every human life and facilitates Christian education and beliefs, would allow someone as divisive as Mike Pence to come speak,” senior Meg Baak said. “In an age where hate, violence, divisiveness and partisanship are so prevalent, I am shocked that Grove City would bring one of the most controversial political figureheads to our cam-pus for graduation.”
Baak is also wary that Pence’s speech is mere-
ly a tool to increase the college’s overall recog-nition.
“If Pence’s speaking is merely to put Grove City on the map, I am highly discouraged,” she said.
Alumni reaction to the Pence pick was also mixed.
Caleb McKusick ’15, in an email to a Colle-gian staffer, expressed excitement that a school as small as Grove City would play host to a speaker of such a caliber. He said Pence has the opportunity to inspire graduates and “motivate each student and alum to face their path in life with deter-mination and perse-verance, believing that they can make a lasting impact on the people around them.”
“Regardless of where each student or alum stands politically, I hope everyone is able to get excited about this once-in-a-lifetime event. A special com-mendation should be given to our school’s leadership for continu-ally striving to present the best opportunities for the students and alumni of Grove City,” he wrote.
Anna Bentley ’15,
cited Pence’s faith as an encouragement, despite the moral controversy surrounding Trump and his administration.
“I hope that he will shed some light on his role as Vice President and what it looks like to support a president that he may disagree with,” she wrote. “I person-ally find it encouraging that Pence … plays such an important role in the current administration. What more could we hope for than to have an honorable man ef-fecting a dishonorable president?”
Other alumni were not pleased and ex-pressed themselves on-line.
Chrissy Ware ’03, who studied business management and was her class president, said she thinks having Pence as the commencement speaker will align the college with the value system of the current administration.
“I am very disap-pointed in the college’s decision to invite Mike Pence to speak at com-mencement,” she said in a post on Facebook.
“The only ‘Christian’ values exhibited by the current presiden-tial administration are
sadly ones that exclude others and perpetuate the marginalization of every type of minority. Grove City College is a place where I forged some of my deepest friendships and I am extremely upset that they would welcome a man associated with and personally exhibit-ing greed, bigotry, self-ishness, and consistent lying.”
Eleanor Linton ’15, worried in a publicly-circulated letter ad-dressed to McNulty that having Pence as the commencement speak-er sends a message to “alums, potential stu-dents, higher educa-tional institutions, and the world” that Grove City College endorses the Trump administra-tion.
“The commencement speaker cannot repre-sent the views of every-one graduating. There’s bound to be contro-versy of some sort. But the speaker invited is a clear indicator of where the school’s leadership places value and how they want to be regard-ed in the most public and high profile event any college ever has. My concern is that with Vice President Pence
being selected, Grove City College is actively giving away the chance to stand for Christian values and is instead choosing to identify with the political party in the White House,” she wrote.
McNulty ’80 hailed Pence as the com-mencement speaker.
“Mike Pence is one of the most influential leaders in the world today. He’s a former leader in Congress and governor and now Vice President of the United States. Mrs. Mc-Nulty and I have been blessed to know them as friends,” he said.
McNulty also ex-pressed his “great con-fidence in the strong culture of Grove City College and our distinc-tive attributes of humil-ity and respect for oth-ers.”
After Grove City Col-lege, Pence will travel to his home state of Indiana, where he will speak to graduates of Notre Dame University. Students at the Catholic college have also ex-pressed varying opin-ions about that institu-tion’s commencement choice.
GEO URDU
An Understanding Islam series was offered for students to provide an opportunity to learn and understand more about the Islamic culture.
PENCE
ment came that Pence would be speaking at Notre Dame’s com-mencement on March 21, McNulty “became more hopeful that we might fit into the sched-ule.”
In mid-March, Pence officially accepted The College’s invitation.
The McNultys’ rela-tionship with the Penc-es dates back many years.
Both Grove City Col-lege First Lady Brenda McNulty ’80 and Sec-ond Lady of the United States Karen Pence worked at the same
Christian school that both couples’ children attended.
After the McNultys’ son passed away four years ago, “the Pences were among a large group of Northern Vir-ginia friends who of-fered amazing support to our family,” Presi-dent McNulty said.
“We have always ad-mired them for their humble and sincere faith,” he added.
McNulty and Pence’s professional relation-ship was not as exten-sive. Both Republicans, they were not always on the same team.
When McNulty served as Deputy Attor-
ney General and Pence was on the House Ju-diciary Committee, the two were on opposite sides of a media shield law that would protect reporters who did not want to reveal their sources.
Pence was a “champi-on” of the bill, McNulty said.
McNulty though, tes-tified before Congress against the bill, as the Justice Department believed that its “provi-sions were too burden-some and unworkable for prosecutors con-ducting time-sensitive investigations.”
“I’m sure he wasn’t happy with our opposi-
tion, but he was always cordial,” he added.
Vice President Pence is one of the highest-profile figures to speak at commencement.
In past years, former First Lady Laura Bush, former Florida Gover-nor Jeb Bush and re-tired neurosurgeon and current Secretary of Housing and Urban De-velopment Ben Carson have addressed gradu-ating seniors.
Due to Pence’s posi-tion as vice president, though, this year’s com-mencement will be dif-ferent.
“The security mea-sures on campus will be very extensive, cer-
tainly far more than the College has ever seen before,” McNulty said.
McNulty also ac-knowledged that his an-nouncement has been met with a variety of responses.
“I’ve received many appreciative comments as well as thoughtfully stated objections. I’m very thankful for the civility of our campus community,” he said.
Regardless, he be-lieves that Pence’s actu-al speech “will be hope-ful and inspiring.”
Neither Vice Presi-dent Pence’s office nor the College’s Office of Marketing and Com-munications could con-
firm that Pence would be speaking at com-mencement.
Special Assistant to the President and Press Secretary for the Vice President Marc Lotter told The Collegian in an email that “The Vice President’s schedule has not been released for that time period.”
However, McNulty is confident that an of-ficial announcement is forthcoming.
“The VP’s office is going to announce Mr. Pence’s commence-ment address schedule sometime soon,” he said.
Life Page 3April 7, 2017
Campus gets artsy for annual festivalRachel RiviereStaff Writer
The annual Arts Fes-tival is taking place on campus this week and features a variety of art forms such as poetry, visual arts, pottery and music.
What used to be known as “Project Eve” a few years ago has now become the Arts Festi-val. The event is open to contributions from both women and men.
“This year, the Arts Festival is over a week
long,” said senior Chris-tie Goodwin. “It will in-clude a poetry reading, organized by Amanda Mittelman, a wheel throwing demonstra-tion featuring Freddy Raupp, the SGA coffee-house, Dr. Drake and Dr. Munson’s ‘Beauty’ talk, an Exhibit Open-ing Party, AEX Live and multiple student art ex-hibits around campus.”
This year, Goodwin is putting on the event with the help of Ju-nior Director Robert Graham and 19 other
exhibit curators, PR di-rectors and event plan-ners.
This year, the Festival will feature new exhib-its that will draw stu-dents in and encourage them to think critically and experiment with their own creativity.
“Jenna Hershberger has organized a theme exhibit this year in which students created art pieces based on one of Dr. Eric Potter’s po-ems,” said Goodwin. “This is a new exhibit this year, and we’re very
excited about this col-laboration!”
Another new feature for this year has to do with The Quad literary magazine on campus.
“This year, The Quad is creating a special ex-hibit of past magazine covers,” Goodwin said. “Grant Wishard and Sophie Stangebye are curating an exhibit of these covers, and the framed covers will be permanently displayed in the English Depart-ment suite once the event is over.”
The Arts Festival is an opportunity for stu-dents to share their own creations and admire the talent of others. It is a unique invitation to break away from the demands of school work and take time to examine the work of peers and fellow artists.
“There are so many talented artists on this campus that have few opportunities to share their art with the cam-pus. It is both inspira-tional and refreshing to see the work of students
who have made cre-ativity a priority,” said Goodwin.
“Art expresses the unspoken, commu-nicating the reality of an often-hidden life,” said Goodwin. “Artists, poets and writers are the truth-tellers in our lives. I hope students walk away with a great-er respect for the art-ists who are both bur-dened and blessed with this responsibility,” she added.
