Several EMU faculty and alumni have contributed to a new resource published by MennoMedia. Covering subjects from faith formation to sustaining leaders, have resonated with Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada pastors wrestling with deep and difficult issues amid the lingering pandemic.

The content covers six subjects: faith formation, worship, sustaining Leaders, community engagement, navigating polarization, and connection.

With more than 2000 downloads to date, the content has clearly filled a need in the church.

“We were able to determine that more than two-thirds of pastors in Mennonite Church USA and Mennonite Church Canada signed up to receive these resources,” said Joe Hackman MDiv ’11, director of development and partner engagement.

Among the contributors are several EMU faculty:

• David Brubaker, dean of ���ѱ�’s School of Social Sciences and Professions; 
• Jayne Seminare Docherty, executive director of the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding; 
• Cheree Hammond, professor in the graduate counseling program; and 
• Sarah Ann Bixler, associate dean of Eastern Mennonite Seminary.

Alumni include Hendy Matahelemual MA ‘19 (Christian leadership); Nelson Okanya ‘02; Jane Hoober Peifer ‘75, MDiv ‘98; and Martin Rhodes ‘02. Former faculty member Lisa Schirch, now with the Kroc Institute at University of Notre Dame, also contributed.

MennoMedia received a Schowalter Foundation grant in May 2021 to help churches thrive after COVID-19. MennoMedia used the funds to develop the “What Now?” podcast series and downloadable resources distributed to an opt-in email list and housed on the MennoMedia website.

“What Now?” resources were released in three installments in August, September, and October . The full set of resources are available for download at MennoMedia.org and the What Now? podcast episodes are hosted on the “-ing” podcast.

Anyone who’s experienced mental health challenges or taken an interest in psychology has likely heard of the DSM-5, the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, which is the American Psychiatric Association’s definitive text for defining over 300 psychiatric diagnoses.

Professor Cheree Hammond, who teaches in the master’s counseling program at ��ݮ���� (EMU), identified a number of areas where practitioners and students could benefit from additional information outside of the DSM-5. The result was just published: a textbook titled (SAGE Publications, 2021). It contains about 200 fictional case studies that Hammond wrote based on her 11 years of experience as a counselor educator.

“My first aim was to create a model and a platform for honing diagnostic skills that would be student-focused and would have the potential to raise accuracy in diagnosis,” Hammond said. She explained that two different practitioners will often arrive at different diagnoses for a single client, which directly affects what treatments that person will be offered.

Expanding upon these diagnoses with case studies helps students and faculty become familiar with how disorders can present differently in different people.

“There also seemed to be a need for case studies that reflected the general population – cases that depicted the diversity of our clients in race and ethnicity, sexuality, religion, age and so on,” Hammond said.

Hammond also wanted to humanize these diagnoses, and include the social forces in a person’s life that can and do contribute to their mental health concerns. She’s actually not a “huge fan” of the DSM or the diagnostic process in general.

“I worry a lot about the potential of the diagnostic process to concretize emotional experiences or even to create an identity of brokenness, for instance when a person describes themselves in this way, ‘I am bipolar,'” she said. “I worry, too, about the potential for diagnosis to objectify people and reduce complex lives, circumstances and experiences into ways of organizing and responding to others or even ourselves.”

“It feels important that clinicians in training have resources that both reflect the complexity and weight of making an accurate diagnosis while at the same time retaining what brought them to the profession in the first place, a desire to sincerely understand and be a support to the person seeking help,” Hammond explained.

Those circumstances and experiences can include systems of oppression that negatively affect mental health and wellbeing, such as racism or homophobia. Hammond worries that the medical model of diagnosing disorders tends to focus solely on the individual, rather than the individual in the context of what they go through in life.

Also, she pointed out, clinicians’ unconscious bias can affect how they choose to apply the DSM-5. For example, even when two children show identical symptoms, research shows that white children are more likely to be diagnosed with ADHD, while Black children are more likely to be diagnosed with oppositional defiant disorder.

“Misdiagnosis impacts long-term wellness and can impair a person’s relationships, education, employment and overall happiness,” Hammond said. “Consequently, it is essential that counselors have well-honed diagnostic skills, and cultural competence is an essential component of that process.”

