EMU senior Emma Nord, who was quoted in the article, had this to say: “I love the rhythm of the labyrinth, kind of focusing on God and the design. Once you get to the center, you’re not done. You then walk back the way you came in.”

to read the story at dnronline.com by reporter Lisa Landram.

Showalter grew up in Broadway, Virginia, and graduated from EMU with bachelor’s degrees in biology and English. She then graduated from the University of Virginia with a master’s degree in English. After a year teaching English at James Madison University, she earned her law degree at U.Va.

Showalter currently serves as senior vice president and general counsel, Supply Chain and Legal Contracting Network, at GSK.

She has “more than 25 years of diverse legal experience, including leading a team of 40 lawyers across eight countries at GSK, serving as the general counsel of a clinical-stage pharmaceutical company, and working in a top Boston law firm,” the article states.

“I lead a team of 40 lawyers based in the U.S., India, United Kingdom, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, and Singapore, who support global contracting, manufacturing, and supply of GSK products,” she told the DN-R.

Her father, Donald Showalter ’62, was the first EMU graduate to attend law school. He practiced for 59 years in Harrisonburg, according to the DN-R article. Click here to read a profile about him in the Spring/Summer 2015 issue of Crossroads magazine.

More stories about Anne Showalter:

American Healthcare Leader (May 2024) — ““
Crossroads Magazine (July 2015) — “Anne Showalter: Corporate attorney in Chapel Hill, N.C.“

Having worked with justice and correctional issues for almost 40 years, I am pleased that county officials are looking at alternatives to building a new jail facility, as reported by the (June 6). I endorse the idea of considering the big picture in an effort to forestall the need for ever-more facilities.

I also welcome consideration being given to the needs of prisoners with mental health issues. Our jails and prisons have become holding places for such individuals. Without the treatment and consideration they need, their roles in the cycles of wrongdoing and incarceration will likely continue.

Additionally, however, the county should consider the structure of decision-making and the goals that guide these decisions. Questions worthy of serious consideration:

• Who makes decisions about charging and sentencing, and how can they become more accountable for the impact of these decisions on the system as a whole?  What are their goals in doing so?
• Should the goal of our justice system be simply to punish? Or are there other, more positive goals, such as healing the harms experienced by victims and enabling as many offenders as possible to be productive, law-abiding citizens?

If these questions are not addressed, we can expect to see any new facilities fill up and overflow, presenting us with the same human, financial, and logistical issues we now face.

Try picturing our justice system as a lake connected to a small bucket by a pipe. The pipe is interrupted by several valves. Each valve sits within a windowless shanty.

The water in the lake represents behavior that is viewed as criminal. In each of the shanties are individuals turning valves – police, prosecutors, probation officials, judges – without a clear feedback system or direct accountability for their decisions. The bucket (the local jail) regularly fills up, overflows, and the sheriff is left to do what he or she can with the mess. And finally the cry arises for a larger bucket.

Yet alternative models exist. In the early 1980s Genesee County, New York, was facing a jail crisis much like the one in our community. Sheriff Doug Call successfully argued that the county would not have to build a new facility if it offered options that addressed the issues I have mentioned above. He introduced a variety of new programs, including a process for determining outcomes that was victim-centered, sought to hold offenders more directly accountable for their actions and was much more collaborative among all the stakeholders and actors, including prosecution, defense, victims and even offenders. The programs worked, eliminating the need for more jail space.

In the 1980s New Zealand had an incarceration rate for youth that was one of the highest in the world, with minority youth disproportionately incarcerated. New Zealand decided to treat court as a scarce resource, and they created a system for serious youth offending that placed a “family group conference” at the center of decision-making. This involved a process that included victims, offenders and their family members, the police, a specially trained lawyer, and sometimes others in a collaborative process to decide the outcomes. Outcomes were arrived at by consensus and addressed responsibilities to the victim as well as the responsibilities and needs of the person who had offended. The result: a huge drop in incarceration as well as reduced court workloads.

No matter what our concept of justice, the only way forward is to create more clarity and transparency about our decision-making and more accountability for our decisions. Above all, our communities need more dialogue about what we want to accomplish with justice and how we can best achieve these goals.