Fujimura sparks flameKayla SarinContributing Writer
On Thursday, March 30, Grove City wel-comed world renowned artist Makoto Fujimura to the stage.
Fujimura is the Di-rector of Fuller’s Brehm Center, a community of Christ-centered people who encourage leaders to integrate their faith into the arts.
He was presented with the annual award, “2014 Religion and the Arts,” by the American Academy of Religion because of his contribu-tion to relating the arts and religion. Fujimura is a popular speaker and author who ties re-ligion into the artwork he continually creates.
Fujimura was com-missioned to do paint-ings for each of the four Gospels.
He explained that today, Christians think the Gospel is centered on fixing the world, but that is not the case. In-stead, he believes the Gospel is about Jesus’ tears and His presence amidst our trauma. He picked the verse, “Jesus wept,” from John 11 and told the story of Mary and Martha weeping af-ter Lazarus’ death.
He talked mostly about his painting “Tears of Christ,” which he finished before the paintings on the four Gospels. His goal was to use this painting as inspiration and paint the four Gospel paint-ings through the lens of Jesus’ tears.
When talking about the verse “Jesus wept,” he made a point to mention verse four of John 11 that says, “so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.” Jesus had the power of healing Lazarus before he died, but instead, he waited until after Laza-rus had already passed.
Fujimura said, “Tears are useless if you pos-sess the power to cause miracles.”
He went on to say that Jesus allowed Himself to become hu-man and experience all the emotions that come with that—even weep-ing over the death of a loved one.
Fujimura said that Martha knew Jesus’s tears were not just for her and her family, but also for what was to come. She knew that He would have to pay a price. For Mary, she was able to see that Je-sus was a close friend
while also being a Sav-ior because of His tears. Fujimura explained that she was so over-come with gratitude for what Jesus had done that she felt the need to anoint Him with the nard from her ala-baster jar – something that was supposed to be saved for marriage. A man in that time would only smell that scent on his wedding night, so this angered the dis-ciples.
Tying everything to-gether at the end of his lecture, Fujimura ex-plained that he uses ex-pensive materials when he paints because it is the best he can bring to God.
He asked the audi-ence, “When you speak of the Gospel, do you smell like the aroma of Mary? Do you smell like the aroma of a wedding night?”
Many students found the lecture incredibly moving and were left speechless.
Senior Raquel Fe-reshetian said, “He showed us his perspec-tive of the Bible and brought us new mean-ing to the combination of art and faith.”
She added that his passion for his work ob-viously comes from the Lord and it was beau-tiful to see his success through that.
Grover LifeAn occasional satirical feature exploring the vagaries of life at Grove City College
GCC settles for Mike Pence
At Grove City Col-lege, President Mc-Nulty announced via email late last Friday that Vice President Mike Pence would be the commencement speaker for the GCC Class of 2017.
While many Gro-vers were elated that the college had secured such a high-profile speaker, a number of others voiced concerns that Pence might diverge too far from the politi-cal and religious be-liefs of most students on campus.
When asked what kind of speaker she would have preferred, one senior stated, “I guess I just wanted someone who really represented Grove City values, ya know? I’m just not sure that faith and freedom matter enough to Mike Pence. Sure, he’s a conservative Chris-tian, but I was hoping more for an ultra-conservative, ultra-Christian. You know, like the kind that just use their initials as their first name.”
The student’s senti-ments resonated with many other students, including another se-nior, who said, “Mike Pence is great but I was really trying to get the administration to summon the ghost of Ronald Reagan to
speak… or at least C.S. Lewis or R.C. Sproul or something.”
Among other names that students sug-gested were Ludwig von Mises and John the Baptist.
Some students proved especially vo-cal in their concerns that bringing Pence to campus might rupture the bubble of pure Christian conserva-tism that surrounds the college.
“First Ben Carson, and now Mike Pence? Is McNulty trying to turn this place into a liberal cesspit? This guy has achieved nothing, and will only attract more socialists to campus,” stated a fifth-year senior.
Another senior not-ed that “Mike Pence does not believe that taxation is theft. Do we really want that kind of man on our campus?”
Despite growing concerns regarding the potential nega-tive consequences of allowing Pence to speak at Freedom’s College, the adminis-tration is not expected to rescind its invita-tion. Student Life and Learning did indicate, however, that safe spaces would be pro-vided for any student who feared psycho-logical trauma from Pence’s speech.
ANDREW STEIN
Reknowned artist and writer Makoto Fujimura spoke at the Christian Writer’s Conference at Grove City Col-lege last Thursday.
BUSINESS INSIDER
Choosing Vice President Mike Pence as com-mencement speaker is no doubt a sign that Grove City College is quickly devolving into a liberal institution.
Author speaks on left’s ‘Distortion’ of scriptures
Kelleigh HuberLife Editor
A first-time visitor to cam-pus, Chelsen Vicari, author and evangelical program director at the Institute on Religion and Democracy sat down with Dr. Paul Kengor to discuss her book Tuesday evening in Sticht Lec-ture Hall.
The book, entitled “Distortion: How the New Christian Left is Twisting the Gospel and Damag-ing the Faith,” is full in both title as well as in content.
Vicari highlighted much of her upbringing, college experience, and now job experience during the discussion, leaving students with a collection of thoughts on how to best implement Christian beliefs and act on them.
Vicari spoke to the nature of social justice, arguing that truly it depends on how one performs social justice. For example, in her college years, she said that she was blinded to the fact that liberation theology was actually repackaged as justice theology.
“Distorted” depicts both the crisis and the issues at stake in
the upcoming world and pins millennials as victims to some-thing similar to what Vicari ex-perienced herself – revisionist theology – which appeared dif-ferently to her; she couldn’t rec-ognize it at first.
In addition to theology, Vica-ri’s book addresses three groups of Christians. Vicari herself ar-gues that at some point everyone falls into all three of the catego-ries, but it is which group one falls into that determines the kind of person they truly are.
The first group she mentions are “couch potato Christians,” or the mature Christians who are traditional in faith, but do not speak out or get involved in any of the issues surrounding our culture.
Another group is “cafeteria-style Christians,” those who go along the buffet line and pick and choose the issues they feel comfortable discussing with oth-ers. Most often, those are the easy issues.
Finally, “convictional Chris-tians,” the ones who are a minor-ity and the category all should aim to fall into. “Convictional
Christians” hold to traditional faith but choose to engage, hav-ing a strong social and vocal presence.
Later in the book, Vicari hits on the sensitive issues of the cul-ture today, including same sex marriage, gender, Jesus femi-nists and the sanctity of life. So-cial issues present the chance to create change, but Vicari noted there is a personal and sensitive nature to these topics. Speaking to tradition, Vicari argued that tradition is in place for such a long period of time that once the guard is let down, the line just keeps moving and moving. She points to Christians who are struggling with these issues and how these are never the people that are heard about in the news, despite the incredible journeys these people are on.
Vicari urged the student body to stick to Christian creeds and work hard in their mission fields in order to stay firm in the faith. She closed with Ephesians 4:15, encouraging students to speak the truth in love every day, but also as they head out from Grove City.
Page 4 April 7, 2017The Collegian
A perfect pair: Grovers in India
Kelleigh HuberLife Editor
Instead of moving to a large city to begin work immediately after graduation, two seniors have created a project that gives to an area of the world untouched by things so common to us here – soccer and nutri-tion.
Fulfilling a need that senior Lindsey Reichert saw during her time in India as a Red Box Mis-sionary, she, along with teammate Kelsey Patton, have set out to move to Jaigaon, India for a five-week pilot program in which they will be able to teach nutrition and coach soccer for the stu-dents of an Assembly of God Mission School.
The school brings to-gether students from India, Nepal and Bhutan – students ranging from kindergarten to tenth grade, about 400 kids.
Reichert and Patton will begin their program on June 10, in sync with the start of the school year for the children in India.
For the time being, their program is five weeks, giving them until the middle of July to as-sess the state of the pro-grams over there and to see if there is a persistent need that will carry on past the pilot program itself.
The pair is working with Harvest Bridge, an organization with one goal: “to come alongside indigenous ministries in South Asia,” according to their webpage.