Diagnostic Essentials of Psychopathology: A Case-Based Approach (SAGE Publications, 2021) is available for purchase from and.

The award will be formally presented on Friday, Oct. 7, during the SACES annual conference in New Orleans. The southern region includes 14 states from Maryland to Texas.

Teresa Haase, program director and associate professor, and Cheree Hammond, assistant professor, will present at the conference along with student Katie Long. The trio will accept the award.

Haase says she thinks several aspects of the program helped EMU to stand out.

“We made a strong case regarding faculty involvement in mentoring, community service, our own clinical practice, training and presenting, and in furthering our students’ interest in the profession above and beyond the standards,” Haase says. “We also demonstrated that we have exceptional students who are making a difference in the community and receiving recognition for their clinical work and scholarship.”

In addition, she pointed to innovative, ongoing professional development that “demonstrates an intentional commitment to meaningful and cutting-edge training” as a factor.

The SACES Awards Committee says that the award “recognizes programs that demonstrate outstanding pre-service and in-service training in areas such as: professional identity, ethics, assessment, group work, counseling relationships and process, career development, counseling supervision, practicum and internship, evaluation and training methods, human growth and development and counseling socially and culturally diverse populations.”

MA in Counseling student Ryan Nolley says he believes the award is well deserved.

“Our program makes a concerted effort to teach from many different perspectives, interweaving humor and delight, while also furthering students’ ways of knowing and experiencing,” Nolley says. “I think of this award as an affirmation of walking the road less traveled. It’s an affirmation of a place where humility and excellence can co-exist.”

EMU Provost also lauded the recognition. “This is yet another indicator of the strength of our counseling program and the excellence of our faculty,” Kniss said. “It’s great to get this external validation for something we already believed about the quality of our program.”

It is the second major award for the program in a year’s time. Last November, program co-founder and professor David Glanzer received the from the Virginia Counselors Association. Glanzer retired at the end of the 2015-2016 academic year.

Other team members who were part of the SACES honor include professor Annmarie Early, assistant professor Nate Koser and administrative assistant Amanda Williams, as well as Kristy Koser, who served as the department’s professional development coordinator until June.

During the training, attended by about 125 professionals from a variety of fields, Goleman focused on the topics of both Emotional Intelligence and his recent bestseller, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence. The former title spent 18 months on the New York Times best-seller list and was named one of the 25 “Most Influential Business Management Books” by TIME.

“Dr. Goleman discussed the key concepts of emotional intelligence and the reasoning behind why using our social brain helps us to succeed not only personally, but also collectively as a business, a university or in a therapeutic relationship,” said , professional development coordinator for ���ѱ�’s . “Goleman shared about his work with highly respected, publicly traded companies and their application of emotional intelligence and how that informs their work as leaders and cultivates more productivity from and longevity for employees.”

The evening lecture covered concepts of leadership and drew an audience of about 100, primarily mental health and business professionals.

Goleman said he enjoyed his time among the Mennonites and gained a new understanding of what it means to be part of that group. A close friend of the Dalai Lama, Goleman also observed that Mennonites and the Dalai Lama have more in common than he thought due to their shared social ethic and pursuit of the common good for all people.

The day also included five afternoon breakout sessions facilitated by local experts, with the aim of deepening the understanding and application of emotional intelligence in a variety of contexts. Leaders included Sarah Armstrong, director of ���ѱ�’s graduate education program; , professor; David Glanzer and Cheree Hammond, both professors in the ; and private practitioner Rowland Shank.

“This event was a great success,” Koser said, “bringing new learning opportunities to our EMU community but also to the Harrisonburg community. The feedback from attendees was very positive.”

�ҴDZ��𳾲���’s weekend visit was planned and hosted by the and the . The evening event was co-sponsored by ���ѱ�’s and several local businesses.

Goleman visits ��ݮ���� (EMU) Saturday, April 2, for two educational opportunities. A day-long training on emotional intelligence and the latest research about focus will be followed by a variety of breakout sessions facilitated by members of the education, counseling and psychology community.

Goleman will also speak at an evening dinner lecture about concepts of leadership.

�ҴDZ��𳾲���’s work on the brain and behavioral science was nominated twice for the Pulitzer Prize and recognized with the Washburn Award and Lifetime Career Award from the American Psychological Association.

