In our series of student and alumni stories, social media posts, and letters and emails, we invited you to become part of LovEMU history by making this year’s Giving Day the best one yet. You answered the call, giving $402,722 to scholarships and financial aid, direct support for faculty and staff, EMU’s life-changing intercultural programs, and, for the first time, resources for first-generation college students.

Together, we surpassed the $400,000 goal set by LovEMU organizers and topped our previous record of $365,512, raised last year, by an impressive 10%.

In an email sent Thursday, Nicole Litwiller ’19, MA ’20 (conflict transformation), annual giving and donor communications specialist, expressed gratitude for the generosity shown by EMU alumni, friends, and fans.

“It is inspiring and humbling to witness the outpouring of support our community showed—with every gift, text to a family member or friend, or post to social media, you helped us meet our goal. We are incredibly grateful.” she said.

Among the highlights from this year’s LovEMU Giving Day, she shared, were:

• Unlocking every challenge of the day;
• watching hundreds of alumni, employees, donors, and students connect and celebrate during the LovEMU Community Meal; and
• welcoming 19 future Royals who visited for the day into the EMU community.

“Thank you again for showing up for EMU,” Litwiller said. “Your support has a direct impact on current students, future students, and the entire EMU community.”

Students, faculty, staff, and alumni fill Yoder Arena for Wednesday morning’s LovEMU Pep Rally.

The day kicked off with the third annual LovEMU Pep Rally at Yoder Arena. The rally had it all: a dramatic entrance by Herm on an e-bike, the return of the BaZOOKa T-shirt cannon, and performances by the top three athletic teams from the previous night’s Lip-Sync Battle.

Read a recap of the pep rally below!

Sights and sounds from the University Festival: Past, present, and future Royals meet with Herm (top photo), snap pics at the LovEMU photo booth (left), and bob for apples (right) at one of the Student Union club booths.

Following the pep rally, the University Festival in the Hall of Nations connected faculty members with prospective students and featured games and activities hosted by student clubs. 

Mathematics Professor Dr. Daniel Showalter brought his two daughters and his dad, Dennis Showalter ’73, to the event. He said he gives to scholarships such as the HDH and Flora Showalter Endowed Scholarship, which supports math and computer science students, on LovEMU Giving Day.

“This is my dream job,” he said. “I want to do whatever I can to keep the atmosphere vibrant and living. I feel really grateful that I get to wake up every morning and go to a job that is meaningful and enjoyable.”

Jacob Horsley ’22, MBA ’25, associate director of undergraduate admissions, said he chooses to give back to the university on LovEMU Giving Day because he’s a “repeat Royal.”

“I’m a double-alumnus,” he said. “I have experienced the impact of this supportive community, and I want to make sure that it continues.”

The Lunch & Lawn Party returned to Thomas Plaza with a free student lunch and various lawn games.

The campus community enjoyed Wednesday’s warm weather at the Lunch & Lawn Party on Thomas Plaza, where they savored Korean beef bowls and competed in lawn games. The annual student appreciation lunch, free for all students and hosted in partnership between Pioneer College Caterers and the Campus Activities Council, included the traditional egg toss and a Bubble Bus that filled the Front Lawn with giant bubbles.

From 2 to 4 p.m., members of EMU’s MA in Counseling program led self-care activities at the Student Union.

As EMU’s night owls kept the energy alive, LovEMU participants had plenty more activities to enjoy. Back by popular demand and hosted by the Student Government Association, the Real Life Mario Kart Race returned to the University Commons indoor track, where teams of three raced on scooters, dodged obstacles, and collected prizes. Later, from 10:30 p.m. to midnight, the Art After Dark craft event featured live music from EMU’s jazz trio.

View the full schedule of events at .

Leaderboard competition

The winners of the 2026 LovEMU leaderboard competition are:

Academic program

• First place ($1,000 prize): Nursing
• Second place ($500 prize): Natural Sciences
• Third place ($250 prize): Education

Student club/org

• First place ($1,000 prize): Muslim Student Alliance (a new org formed this year!)
• Second place ($500 prize): Black Student Alliance
• Third place ($250 prize): EMU Outdoor

Athletic team

• First place ($1,000 prize): Women’s Volleyball
• Second place ($500 prize): Women’s Basketball
• Third place ($250 prize): Men’s volleyball

Challenges (all unlocked)

Donors unlocked all $170,000 in challenge match funds for the University Fund, student scholarships, intercultural programs, athletics, and, new to LovEMU this year, support for first-generation college students.

LovEMU Early Challenge: We received more than 120 gifts before the start of LovEMU Giving Day to unlock $15,000 for the University Fund.

All-day challenges

Loyal Royal Challenge: More than 250 alumni made gifts to EMU during LovEMU Giving Day to unlock $20,000 for student scholarships.

Friends of EMU Challenge: More than 175 non-alumni made gifts to unlock $15,000 for the University Fund.

Future Royal Challenge: Because 19 prospective students who were in attendance on LovEMU Giving Day paid their tuition deposit, either on the day or beforehand, we unlocked $19,000 in scholarship funds.

Timed challenges

Early Herm Gets the Worm: We received 75 gifts before 9 a.m. on Wednesday to unlock $15,000 for student scholarships.

First-Gen Match of 10: In a first-ever LovEMU challenge of its kind, a “match of the match” through a NetVUE grant, we raised $10,052 to support first-generation students.