While they won’t be not traveling with Har-
vest Bridge representa-tives, Harvest Bridge has provided Reichert and Patton with contacts in India, such as principals, pastors and schools.
From there, the girls have initiated contact and are working to get themselves to India. They have been in per-sonal contact with the principal of the As-sembly of God Mission School, who told them that he had been hopeful for a program like this to come to his school.
Reichert and Patton will be working in a va-riety of different ways during their five weeks. Overall, the time is short but much is able to be done in it. There are certain hours available for their lessons, which will include both soccer training as well as nutri-tion and hygiene lessons for the students.
From noon to 2 p.m., they will have the oppor-
tunity to teach one hour of nutrition training and one hour of soccer train-ing.
The time could in-clude classroom sessions with handouts and Pow-erPoints, soccer drills, shooting and passing, hopefully building up to scrimmages. When the students are in class, an-other job they are pursu-ing is observation.
“We’re trying to gauge if the kids can start making the connection between strength and nutrition,” Patton said. “We’re assessing the challenges and obstacles [that we have] conveying this educational infor-mation to children.”
They also plan to maintain a social media presence to document the trip. While travel-ing is not a part of the five-week pilot program, Reichert and Patton hope that an entire pro-gram will be built that
they can then present to other schools, spreading across India. Other com-munity outreach will be given in the form of com-munity potluck dinners and training for teachers in how to coach.
The idea for the project came from a variety of places, although Reichert admits her Red Box ex-perience in India during the summer of 2016 sig-nificantly impacted her decision to pursue this after graduation.
“I was trying to pro-cess through what I saw this summer,” Reichert said. “I asked them about themselves, and many said they enjoyed cricket, football (soccer), but they didn’t have a sports team to play on. I noticed a strong need for nutrition education everywhere I went in the schools. The girls would just come up and ask questions, so there was a need for that, and we’re pulling those
two together.”For Patton, the deci-
sion to go to India post-graduation was a com-bination of many of her favorite things.
“I thought it was a re-ally neat project, a lot of things were combined that I love – an intercul-tural setting, my love for kids…I have the visual in my mind, and I’m ex-cited to see that visual be a reality, like it has been Lindsey’s,” Patton said.
Patton and Reichert are optimistic that the trip will further enhance their careers later down the road. As Communi-cation Studies majors, both agreed the career growth is happening on this end of the project, as they create contacts in India and work to raise support financially.
Their theme, Patton said, is adaptation and being able to be molded in these five weeks.
“There are things I’ll
realize later. I’m going in open to how God wants to transform me and how God will use us. We’re going in unsure about what God’s going to do, but excited for what He’s going to do,” she said.
A theme that Reichert is working towards is servanthood.
“I talked to a mission-ary couple and they were saying that we’re going to be able to observe a lot, but nothing really is go-ing to change their habits in five weeks. I just want to go over there with the heart of servanthood and understand how we can help everyone in that time,” she said.
There are many ways for the campus com-munity to get involved in helping Reichert and Patton prepare for their trip this summer. If you have nutritional plans, soccer training ideas, ideas for support rais-ing, or connections to alumni who would have interest in support-ing the project, please email [email protected] or [email protected]. In addition, a $50 donation will sup-port a child with a soc-cer ball, cleats and wa-ter bottle and will also provide food towards community potlucks that the girls will be holding.
June 10 begins a new journey for Reichert and Patton, who are excited for the trip and hopeful of the out-comes.
“I’m super excited to be going back, I think my heart is really in In-dia now,” Reichert said.
LINDSEY REICHERT
Seniors Kelsey Patton and Lindsey Reichert will travel to India the summer following their graduation to work with schoolchildren in this country.
Do-it-all alum shares his journeyMarley KroppStaff Writer
You don’t often hear singing in the Hall of Arts and Letters. You expect to hear singing in Pew Fine Arts Center or during a coffeehouse in the Student Union. However, if you passed by HAL 204 at 10 a.m. on Friday, March 31, you would have heard live music.
With guitar in-hand, singer-songwriter and novelist Bill Deasy ’88 shared the story of his creative career with a screenwriting class.
Deasy, a Pittsburgh native, started by play-ing a song that resonat-ed with him during his college years: “These Days” by Jackson Browne.
Deasy told students, “That’s who I was when I was you. I don’t know what I had to be so sad about, but maybe I con-nected with the overall feel of the music.”
Deasy built his ca-reer on writing original music and perform-ing. While in college, he performed as part of an acoustic duo every Thursday at a local bar. After college, he de-bated about whether he
should pursue a career as a musician. Deasy said, “It’s hard to say if I was approaching the life of an artist bravely or if I was just afraid of doing something nor-mal.”
Deasy ended up pur-suing the life of a mu-sician. He became the principle songwriter for the Gathering Field, a rock band that be-came popular in west-ern Pennsylvania in the 1990s.
Deasy teamed up with Dave Brown, a musician from the town of Grove City, to form the band.
The Gathering Field’s biggest hit was “Lost in America” from the 1994 album of the same name. After Deasy played the song for the students in the screen-writing class, he said that the Gathering Field landed a record con-tract with Atlantic Re-cords in 1996.
However, the band’s regional success did not translate into national success. Deasy said that Atlantic was busy promoting Matchbox Twenty.
Deasy started to be-come frustrated with the record company.
He wanted to regain control over his creative process. In 1997, Deasy started thinking about a compelling name that he once saw on a tombstone: Ransom Seaborn. He decided to use that name to write a novel.
“I wrote long-wind-ed songs,” said Deasy. “You could see in my songwriting that I would one day write novels or screenplays.”
Deasy wrote ‘Ransom Seaborn,” the story of Dan “Fin” Finbar, a stu-dent who did not fit the mold of his small, con-servative Christian col-lege. Deasy based many of Fin’s experiences on his own time at Grove City.
“I was raised Catho-lic and liberal,” said Deasy. “I loved my time at Grove City, but I also had a little band of reb-els.”
“Ransom Seaborn” did not receive a pub-lishing deal right away, so Deasy put the work on the backburner. In 2001, the Gather-ing Field went on hia-tus, and Deasy worked on his solo career as a songwriter and per-former. Deasy’s song “Good Things Are Hap-
pening” became the theme of Good Morn-ing America.
In 2005, Deasy re-visited “Ransom Sea-born.” He received a publishing deal with Velluminous Press and sold a few thousand copies of the book; he has written two more novels since then.
Despite the comple-tion of multiple nov-els Deasy was not fin-ished with Dan Finbar. Around 2009, one of Deasy’s friends, who worked at a major mov-ie studio, suggested that Deasy make “Ransom Seaborn” into a movie. “Screenwriting merges songwriting and novel writing,” Deasy said.
“I just went for it. I dove into the world of screenwriting.”
Deasy’s friend sent the screenplay out for coverage, which is anonymous criticism from professionals in the movie industry. The screenplay received harsh feedback, and he became aware of “glar-ing deficiencies” in his work.
For years, Deasy re-worked the screenplay. “At times, I was dev-astated,” he said, “but I love the process.” Deasy added a more robust backstory for Fin and started to grasp the differences between writing novels and screenplays.
He recently sent out the last draft of the screenplay for cover-age, and it received very positive feedback. “We’ll see what comes next,” said Deasy, “but at least I did it.”
“It takes a certain kind of bravery to write,” said Deasy. “You have to get comfort-able with your own lan-guage, your inner ma-chinery. Your writing has to connect with you and then it’ll connect with others.”
Deasy’s songs and novels have already connected with thou-sands of people. We’ll wait and see down what new roads his screen-play leads him.
MARLEY KROPP
Musician/writer Bill Deasy ’88 talked to students about his creative journey.
Entertainment Page 5April 7, 2017
Straight from the heartJonathan FisherStaff Writer
Last Friday night, Grove City College stu-dents, both past and present, along with oth-er concertgoers gath-ered in Crawford Au-ditorium to watch Jon Foreman perform.
Joel Ansett opened the concert by perform-ing a few songs of his own. It was evident that every one of his songs was written and sung from the heart whether having to do with the hardships of the world’s brokenness in “Tragedy is Not the End” or the beauty of love in “Al-ready in Love.”