His 2014 bestseller, Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence, argues that leadership that gets results demands a triple focus: on ourselves; on others, for our relationships; and on the outer forces that shape organizations and society. �ҴDZ��𳾲���’s won the 2013 HBR McKinsey Award, given each year for the best article in Harvard Business Review.

In his latest book, A Force for Good: The Dalai Lama’s Vision for Our World, Goleman — who was personally selected by the Dalai Lama — combines the Dalai Lama’s key teachings, empirical evidence, and true accounts of people putting his lessons into practice, offers readers practical applications for making the world a better place.

�ҴDZ��𳾲���’s Emotional Intelligence was on The New York Times best sellers list for 18 months. Named one of the 25 “Most Influential Business Management Books” by TIME, it has been translated into 40 languages.

“As a journalist and psychologist, Dr. Goleman beautifully blends professional research and difficult concepts into language that is accessible to a broad population and many audiences,” said , professional development coordinator for the MA in Counseling program. “Dr. Goleman has intrigued some of the most influential leaders in the psychology, business, and leadership arenas. Educators, counselors, psychologists, church leaders, and business leaders will be interested to learn more from him.”

Breakout sessions for the day training include:

• “The Empty Desk: Why We Lose Struggling Learners and How Insights from Research on the Brain and Learning Can Help,” , director of the ������Dz�������;
• “The Art of Noticing: Discovering Opportunities for Social Contextual Learning in the K-12 Classroom,” , , EMU;
• “Focus with Focusing,” David Glanzer, faculty, MA in Counseling program, EMU;
• “Mindfulness and the Cultivation of Focus and Connectedness,” Cheree Hammond, faculty, MA in Counseling program, EMU;
• “Where the Rubber meets the Road: Implementing Emotional Intelligence and Focus for Ourselves and With Our Clients,” – Rowland Shank, private practitioner.

Costs for the day training is $225, which includes lunch, materials and continuing education credits. Day and evening admission is $350. The evening dinner and lecture is $125. Discounted rates are available for EMU faculty, staff and students. To register, click .

The program is offered by the I and the MA in Counseling program in ���ѱ�’s .

The conference is hosted by the (PJSA), dedicated to bringing together academics, K-12 teachers, and grassroots activists to explore alternatives to violence and share visions and strategies for peacebuilding, social justice and social change.

“PJSA is an important bi-national alliance for peacebuilding research, scholarship, training and activism,” says , executive director of ���ѱ�’s . “It is a great honor that so many CJP and EMU faculty, staff and graduates will be featured in prominent conference roles this year, and allows a rare opportunity to highlight our distinctive contributions to the peacebuilding field.”

Those “distinctive contributions” include both conceptual and practical dimensions to the fields of , , , peace and justice studies pedagogy and the pedagogy of practice within the field, experiential education, reflective pedagogy and the arts and peacebuilding.

Catherine Barnes offers keynote address

Dr. Catherine Barnes, affiliate professor at CJP, will share from more than 30 years of experience working with deliberative dialogue processes in places as varied as the UN General Assembly Hall to village gathering places. Her address is titled “Engaging together: exploring deliberative dialogue as a path towards systemic transformation.”

“Deliberative dialogue” is a process that can empower participants to foster collaborative relationships and perceive the underlying mental models that maintain the status quo with the goal of fostering new approaches to complex challenges.

For the past seven years, Barnes has been working in support of transitional processes in Burma/Myanmar. She has worked and lived in more than 30 countries as a teacher, trainer, researcher, policy advocate and consultant with the focus of helping civil society activists, diplomats and politicians, and armed groups to build their capacities for preventing violence and using conflict as an opportunity for addressing the underlying causes giving rise to grievance. Barnes has worked with numerous peacebuilding and human rights organizations, including Conciliation Resources and Minority Rights Group International.

Focusing on education

���ѱ�’s on peace and justice guides its educators, many of whom are sharing their pedagogical practices and discussing ways to educate future peacebuilders in the “educator’s strand,” designed for personal and professional development of K-12 teachers, undergraduate and community educators. Themes include pedagogy, curriculum development, building a culture of peace in your classroom or school, alternative education programs, and restorative practices.