[Howard Zehr is the author or editor of dozens of books and articles on justice topics, including , which elaborates on one of the alternative models mentioned above. EMU alumnus and freelance writer Andrew Jenner added information to this discussion with a , in which he noted that the only study being done on alternatives to jail building is in the hands of the architectural firm that is likely to be designing the new jail!]

Howard Zehr’s op-ed originally appeared June 20, 2014, in the Daily News Record and is being re-published and circulated by EMU, with permission. If used further, just credit the Daily News Record.

Sophomore guard Brittany Snyder

Brittany Snyder has unusually small feet. They are so small that at 19 years old, she still wears a size 6 – a children’s size 6. And that’s too large. The sophomore guard on the ˛ÝÝ®ÉçÇř women’s basketball team said she’s actually more comfortable in a 5 1/2, but wears two pairs of socks to keep the 6s from sliding.

The rest of Snyder is equally miniature. She has hands that barely stretch across two laces on a basketball and match her slight build – and if EMU coach Kevin Griffin has complaints about Snyder, it’s that she hasn’t sculpted more muscle onto her sylph-like frame.

As for those hands and feet, he’ll leave those alone.

“The thing I noticed about her in high school,” Griffin said, “is she’s one of the few kids who can shoot the ball off a screen and off the dribble. Very few kids can do that. She gets it away in a hurry. She’s got such a quick release.”

The little feet are what Snyder uses to get open and the little hands – which have tremendous touch – are what have led the Riverheads High School graduate to the top of the Old Dominion Athletic Conference.

On Monday, Snyder scored a team-high 15 points as EMU improved to 6-0 overall and 2-0 in the ODAC with a 63-50 victory over Randolph College in Park View.

Going into Monday’s game, Snyder was third in the league, averaging 17.8 points per game and was first with 16 3-pointers. Her touch is so good that she hadn’t missed a free throw all season, going 13-for-13. It’s also earned her a fire-at-will policy from her coach.

“I have given her the green light,” Griffin said. “I’ve told her, ‘If you’re open and feel good, let it fly.'”

So far this season, the strategy has not only worked for Snyder but also the Royals, who are off to their best start since 2003-04 when they won their last ODAC championship. It’s also the best start in Griffin’s four-year tenure and includes an upset win over conference rival Lynchburg.

“We came out with a chip on our shoulder,” junior guard Ebony Dennis said. “People around the league picked us eighth. We just go into every game with nothing to lose.”

The Royals have three players averaging 10 points per game or better and have created problems with a run-and-gun style of play, which emphasizes transition baskets and tenacious man-to-man defense. That’s led to the second-best scoring defense in the ODAC (60.4 points per game) and has generated a league-best 62 steals (12.4 a game).

“Hard work pays off,” Snyder said of EMU’s success. “We’ve left it all on the court.”

Snyder is still trying to adjust to her continuous green light. She said in high school, she didn’t shoot much at all – a reason, Griffin hypothesized, that Eastern Mennonite was her only college suitor.

“I was shocked that more people didn’t want her,” he said.

But for Snyder, the major hurdle in adjusting to her shoot-at-your-leisure pass has been confidence and not understanding of how green that green light really was.

“He wanted me to shoot a lot more than I have,” said Snyder, who averaged 5.8 points in 15.7 minutes per game as a freshman. “… That was tough for me at first because coach has so much confidence in me – probably more than I have in myself. I just couldn’t believe it. How can he have so much confidence in me?”

The answer is straight forward.

“She’s the best shooter I’ve coached – boy or girl,” Griffin said. “Her form is perfect.”

The message, however, is sinking in.

“If I’m open, I try to take it,” Snyder said. “Because if I don’t, coach will roll me.”

Strangely, though, Snyder doesn’t have a reputation as a gunner – a player who shoots all the time, usually to the detriment of her team. Griffin said this is because of Snyder’s shot selection. He said she rarely forces shots and is aware of her limitations. And her teammates don’t see her as a black hole, either.

“She’s consistent,” Dennis said. “They always say good shooters keep shooting, even when they’re missing. … It seems like every game she’s hot.”