His songs, having an overall mellow vibe, gave a nice and relaxed beginning to the con-cert.
After Ansett finished his set, there was an intermission period while the stage was set up for Foreman’s performance. The en-vironment remained pretty relaxed during this time, but once the lights began to dim for Foreman to come on-stage, there was a clear spike in the room’s en-ergy. Audience mem-bers stood up and got as close to the stage as
possible.Foreman was met
with great cheers and applause as he entered the stage with his two accompanists and be-gan his portion of the show.
Having a consid-erable following and repertoire of songs, it would probably make sense that Foreman would have all of his songs planned out. This, however, was not the case.
He came onstage with a big pile of notecards that had been passed through the audience towards the beginning of the concert for people to write song requests on. One by one Fore-man chose songs from the pile to play, and his accompanists worked very quickly to provide multiple impromptu musical arrangements.
One of the reasons Foreman said he did this was to make a point that the music he made was everyone’s and not just his.
It was certainly evi-dent that his goal of community was met by the overall presence of excitement as the crowd sang along with and cheered for his songs.
Another reason was
to celebrate the chaos of life. With the world throwing so many unex-pected curveballs, it can certainly be frustrating to deal with things not going according to plan, but Foreman combat-ted facing the unfore-seen by embracing it.
One of the pieces of “chaos” that happened during the concert that the crowd was excited to celebrate was when one of Grove City Col-lege’s very own stu-dents was able to do an impromptu perfor-mance with him. It all started when junior Jordan Hörst held up a sign reading “Can my friend Josh play a song with you?” referring to junior Joshua Tracey.
Once he realized what the sign said, Foreman right away invited Trac-ey onstage to perform “Learning to Breathe” with him by accompa-nying on guitar and do-ing some of the vocals.
“Singing with Jon was easily the best mo-ment of my life. I’ve been listening to his music since I was sev-en,” said Tracey.
“To be able to not only meet but sing with my musical hero was the greatest gift I’ve ever been given. The
fact that he let me do that speaks a lot about his character.”
Getting to watch Tracey perform with Foreman was certainly a highlight of the con-cert for many of the students among other things.
Sophomore Kevin Zuercher talked about his own positive expe-rience watching Jon Foreman that night.
“I thought it was great,” he said. “He was very connected with the audience, which was fantastic. It was like he
was still a college stu-dent in many ways.”
The concert’s suc-cess, however, would not have been possible without hard work be-hind the scenes.
Senior Joshua Delk, the president of Stone-bridge Concerts, the organization that put together the evening’s performance, reflected on the work of the stu-dents in the organiza-tion.
“I think our group worked well. We set ourselves up for suc-cess. People were ex-
cited and passionate about what they were doing, and that really showed,” he said.
Everything in the Foreman concert worked together to bring the campus com-munity nostalgia and excitement but also a glimpse of the beauty and community that music can bring.
Closing with “Your Love Is Strong,” Fore-man pointed all the glo-ry back to God, which was the perfect way to conclude such a joyous evening.
Is it time to ‘Take Me Home?’
Sarah GibbsStaff Writer
In “Take Me Home,” Sam Jaeger (major roles in “Hart’s War” and “Parenthood”) cre-ates a film that explores the meaning of life as well as the American countryside. This indie road trip film follows a part-time cab driver who agrees to drive a distressed woman to see her recently hospi-talized father in Califor-nia.
Claire Barrow (Am-ber Jaeger, Solitary) comes home on her lunch break to find her husband flirting with his secretary. Later that night while at work her mother calls to tell her that her estranged fa-ther has had a heart at-tack. Not sure what to do, Claire hails a taxi.
Unemployed and re-cently evicted, Thom (Sam Jaeger) answers the call. Over the next 90 minutes (five days and 2,500 miles), two average people learn to live and work together in the confines of a me-dium-size sedan. The collision of two very different lives earns this road trip film its romantic comedy de-scription.
Thom and Claire tus-sle over how they share the room in the car: Thom needs space for all his belongings (due to the eviction) and Claire needs space for recent mall purchases (due to therapeutic shopping).
The second day, Claire loses her purse and the two have to fig-
ure out how to make $83 stretch the rest of the way to California. Their ideas include raiding a continental breakfast and resorting to taxi driving in an un-familiar town.
As the countryside rolls by and the money runs out, the beauty of the road and of the land slowly rejuvenates their hearts and souls and welcomes them back home—home amidst their past, their forgot-ten dreams, and their faraway families.
Sam Jaeger brings us along in this journey with lingering shots of rustling corn fields, dusty deserts, and beautiful sunsets.
We, along with Claire and Thom, drive through the old to get to the new.
Sam Jaeger wrote, directed and acted in the leading role in what is his first feature film as a director. His wife, Amber Jaeger, acted opposite him and some little Jaegers appear in one scene as brats in the back of the taxi. He began work on the script in 2004, and with the help of Good Folk Films and Wonder Entertainment in 2010, finally took the film from the drawing board
to car mounted camer-as on Interstate 70.
The small film crew traveled across the country in an RV, cross-ing 13 states and filming in each of them. Most big cities gave them a decent reception, but in small towns, and in Ashville, Ohio in partic-ular, they were pulled over within 5 minutes. Jaeger said of the Ash-ville incident, “I don’t know if they thought we were terrorists or what. But sure enough we [got] shut down and asked to leave the city.”
Released in 2011, “Take Me Home” per-formed well at a va-riety of film festivals, winning the Audience Choice awards at both the Boston Film Festi-val and the Rhode Is-land International Film Festival, receiving the award for Best Music in a Feature Film at the Nashville Film Festival, and receiving the Gold-en Ace Award at the Las Vegas Film Festival.
Monterey Media bought the rights to the film and released it to seven theatres in 2012. The low-budget film grossed $15,000 in 11 weeks in theatres. The film is available for streaming on Netflix.
ROB AUDIA
Switchfoot lead singer Jon Foreman performed on campus last Friday. The concert, which was well-received by its attendees, also featured Grove City alum and fellow musician Joel Ansett. For more photos, see Photospread on pages 6 and 7.
THE MOVIEPICTURESHOW.COM
“Take Me Home” stars Sam Jaeger ad Claire Barrow.
Last Saturday, the men of Alpha Sigma put on their annual coffeehouse concert, Unplugged. At-tendees consumed root beer floats and enjoyed music from a variety of different groups, includ-ing the Grove City Col-lege Glee Club and the Ian Bogle Experience.
Photos by Karen Postu-pac
Old MAP ‘Unplugged’
Through the LensPage 6 April 7, 2017
At left, Jon Foreman sings alongside junior Josh Tracey of Grove City College. After spot-ting a sign in the crowd that read “Let my friend Josh play with you,” Foreman did just that. He gladly handed over his guitar to Tracey, who proceeded to fault-lessly perform the song, “Learning to Breathe,” as the crowd roared their approval. Not only did Foreman sing with Tracey, but his drum-mer and cellist accom-panied him. When the song finished, the two embraced as the crowd applauded for one of their own. For a full concert review, see page 5.
Alyssa Jackson
JON, JOEL AND JOSH JAMJON, JOEL AND JOSH JAMROBERT AUDIA
ROBERT AUDIA
ROBERT AUDIA
ROBERT AUDIA
ROBERT AUDIA
Page 7April 7, 2017 Through the Lens
1-800-451-4194www.pts.edu/GC
Whether you feel called to be a pastor, church planter, counselor, educator, community organizer, or something else, Pittsburgh Theological Seminary will prepare you to serve Christ in whatever you do. Grove City College graduates may qualify for the PTS Partners Grant.
Degree programs:
• Master of Divinity (including emphasis in church planting)• Master of Divinity with joint degrees (Including law, social
work, and public policy)• Master of Divinity or Master of Arts with concentration in
urban ministry• Master of Arts (including Theology and Ministry or
Theological Studies)
WHATEVER YOU DO
Photos by Andrew Stein and Robert Audia
ROBERT AUDIA
ANDREW STEIN
ANDREW STEIN
ROBERT AUDIA
ANDREW STEIN
Page 8 April 7, 2017The Collegian
Beauty in darkness
Nicolas GiorgiStaff Writer
Life on this planet is all about finding enjoy-ment in the little things. Some of the most as-tounding aspects of life are understated; gentle rains on a lazy Sunday afternoon, the smell of sanguine sulfur after the candles on a cake have been blown out and the soft whir of the wind through long pine needles on a warm spring night. We have a propensity to look past the little things, forget-ting that those are what make things particular-ly worthy of joy.