On the undergraduate level, professor , who leads the in the department of applied social sciences, leads a roundtable discussion for faculty and administrators of peace and justice studies programs.

, the with CJP’s , joins professor and graduate students in a session on mentoring student peacebuilders and the importance of those mentors being experienced practitioners themselves.

Restorative practices are highlighted by professors and in a “relational justice” workshop on how mindful teachers can prepare and prime “their best selves” in preparation for inviting students into models of restorative justice. Mullet also joins , professor of education at Bridgewater College, for a workshop on relational literacy in multicultural K-12 classrooms.

Cheree Hammond, professor of counseling, leads educators in a workshop on contemplative pedagogies and the cultivation of a just and peaceful self.

Restorative justice, trauma healing, playback theater featured

The conference offers an opportunity to highlight ���ѱ�’s unique peacebuilding initiatives. The brings together practitioners from EMU and JMU, as well as local law enforcement. Collaborators in the initiative will speak: , co-director of the; education professor ; Harrisonburg Police Department lieutenant Kurt Boshart; , restorative justice coordinator at the ; and , director of JMU’s Office of Student Accountability and Restorative Practices.

Another definitive CJP program, (Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience), will be introduced in a workshop by professor and program director .

troupe co-founders and lead a workshop on playback theater as qualitative research. Vogel is a professor of theater; Foster instructs in the applied social sciences department and with CJP. The applied theater method invites dialogue and healing through community-building, as audience members share stories and watch as they are “played back” on the stage. Among other settings, Inside Out has performed on campus with college students returning from cross-culturals, among international peacebuilders and in workshops for and research about trauma and sexual abuse survivors.

, professor of applied social sciences, speaks about social capital networks as forms of resistance among battered undocumented Latinas, sharing just one strand of a .

, assistant professor of restorative justice and peacebuilding, leads a discussion on the film “Vision is Our Power,” a film about black youth ending violence in all its forms. The documentary was created by four young filmmakers participating in a multi-year arts and leadership Vision to Peace Project led by Turner; the film debuted in 2008 at the National Museum of Women in the Arts.

And more…

, professor of English, presents on life narratives and identity issues in the Balkans with his wife Daria, a CJP graduate who teaches in the counseling department at JMU. The two lived and taught in the Balkans.

, professor of philosophy and theology, explores the recent work in philosophy and science on theory of emotion.

, a new faculty member coming to EMU next semester after concluding his PhD research at American University, participates several panels, with a diversity of topics including transnational solidarity and police brutality and racism in the contested areas of Palestine and Ferguson, Missouri. Seidel is a board member of PJSA.

Among the alumni presenting: Vesna Hart, Sue Praill and Tom Brenneman join a panel discussion on justice and the nature of human nature. Ted Swartz presents the satire with Tim Ruebke and JMU professor of theater Ingrid DeSanctis.

View the . Registration fees will be covered for attendees from the Shenandoah Valley who are affiliated with or sponsored by Bridgewater College, James Madison University, ��ݮ����, or Mary Baldwin College. For more information, click .

Four years ago, Chereè Hammond joined the faculty in the at ��ݮ����. Shortly after beginning the semester – it was a Wednesday, she remembers – she shaved her head.

She was tired of combing out clumps, of seeing precious strands between her fingers when she casually, forgetfully, ran her hands through the wisps that remained. Passing mirrors or windows, she had become obsessive about its loss, disturbed by its thin frailty, so like her grandmother’s hair.

Afterwards, looking in the mirror, she said: My hair is not a contingency of my happiness. There is nothing that has changed inside.

This practitioner of mindfulness, educator, wife and mother took a deep breath and with slow deliberation and soft eyes opened herself to perceptions of Otherness: woman, man, heterosexual, homosexual, Buddhist, Christian, cancer survivors, persons enjoying health, a person who is stared at and yes, who stares back, a receiver and giver of unasked-for acts of compassion.

Her choice to be a bald woman is layered in the contested complexities of gender and aesthetics, of sickness and health, of perception and revelation. Her own experience and interactions with others have provided rich insight into the subjects she teaches: human growth and development, multicultural counseling, psychopathology.