The same can be said about music. Small, seemingly insignifi-cant musicians can of-fer the largest amount of joy, in specific and unique circumstances. Such is the case for the band “Cemeteries,” the moniker chosen by Kyle J. Reigle. Cem-eteries is a unique kind of beautiful, a beauty that can seem quite ugly to some, but in-tensely serene to oth-ers; this is very similar to the peace that some can feel in a cemetery. Reigle describes his sound as dark, but not in the conventional way. It’s dark in a fash-ion that is similar to derge; it isn’t inherently morose, but context comes with his writing and instrumentation lends to the feeling. This is perfectly ex-emplified through the 2015 album ‘Barrow.’ The album opens with the track “Procession.” The sound of waves first greets the listener, calmly escorting gentle modulated bells, tinny xylophone and the ob-scured chanting. As the track progresses, the volume begins to increase significantly, seizes, then rolls into the simple chords of the piano. This is when the
album truly comes alive with “Nightjar.”
The tempo picks up, the piano contin-ues its simple, few set of chords, the drums start to point, and a modulated guitar be-gins to electrify the air. The track also be-comes whimsical as airy, poignantly written vocals are introduced, though notably distant. Each track offers its own character, with two other tracks being par-ticularly notable.
The first of these, the third track, is “Luna (Moon of Claiming).”
It is perfectly split into two three-minute halves, the second half being a reprise, with only the piano and vo-cals being used. There is an uncomfortable split in tone between the instrumentation and the lyrics; the pia-no is quite calm, but the lyrics are ambivalent to something unknown. The mix of the two ele-ments is chilling.
The second notable track, what could be considered the most accessible and upbeat track, is “Sodus.” The track feels like he is excited telling a story about a thrilling yet ter-rifying night of explor-ing a nighttime shore. The pumping guitar and harsh drums are provide great contrast to the rest of the album. As a whole, Barrow is reminiscent of a lu-minescent night on a mid-summer’s night as one strolls through a barren field basked in gentle yet vivacious moonlight, while slight-ly amalgamous trees dancing off in the dis-tance as a gentle breeze sweeps past and the roll of distant waves beck-ons for company. There is a quietude that is unique to Barrow that deserves to be experi-enced.
TobyMac rocks outMadison StoutStaff Writer
Last Friday, TobyMac sold out the Petersen Events Center in Pitts-burgh.
KLOVE and Food for the Hungry presented the TobyMac “HITS DEEP Tour” including Matt Maher, Mandisa, Mac Powell, Capital Kings, Ryan Stevenson and Hollyn. The entire tour will visit over 30 arenas across the U.S.
TobyMac has been performing since 1987 when he created DC Talk with Newsboys’ Michael Tait and Audio Adrenaline’s Kevin Max Smith. According to his website tobymac.com, he has been with his current band DiverseC-ity since his solo career took off in 2001.
According to The Christian Beat, this tour is part two of the “HITS
DEEP Tour” which be-gan in the spring of 2016. 26 out of his 29 venues sold out and Pollstar said “the HITS DEEP Tour was the big-gest tour in Christian music and ranked in the top 35 tours in the world.”
Over 15,000 children were sponsored by con-certgoers through the partnership with Food for the Hungry last year and this year To-byMac has partnered with them again. By the looks of it, part two seems like it is going to be just as successful.
Technically TobyMac is a Christian hip hop, pop artist, but in real-ity his songs range from rap to rock, alternative to reggae. Songs like “Love Broke Through,” and “Steal My Show” are much slower. He and his band’s perfor-mance during these
songs are slightly less dynamic. They tone down the crazy lights and dances, instead fo-cusing directly on the music and worshiping the Lord.
Then there are songs like “Til the Day I Die” which has a much more rap/rock feel. The en-tire stage was covered in smoke and blue lights shot up from the floor. The end of the song had TobyMac lead the band down the walk way in a march forma-
tion while waving white flags that pictured a cross and “Til the Day I Die.”
He really does have a wide range of songs and the diverse group of bands he asked to join him on his tour shows that.
One of the things I found particularly in-teresting was that dur-ing his performance throughout the eve-ning, TobyMac had all of his front liners, with the exception of
Mac Powell and Capital Kings, come back on to do a song with him.
He truly is a perform-er. A show running an hour and a half long, a crazy light display, smoke machines, a DJ solo mix and a jazz sec-tion of the band, toby-Mac sure does know how pull out all the stops.
Despite all the tech-nology and party vibes, TobyMac also acknowl-edged that his fame and success was not of
his own doing but be-cause of the Lord. His performances are to worship and recognize God. He told the audi-ence that every night as he walks to the center of the stage to begin his concerts he asks God to speak through him.
Bethany King, a Grove City College stu-dent attendee of the concert said that “The concert was really fun! It was awesome being in God’s presence for the night.”
Samsung seeks to soarClaire RaufStaff Writer
Samsung recently re-vealed its newest flag-ship phone in two mod-els, the Galaxy S8 and S8+, both of which will be available worldwide on April 28.
But in a rapidly ad-vancing technologi-cal world where every phone is starting to look and feel the same, will Samsung’s newest devices save the tech gi-ant from burning out – literally? The company faced major allegations within the past year after one of their de-vices, the Galaxy Note 7, would spontaneously burst into flames with no warning whatsoever.
Luckily, the S8 and its larger counterpart, the S8+, seem to have just the right combina-tion of style and pro-cessing power to keep the company afloat.
Plus, according to Samsung, both of the phones have undergone newly implemented rig-orous battery testing to make sure that neither unexpectedly explode. Who would have ever guessed that that would be a primary selling point for a phone?
The headline feature of the devices is the In-finity Display. While the phone isn’t all screen, it’s close enough. Sam-sung was able to accom-plish this by eliminating the home screen but-ton, and the whole ef-fect is incredibly sleek.
Unfortunately, the fingerprint sensor that unlocks the phone was placed quite awkward-ly, right below the cam-era on the back. While this is only initially un-comfortable, any user can simply employ the iris scanner or facial recognition to unlock the phone by holding it up.
The whole phone packs in an incredibly low bezel-to-screen ra-tio, small chassis, wire-
less charging, and an IP68 rating into a 5.8-inch display. The phone is big, and as such might require some getting used to, especially for those with small hands. Overall, the phone is beautiful.
For the U.S., the phone will be released in three colors: Mid-night, Orchid Gray, and Arctic Silver. The other two colors, Maple Gold and Coral Blue, are reserved for other re-gions.
The screen itself is a Super AMOLED dis-play with a QHD reso-lution that is able to be manually altered in the settings. Because the screen is extended, the screen is now an 18.5:9 aspect ratio, which is incredibly powerful compared to the iPhone 7’s 9:16 aspect ratio. Samsung also claims that this is the first phone to be offering full HDR technology, which is a slight to LG and Sony, who have already announced the technol-ogy. In addition, Sam-sung is partnering with Netflix and Amazon to offer full mobile HDR viewing, which is a step forward for this tech-nology.
Another highlight of the phone that was an-nounced pre-release, interestingly enough, is the creation and imple-mentation of Samsung’s
new intelligent assis-tant, Bixby. The Galaxy S8 is the perfect candi-date for the launch of this AI, as it even has a dedicated side button so that Bixby is always only a click away.
The intentions for Bixby are pure, but the reality is that it’s just like every other intel-ligent assistant on the market. Reviewers who played around with the device at launch were later contacted by Sam-sung representatives who reported that their contact with Bixby was merely a demo, and as such wasn’t really in-dicative of the full pow-er of the service.
Regardless, most re-viewers who compare Bixby with its rivals state that the voice as-sistant falls short.
As expected, the in-side of the phone is increasingly powerful. According to highly-probable leaks, the S8 will be sold with 4GB of RAM with either a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 chipset or Sam-sung’s Exynos 8895. This amps up the CPU 10 percent as compared to last year’s model.
While the physical home button no longer exists, there is still a “button” that operates very similarly to the iPhone 7 button, as it offers haptic feedback instead of a click.
The visuals and icons on the S8 are now more natural looking, with fewer angular shapes. It is quite aesthetically pleasing. The menus and scrolling are fluid and quick to respond.
Samsung already has arguably one of the best cameras on the market, and the company seems nervous to mess with the formula. The S8 has a 12MP sensor on the rear, with an f/1.7 ap-erture and a fast auto-focus. The front camera is now 8MP, making it a pretty solid selfie phone. While it was a safe call on Samsung’s part to stick with their current camera instead of potentially messing up something new, at the rate technology is moving, rival phones will quickly outpace the S8 in terms of the cam-era.
The Galaxy’s battery is 3000mAh, which is pretty hefty com-pared to the iPhone 7’s 1960mAh battery. However, the new elon-gated screen may drain the battery life. Wire-less and fast charging are also included, but there seems to be no massive upgrade to the battery life.
The starting price for the S8 is set at $750, and the S8+ at $850. The phones will be available for sale on April 28.
CONCERTFIX.COM
TobyMac recently played in Pittsburgh on his “Hits DEEP Tour”, rocking out the Petersen Events Center.
FOXNEWS.COM
The Samsung Galaxy S8 and 8+ will be released to the world on April 28.
Perspectives Page 9April 7, 2017
In defense of Pence: Right for Freedom’s College
Joe SetyonManaging Editor
Unless they are living under a very dense, slip-pery rock, the students, alumni and faculty of Grove City College all know by now that Vice President Mike Pence will be coming to cam-pus this May to deliver the commencement address to the Class of 2017.
A lot has already been written and said about this topic, both de-fending the choice to let the VP speak and arguing that he is not an appropriate choice.
The way I see it, there are two main ways to view Mike Pence as our commencement speak-er: as the Vice President of the United States, and as a conservative Christian whose stanc-es on many issues are shared by many in the campus community.
First, Mike Pence is, at least in theory, the second-most powerful human being in the na-tion, and possibly even the world.
He is literally a heart-beat (God forbid) from becoming the leader of the free world.
Even those who still refuse to recognize the results of November 8 (I’m looking at you, John Lewis) must at some point come to the realization that Donald Trump is our president and that Mike Pence is our vice president.
The point is, Mike Pence is a very impor-tant man.
Now, it’s no secret that Grove City College is not exactly known
for grabbing headlines across the country (not counting the oc-casional footnote about our famous Supreme Court case). We are a tiny school of less than 3,000 students in The Middle of Nowhere, Pa. We don’t get a lot of big-names coming to our College, and that’s fine. As a native New Yorker, I knew exactly what I was getting into by at-tending Grove City.
But that’s why, when in recent years we have had nationally-known figures like Laura and Jeb Bush and Ben Car-son address graduating seniors, we have had reason to get excited.
With all due respect to one illustrious for-mer First Lady and two failed presidential can-didates (one a former governor, the other a world-renowned neu-rosurgeon), our speaker this year simply blows everyone else out of the water.
It doesn’t matter if it’s Mike Pence, Joe Biden or even Dick Cheney; a vice president is a vice president, no matter what his politics are.
Of course, the other way to see Mike Pence is as a conservative Christian man with di-visive views on many issues.
It’s also no secret that Pence was picked as President Trump’s run-ning mate in large part due to his right-wing politics. In an election where Trump had to ap-peal to his conservative Christian base, Pence was the right man for the job.
He is a politician who stands for many conser-vative causes: defend-ing the unborn who are still in the womb, fight-
ing for religious lib-erty for Christians and having the audacity to believe that LGBT+ be-havior is nothing more than a sinful affront to Scriptural teaching.
Sound familiar? That’s probably because most members of the Grove City community have heard one or most likely all three of these viewpoints espoused at one time or another by a classmate, professor or colleague.
It is not sexist, misog-ynistic or [insert liberal buzzword here] to invite a conservative, Chris-tian leader to speak at a traditionally conserva-tive, Christian college. It is simply freedom at work: the freedom a man has to voice views that some people might not agree with and the freedom an administra-tion has to look at its students and decide on an appropriate speaker to most fittingly send them off into the world.
And as we all know, Grove City College is a place where faith and freedom matter.
But I have heard from many on social media and elsewhere expressing shock and complaining that pick-ing Mike Pence as com-mencement speaker is an affront to the LGBT and even the entire fe-male community at GCC!
What did they ex-pect?
They chose to attend Grove City College. They chose to stay here for four years, continu-ing to pay tuition and deal with all the terrible “hate.”
Now, they have one more choice in front of them.
They can go to gradu-
ation, stand there with the classmates they grew close to for the last four years and listen to a speaker for a few short minutes before saying goodbye to the place they have called home for four years.
Or, they can make a scene, protesting the supposed hateful rheto-ric and actions of our vice president and dis-respecting their class-mates and their fami-lies.
Because this is Free-dom’s College, they have the right to pro-test, or even to skip graduation all together, just as the rest of us have the right to show some semblance of re-spect and decency.
But just because they have this right does not make put them in the right.
If you are a stu-dent who takes what is meant to be a celebra-tion of your classmates’ achievements and turn it into your own po-litical statement, you should be ashamed.
If you are a faculty member who chooses to skip out on the Com-mencement speech be-cause you do not like the speaker’s politics, you should be ashamed.
Not only are you dis-respecting the Office of the Vice President of these United States, but you are disrespect-ing the students who worked hard to achieve something, only to have their accomplishments play second fiddle to your protest.
For those who don’t agree with his politics and who don’t think Pence was an appropri-ate choice, I have one piece of advice:
Deal with it.
Pence pick puts politics over Christ
Matt HoekstraStaff Writer
“I would like to watch you graduate, not watch you protest,” my Mom told me in a text mes-sage. Un-fortunately for her, it looks like I may do both.
My initial reaction to the announcement that Vice President Mike Pence would be speak-ing at commencement was one of amusement.
Of course Grove City invited him, I thought. I guess Trump is sched-uled to be at Mar-a-La-go that weekend.
But that cynical fa-çade fell away to anger. Mike Pence does not speak for me, or many of my friends on this campus who are LG-BTQ, people of color, women, immigrants or any other group that Trump/Pence have ma-ligned to rise to power. For my friends and I, President McNulty’s “exciting announce-ment” came as a slap in the face.
Is the highest a Chris-tian can hope to achieve in this world becoming a conservative politi-cian?
That is the logical conclusion from ex-amining the chain of recent commencement speakers – Jeb Bush in 2014, Representative Frank Wolf in 2015, Dr. Ben Carson in 2016 and now Vice President Mike Pence.
All members of the Republican establish-ment, these speakers have contributed to an echo-chamber at Grove City College, enforcing a message that the only way you can be a good Christian is if you vote Republican.
My main issue with the invitation to Vice President Pence, how-ever, is not that he is a conservative Christian. It is that he is an atro-cious representative of Christ. Luke 6:43-45 says that “no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit,” and Mike Pence has produced some rotten fruit in his years of pub-lic service by regularly putting his conserva-tive politics ahead of his Christian faith.
When he was gover-nor of Indiana, Pence refused to support a needle exchange pro-gram, suggesting that providing clean needles would be an incentive for opioid users to con-tinue using. However, drug use in Indiana did not fall. Instead, people struggling with drug ad-diction started reusing and sharing needles.
As a direct result of Pence’s lack of com-passion on the opioid
addicted, an HIV epi-demic broke out. This may seem like an issue of bad sense instead of corrupt character, but Matthew 25:40 says, “Truly, I say to you, as you did to one of the least of these my broth-ers, you did it to me.”
Likewise, Pence’s history of supporting conversion therapy for LGBTQ individuals, a practice denounced by the medical and psy-chological establish-ments, should alarm Christians concerned with the sanctity of life, regardless of their view on the morality of ho-mosexuality.