The hair would never come back. Hammond has embraced the baldness, savored its ambiguities, and grown to love the meditations it has inspired about identity, impermanence and non-attachment. She is still learning.

“In this university setting, we teach through the vessel of our authentic selves,” she says. “When we come to a space where something big and complex and layered happens, it can’t help but affect how we teach, why we teach and even what we teach.”

Chereè Hammond’s insights, in her own words:

I have had alopecia areata, which is an autoimmune disorder, since I was 12 years old. This disease attacks the hair follicles and causes hair to fall out. It also causes your nails to flake. That is the only symptom; otherwise, I am perfectly healthy. At first, it was little dime-size bald spots that were easy to cover and would eventually just close up. I had dark brown hair and very dark brown eyebrows and long dark eyelashes. I don’t have any eyebrows or eyelashes now. Those are what I miss the most.

Four years ago, I experienced a shift in the way alopecia manifested itself and in a span of about 10 weeks, I began to lose much of my hair. I became almost obsessive about it. It was my first year at EMU. In a new setting, you’re more aware of how you present yourself. Here it seemed like I was literally falling apart, that things were falling off of me.

As a counselor and a counselor educator, what you don’t want is to have students worrying about you. In the courses I teach, students do a lot of introspection and have their own emotionality. If they’re looking at me and wondering if I’m unhealthy and I’m unwell, then that detracts from their learning. It was upsetting to me, wondering if they felt stable and solid and held in the classroom if I look like I’m sick.

So I decided that I was going to shave it. At that point, it was a temporary solution to an upsetting and distracting situation. I thought it would empower me and it did. But I did not think that I would never have my hair back. It is rare for alopecia areata to progress to alopecia universalis, which is the loss of all the hair on your body. That’s what happened soon after.

I taught a class in the morning. Then I went to the salon and they shaved my head. They gave me a little cap that women with cancer wear and I was walking home and I thought, “I really hate this thing and I’m not going to wear this.” I took it off in this kind of slow-motion moment of deciding.

When I was walking to my house, I passed my friend’s house and her little girl was playing out in front.  She noticed right away and asked about it. And I said, “Yes, would you like to touch it?” And she felt it and I felt her feeling it. That was the first human contact with somebody that I knew. She was able to voice her curiosity and I was able to experience a response to my choice that was filled with warmth and shared laughter. It was this really lovely moment.

I came back and taught in the afternoon. I felt like I had to say something. Here I was with hair in the morning and no hair in the afternoon. So I said, “Some of you may have noticed I’m bald, I’m OK. I’m not ill.” And then moved on.

My husband was in Italy. And when he returned, he said, “Oh, it’s gone.” He understood.

It was different with my children. My son [then 16] later told me that he had a dream when he was 7 that I had lost my hair. He had never told me that. The decision was more meaningful for my daughter [then 22]. She has a real appreciation for aesthetics and the politics of what it means to have a body in this world. Being bi-racial and female, for her, there were a lot of questions.

Messages conveyed by hair, make-up

One morning, in Panera with my husband, I walked into the middle of several women. For some reason, I began to notice their hair in a way I’d never noticed before. A lot of effort had gone into styling, and lots of professional coloring and hairspray and that led me to notice different make-up. It seemed to be an intentional effort to convey something to everybody else and also to assure that everybody understood their socio-economic status and educational status. I don’t know that this is true, but this is how I experienced it: it was as if the make-up and hairstyling were for somebody else and not for themselves.

For a time after that, I had a grotesque feeling about hair and the way we make use of it, almost like a costume in a circus. When I had hair, I wore a little makeup, mascara, eyeliner, lipstick. But I couldn’t bring myself to do that after noticing the different ways we were speaking about ourselves through our hair and through our make-up. People make a lot of assumptions based how you look and what you wear and I wanted to step outside of that form of communication for a while.

I spent a lot of time thinking … Was I going to wear a wig to maintain some kind of social status or communicate to others about who I was or was not? Was I going to put make-up on?

These were big, complex questions. All of sudden, I was wondering who am I, what am I saying about myself and what is society wanting from me? And I realized that these choices are really privileges.

In what ways do I have the privilege of controlling how I convey that identity to others and in what ways do I not have that privilege now and who in our community – for example, people of color – has never had that privilege?