According to the New York Times, in 2000, Pence sought to provide federal funding to or-ganizations that “pro-vide assistance to those seeking to change their sexual behavior” and 2016’s Republican Par-ty platform supports the “rights of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.”
Both of these are thinly veiled references to conversion therapy.
The issue with Pence’s support of con-version therapy is not just that the practice is ineffective, but that in many cases, it is det-rimental to individu-als who undergo the process. Conversion therapy often leaves the LGBTQ individual feel-ing unsupported and rejected, and, according to a study conducted by San Francisco State University, LGBTQ youth who feel rejected by their families are eight times as likely to attempt suicide, com-pared with their LGBTQ peers who do not feel rejected. Psalm 139:13 says, “For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb.” Anything that contrib-utes to an individual being unable to see the image of God in them-selves, as conversion therapy does, should be rejected by Christians, and yet Mike Pence em-braces it.
Most contrary to the Savior that Pence claims to serve is the President that he un-waveringly binds him-self to. Pence’s loyalty to a man who brags about his ability to sexually assault women should be appalling to anyone who takes the Bible literally.
I John 4:20 says, “Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.”
“Grab them by the
Perspectives on Pence
TRAVESTY 10
Page 10 April 7, 2017Perspectives
The Collegian is the stu-dent newspaper of Grove
City College, located in Grove City, Pa. Opinions
appearing on these pages, unless expressly stated
otherwise, represent the views of individual
writers. They are not the collective views of The Collegian, its staff or Grove City College.
100 Campus DriveGrove City, Pa.
Editor-in-Chief Caleb Harshberger
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Letters to the Editor:Tiresome
and divisiveIt seems to me that
with [Pence’s] recep-tion the school is con-tinuing its shift from that of a more generally libertarian philosophy to conservative sympa-thies. Regardless, the acceptance of nation-ally recognized politi-cians (and particularly ‘loaded’ and controver-sial politicians at that) is at least divisive, de-constructive, and given the frequency of such commencement speak-ers, tiresome.
George Daughtery ‘19
An excitingexperience
Regardless of your personal stance on Pence, having the op-portunity to welcome the Vice President of the United States will certainly provide a memorable commence-ment experience for our graduating seniors, and
will undoubtedly con-tribute to our College’s ever growing reputa-tion as an excellent, nationally recognized institution of higher education.
Kevin Kaufman ’18
You won’t forget it
Graduation is a day that I want to remem-ber forever; I definitely will now. I’m not a fan of Pence or the Trump administration, but the main reason why I don’t agree with Pence speak-ing is because I can’t stand seeing the school I love align more with a political party than with Christ.”
Jason Dauer ‘17
A thrilling choice
I’m thrilled for the college to take its place on the national stage! Having been willing to stand against the worst kind of governmental
interference and keep its independence is tru-ly being rewarded.
Mr. Pence’s con-servative views and his moral integrity make him an excel-lent choice to send off this year’s graduates to face a world of conflict-ing ideas; encouraging them to stand strong in the face of strident opposition. I think Mr. Pence will be delighted to know Grove City Col-lege better as he meets with students and fac-ulty, and will be happy to see that there are still colleges which strive for excellence in character as well as academics.
Amy Farley ’89
An unneeded expense
Inviting Mike Pence to speak at Grove City College is no doubt a great honor, as he is the Vice President of the United States, yet it comes at the expense of students. Due to se-curity reasons and the nature of Pence’s posi-
tion, graduation will al-most definitely be held inside, forcing students to have a “backup-style” graduation. If I were walking this year I don’t think I could choose be-tween my two parents, my brother who is also my best friend, and my only two grandparents. How do you tell your family that they don’t get to see you walk and receive the first college degree in the family af-ter generations of sac-rifice and support? It hurts that the college would rather have a high profile visitor raise our name value than give this day to students to celebrate with their families, as the weather would permit.
Gabrielle Johnston ‘17
Just whatwe need
Although bringing in Pence may feel like a risky move after such a controversial elec-tion, I would coun-ter that bringing in a figure like him is just what our school needs at this point in time.
Having any famous figure deliver the com-mencement address at a college is a great op-portunity to spread the name of Grove City Col-lege, both for the sake of the upcoming gradu-ates and as an appeal to prospective students. Overall, having Mike Pence at graduation is dynamically timed. Even if he is not the preference of every stu-dent, his presence will nonetheless promote the name of the college we call our own, and for this we should be grate-ful.
Julia Roper ‘20
We’re better than this
I think that Grove City College has low-ered their standards of what Christians at look like—yes we are a con-servative college, but we are a Christian college first. We need speakers that hold themselves to a high moral ground, and Pence is not that.
Abigail Hephner ‘17
p****” is about as far removed from John’s words as it gets.
I am not saying that Mike Pence is not a
Christian, but I am say-ing that he has put his political goals ahead of his relationship with Christ. By inviting the Vice President to speak at commencement, President McNulty and
Grove City College have done the same thing.
They have demon-strated that they are a conservative institution first, with service to Je-sus Christ coming in a distant second.
The decision to in-vite the Vice President to speak at commence-ment is a travesty.
I believe the invita-tion should be rescind-ed. In the likely event that it is not, I plan to
use the remainder of my time here to be a voice for the Christians on this campus that do not feel represented by Mike Pence, Donald Trump or Paul McNul-ty.
How to approach depression?Joshua FriedStaff Writer
There is a lot to be said for the promotion and use of anti-depres-sants, but what if there was another way to fight one’s depression in addition to the use of prescription drugs, or in the case of minor depression, in place of these drugs?
As a general starting point, it should be said that if you or a loved one struggles with de-p r e s s i o n and they use anti-d e p r e s -sants to help them h a n d l e their depression, this article is based on a theoretical and philo-sophical evaluation of how to overcome de-pression in addition to the use of these drugs, and not to be viewed as an argument to why someone should not be using these prescribed medications.
Depression can be
viewed at in our culture as either a mental ill-ness caused by a num-ber of different neuro-logical issues or it can often be referring to a state of elongated sad-ness or of feeing down. We will be referring to both.
According to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America, Persistent Depression Disorder (PDD) affects 6.7% of Americans. To put this into perspec-tive, this is almost dou-ble the percentage of LGBTQQIP2SAA+ ac-cording to the Williams Institute.
Using both defini-tions of depression, the
medical being harder to solve than the tem-porary feeling, is of-ten brought on from a feeling or sense of be-ing misunderstood and alone.
Though this approach is a gross simplification of the disease, it gives us the starting point of how we ought to think about dealing with the problem.
First off, we need to understand that every individual is an indi-vidual being. Being misunderstood is part of individuality, and if an individual is not misunderstood, they have probably not spent much time or thought
in who they are as in-dividuals or suffer from an inauthenticity of herd mindset.
Individuals are unique, and it is crucial that they come to real-ize their own unique-ness in their individu-ality. The first step to avoiding or overcoming depression is learning who they are as individ-ual and accepting that person.
Second, they need to discover their drive in their being. Whether they be artists, writ-ers, counselors, etc. they need to discover what creative drive is inspiring them. It may be a need to write po-etry or plays, or a need to paint, or to evaluate stocks; there is some creative force placed on the heart of every indi-vidual as individual.
Depression gains strength in the feeling of being alone and in the denial of creative drive. Every individual is created in the im-age of the Creator, and since the Creator is not
a concrete, finite being, his image is infinite and one piece is his image as creator.
Third, when the indi-vidual learns to accept themselves for who they are, they are able to utilize their individu-ality along with their creative drive to tran-scend themselves.
This transcending action becomes an act of worship, either pur-posefully or inciden-tally, and in realizing and accepting their drive they release ten-sion and angst through a constructive outlet, instead of letting their drive fester within and become a darkly tem-pest raging within their mind.
Of course, the philos-ophy of a depressed lit-erature student should be taken with a grain of salt, for it is not like psy-chology was born out a man’s literary criticism turning into the birth of psychology through a psychoanalysis of the human condition from some Greek tragedy.
THE HUFFINGTON POST
TRAVESTY
The Collegian is looking to fill editorial positions for the 2017-18 academic year. Open spots include Editor in Chief, Managing Editor, Copy Chief, Photo Editor, Design Chief, News Editor, Life Editor, Entertainment Editor, Sports Editor, Section Designers and Copy Editors.
Highly motivated students with an interest in journalism and writing are strongly encouraged to apply. If in-terested, please email [email protected] stating the position you would like to apply for and explaining why you would like to join our team.
Editorial positions currently open
Page 11April 7, 2017 The Collegian
Page 12 April 7, 2017Sports
Penguins preparing for another Stanley Cup runVictoria ZulickStaff Writer
The Pittsburgh Pen-guins have secured a chance at consecutive Stanley Cup Champi-onships, and are most likely to play the Co-lumbus Blue Jackets in the first round.
This has been quite the season for Penguins Captain Sidney Cros-by. Not only is he still considered one of the greatest ever, but this season he has managed to achieve 1000+ career points, has maintained a top five spot on the point leader board and leads the league with the most goals at 43. Luck-ily for Penguin fans, he’s not done yet. With a career highlight, one-handed goal against the Buffalo Sabres back in March, Captain Sid and the Pens secured their spot for another run at the Cup.
As the regular sea-son wraps up, the Pen-guins must begin to
look ahead to the near future. In second place in the Metropolitan Di-vision and second place overall in the NHL with 109 points, they are set to play the third-place Columbus Blue Jackets in the first round.
The Blue Jackets, this years’ surprising Metro competitor, have prov-en tough opponents for
the Pens, with a record 2-1-1, Blue Jackets on top. Their most recent matchup took place this past Tuesday, where the Penguins dominat-ed their last home game of the regular season, beating the Blue Jack-ets 4-1.
With this win, it is most likely that the Pens will have home ice
advantage during the first round against the Blue Jackets. The only thing that would change about this scenario would be if the first-place Washington Capi-tals lost the rest of their games, putting the Pens in first place, or if the Pens would lose their final three away games and drop to third. Both
are highly unlikely, but nothing is impossible when it comes to the NHL playoffs.
After a Cup win last season, the Penguins are looking to go for two in a row, something they were unable to do after their 2009 Cup win. However, with the playoff clinch, the Pens have also scored the longest active play-off streak with eleven straight post-season runs.
The Blue Jackets, on the other hand, have clinched a spot for only the third time ever in their history. This playoff matchup might come down to experi-ence, grace under pres-sure and scoring con-sistency. In Tuesday’s game, the Pens and the Jackets knew how im-portant it was to gain the edge.
Columbus plays a hard-hitting and physi-cal game, and are known for an extra shove or crosscheck af-
ter the whistle, but the Pittsburgh was able to manage and produce where it actually mat-ters: on the scoreboard. Despite Chris Kunitz, Evgeni Malkin, Olli Maata, Trevor Daley, Kris Letang, Carl Hage-lin and Tom Sestito for extended periods of time, the Pens have continued to produce wins and score goals. Goaltending has been top notch, with one of the best rookie goalies in the league, players are stepping up to fill the gaps, and manage-ment has been stellar.
The high intensity, physical series quickly approaching will surely be a great display of classic playoff hockey that everyone loves. But based on the facts, the Pens should have no problem making it to round two.
The NHL Playoffs will begin on Wednes-day, April 12 and will continue well into May.
Women’s golf hosts invite
Kevin ZuercherContributing Writer
The Grove City Col-lege women’s golf team hosted their home in-vite on Saturday at the Grove City Country Club. The weather did not cooperate, as tem-peratures on Saturday reached only roughly 40 degrees, but none-theless the event con-tinued and was com-pleted.
Freshman Taylor Horn fired Grove City’s best score and finished seventh overall with a 98. Following Horn, junior Carolyn Jack and sophomore Molly Ar-endt both posted scores of 108 to tie for 15th overall.
Posting the fourth and final score count-ing toward the team total, senior Leah Wil-son placed 20th over-all with a score of 113. Sophomore Ashley Winters followed in 21st overall with a 116. Competing individu-ally, Ashley Donaldson and Amy Knecht posted scores of 111 and 126 to finish 17th and 22nd, respectively.
As a team, the Wol-verines posted an ag-gregate score of 427 to place third of five in the team competition. Saint Vincent placed first as a team with an aggregate score of 373. Point Park followed in
second with a team total of 401. Clarion Univer-sity and Waynesburg University rounded out the field in fourth and fifth with team scores of 440 and 650, respec-tively.
Individually, Priscilla Nevarez of Point Park University topped the field with a 90 to take home the individual win. Christan Bowshier of Clarion and Samm Firestone of St. Vincent tied for second individ-ually each with scores of 91.
To round out the top 5, St. Vincent’s Meg Birmingham and Liz Loftus tallied scores of 92 and 94, respectively. In their two events thus far in the spring season, the Wolverines have placed first and third.
The Wolverines re-turned to action last Wednesday to compete in the Carnegie Mellon University Invitational, held at Longue Vue Golf Course, and earned third place.
Jack led Grove City with a 106, good for 15th place overall. CMU’s Summer Ki-tahara earned medalist with a 77. Grove City finished the day with a team score of 512. Carn-egie Mellon won the team title with a 334.
Grove City returns to action April 20 at the Saint Vincent Invita-tional in Latrobe, Pa.
GCC
Freshman Taylor Reed shot the best score in home invite on Saturday. She placed seventh in the competi-tion with a score of 98.
Baseball bats go coldBrad WarmholdSports Editor
The Grove City Col-lege baseball dropped three games last week while winning one and now stands at 6-3 in the President’s Athletic Conference (PAC) and 9-10 overall.
The Wolverines faced off against the Thiel College Tomcats last Saturday in double-header action at Tom-cat Park in Greenville, Pa.
Freshman pitcher Austin Wacker took the mound for the Wolver-ines in the first game, striking out seven and allowing only two earned runs while scat-tering five hits across six innings of work.
Though the Wolver-ines out-hit the Tom-cats seven-to-five, they failed to plate enough runners to keep up with Thiel, falling 3-1. Senior right-fielder Nolan My-ers went two for three
and senior first-base-man Matt Waugaman doubled.
In Game Two, sopho-more Travis Auth came up clutch in the top of the seventh, crushing a game-tying, pinch-hit two-run homer with one out. His first colle-giate home-run tied the game up at 3-3.
In the bottom of the eighth, Thiel broke the 3-3 tie when Grove City committed a throw-ing error while trying to complete an inning-ending double play with the bases loaded.
Sophomore pitcher Micah Burke pitched seven innings for Grove City, allowing three earned runs. He struck out three and did not walk a batter.
After getting swept in the double-header, Grove City struck back last Monday when the Tomcats came to R. Jack Behringer field.
Sophomore pitcher John Bini fired a com-
plete game for Grove City, striking out three in nine innings. Bini improved to 2-0 this season and 11-0 for his career.
Grove City broke a 1-1 tie by scoring three times in the bottom of the eighth. Junior cen-ter fielder Tyler Gra-ham singled in Burke with one out, giving Grove City a 2-1 lead.
Auth then laced a two-run double down the left-field line, scor-ing sophomore second baseman Bobby Dulay and Graham, putting the game at a 4-1 Grove City lead. Graham and Auth both finished 2 for 4.
Following their victo-ry, the Wolverines trav-eled to West Virginia, looking to complete the season sweep against the Bethany College Bi-son whom they defeat-ed last weekend twice at home.
Senior pitcher Ben Finlan had a strong out-
ing on the mound, but it wasn’t quite enough as the Wolverines were shut out for just the sec-ond time this season.
Finlan tossed a com-plete nine-inning game, scattering eight hits and just one run over eight innings of action while matching his season-high with five strikeouts. Freshman Matt Dayton had two of the five hits on the day.
The only run of the entire game came in the bottom of the first. The Bison got a one-out single followed by a two-out hit to take a 1-0 lead. Grove City loaded the bases in the top of the seventh, but an inning-ending double play soiled the Wolver-ine’s scoring chances.
Grove City is sched-uled to return to action on Friday, visiting W&J for a single, nine-inning PAC game at 4:30 p.m.
GCC
Junior Tyler Graham is hitting an outstanding .394 on the season, with one triple and seven runs batted in.
CBC
Sidney Crosby is having another great year as the Pens look to defend their crown.