I teach about that and talk about privilege and identity, but suddenly I was in a position to experience a tiny measure of it for myself. This is how it feels to walk in the room and have an identity laid on you based on what you look like. It happens to us all every day, but for some people in our community that assigned identity is pejorative.

In the first months of my adventure as a bald woman, I was very aware of being stared at and had to understand that experience as a given if I was going to walk around with no hair. When we stare at others, we are essentially using visual information and getting caught up in what we see, thanks in part to the narrative we attach to it. I’m not immune from staring myself. Once, I was in the car and this woman was driving by and she had rollers in her hair, a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a funny look on her face. I was staring at her and she turned her head and she was staring at me and I realized the absurdity of it: that I was a bald woman staring at a woman in curlers. “What I am doing,” I thought, “this is crazy.” That’s another reason why I wouldn’t trade this experience: It’s like a bell of awakening in that moment: “Be mindful, wake up, what are you doing?”

Inspiration for compassion

There is another layer to this, of the perception of illness. I have countless stories of people who have shown really lovely acts of compassion, even after I had been really clear that I was perfectly healthy.

On one trip, I was trying to get to the airport after a conference. A driver was trying to explain how to get there. Finally, he told me that it was really complicated set of transfers and he was about to go on break and would take me there. It took his entire 45-minute break to deliver me to the Silver Line. He sat next to me and he asked me about how I was, and I told him I was perfectly healthy and then we started to talk about his life and all of the things that were unfolding for him, the difficulties and the joys.

It was a moment that would not have happened if he hadn’t been worried about my ability to carry that heavy suitcase…it was this opportunity to see how compassionate and generous other human beings are. The baldness became a vessel for him to do that and experience that generosity in himself, but also for us to have contact that we wouldn’t have had before.

And there’s the converse of it. I’ve become an honorary member of a group of people who have had cancer and struggled through chemo or lost someone they love or nearly lost someone they love. At least once a week, someone comes up to ask me about my health, or talk to me about their own stories or sit by me uninvited to give me a blessing.

For me, it’s a reminder that people’s experiences of serious illness are a lasting trauma and that there’s a degree of isolation in it. They see someone else that they perceive to be in in the midst of chemo and still have that need for connection and to share their story, and sometimes to cry. It elicits a need in me for patience. Sometimes I just want to sit and have my coffee and I don’t want to hear that story, and then I have to remember the people who take their entire break to help me get to the Silver Line and to remember that these moments are meant to happen.

Change happens constantly

At first, the experience was about exploring my attachment to my hair. Now, it’s about my attachment to my baldness. In that way, the baldness is also about impermanence. When I look in the mirror, I am reminded of impermanence. There’s no way I can stop change. Change will happen. And it’s happening in ways that are visible and not.

This experience has helped me in my work. I see people as changing constantly, as being open and spacious and maybe in some ways less broken than I did when I first started my work. Being bald reminds me that people are constantly in a state of change, externally and internally, and different in one context and another, with one person and with another. I find that idea to be really beautiful and full of hope. It is also a bit ironic since one of the first thoughts I had after shaving my head was that nothing had changed about me. I didn’t realize how much I would be changed by the experience.

Maybe someday I will change my mind and not be so courageous. Right now, I choose not to wear make-up and not to wear earrings. I’ve gone through different periods in my life. I had a punker chick period. Now I feel like being plain and simple is a good experience for me.

By living and working without a wig, I’m just sort of saying, “Here I am and let’s see what happens,” while allowing space for that to shift. This has its own process for me and my family and community members.

My doctor recently told me about an immunosuppressant that could potentially bring my hair back. I remember thinking, “I’m not ready for that, I still have a lot to learn from this, there’s a great deal that I still have to gain from this experience.”

Produced by: Innerloupe Productions

Within ��ݮ����’s (EMU) professional counseling program, we strive to achieve the highest standards of excellence in providing psychologically and spiritually grounded training for counselors. We seek to create a community atmosphere within the program, a community bold with creative ideas and open with honesty, partnering in the inner work counselor training requires.

Find out more at: www.emu.edu/graduate-counseling/

Produced by: Innerloupe Productions
Audio: “Mending Wall” – Slow Dance