LovEMU at First Sight: We received 110 gifts between noon and 3 p.m. to unlock a whopping $30,000 for the University Fund.

What a Wonderful World: We received 80 gifts from 5-7 p.m. to unlock $20,000 to ensure all students are able to access EMU’s impactful intercultural experiences.

The Generosity Marathon: We received 55 gifts from 7:30-9 p.m. to unlock $10,000 for EMU Athletics.

Late-night Leadership: We received 100 gifts from 9 p.m. to midnight to unlock $20,000 for the University Fund.

Thanks to everyone who donated, shared their time to celebrate their love of all things EMU, and joined in the festivities on campus! Special thanks to the 2026 LovEMU planning team: Nicole Litwiller, Arelys Martinez Fabian, Cassandra Guerrero, Kyle Dickinson, Leah Frankenfield, Luke Litwiller, Maria Longenecker, Omar Hoyos, Steve Johnson, and Tyler Goss.

Swipe through our photo album from the day below!

If any student in his class can find a topic they care about that he can’t apply to statistics, they win a clean, crisp $100 bill.

“It’s always fun,” Showalter said. “Students will write to me about something or another and I’ll show them some research paper that has been done related to that.”

To date, nobody has won his challenge, and there’s a good chance nobody ever will. It just goes to show how applicable statistics is to the world around us and to everyone in it. “Statistics is one of those areas that connects to every part of our life like faith, relationships, justice, mental health,” he said.  

Whether it’s applying a statistical lens to childhood poverty, to racial discrimination in hiring or to the educational quality in rural school districts, Showalter strives to help his students connect with and care about statistics in a way that isn’t just about numbers and formulas. His class shows them how statistics can be used as a perspective to improve the quality of life and change the world. 

Meeting his heroes

Now in his ninth year at EMU, Showalter, the program director for mathematics and computer science, is the recipient of next year’s Robert V. Hogg Award for Excellence in Teaching Introductory Statistics.��

The national award is presented yearly by the Special Interest Group of the Mathematical Association of America on Statistics Education to someone who’s been teaching introductory statistics at the college level between three and 15 years and has “shown both excellence and growth in teaching during that time ().” Its namesake Robert Hogg was a professor of statistics at the University of Iowa and was well-known for his textbooks on statistics. 

Showalter was nominated by his doctoral adviser Greg Foley, from Ohio University, for the award. He also submitted four letters of recommendation, including two from students, for consideration by the awards committee.

“The committee was impressed with your work in course design, your service to the community, and your impact on students,” a committee member wrote in an email to Showalter.

Past winners of the Hogg award include three statistics educators who are among Showalter’s biggest inspirations: Talithia Williams of Harvey Mudd College, Nathan Tintle of the University of Illinois Chicago, and Mine Çetinkaya-Rundel of Duke University.

“They have been some of my heroes, who have really shaped how I teach statistics and use personal, relevant data,” Showalter said.

The EMU professor will receive the Hogg award at the 2024 MathFest in Indianapolis in August. He said he looks forward to forging professional connections with past award winners as well as trading ideas with other statistics professors. 

Along with the award comes a $500 prize. Showalter plans to use the money to invest in promoting the sharing of stories between EMU students, a topic he talked about in his this past spring. 

‘Teach people, not statistics’

This isn’t the first award he’s received for his teaching.

Showalter was the 2021 recipient of the John M. Smith Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching, a regional math honor bestowed to professors who are “widely recognized as extraordinarily successful in their teaching.” Read more about that recognition in our writeup here. 

He was the 2020 recipient of EMU’s Excellence in Teaching Award for tenured faculty. And, he’s received accolades from across the country for his work on a analyzing the contexts and conditions of rural education in each state.

Showalter, who led a Thailand crosscultural group in 2021, said the trip proved to be a “real turning point” for him as a professor. 

 “I was able to interact with these students and see a lot more of what they were going through from the other side, not just from the front of the classroom, but as a supporter,” he said.

At the beginning of every semester, he has his students fill out intro surveys, where they describe themselves and their relationship with mathematics. The surveys provide him with a glimpse into their lives and allow him to form personal connections with them. 

Showalter starts his first sabbatical next semester, one that will focus on how professors can aid in students’ mental health. He said it’s important for him to “teach people, not statistics.”

“You can’t just take this curriculum and apply it to any given set of students,” he said. “From the very beginning, I want to know each student individually as much as they’ll let me get to know them. … Even if they don’t learn statistics, I want every student to come out of here feeling like they’re valued or to find ways to affirm them as a person.”

Professor Daniel Showalter, who teaches mathematics at ��ݮ���� (EMU), is the 2021 recipient of the John M. Smith Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching. The award is given out by the Mathematical Association of America’s Maryland, Virginia, and Washington D.C. division to professors who are “widely recognized as extraordinarily successful in their teaching” and have influence beyond their own institution, according to the . 

He will also be the region’s nominee for the national Deborah and Franklin Tepper Haimo Award for Distinguished College or University Teaching of Mathematics. That selection process begins March 1, 2022.

In the awards ceremony, Professor Ethan Duckworth of Loyola University Maryland, who serves on the selection committee, shared a few examples of praise from former students: Best instructor in the world … An incredible professor … Daniel does a fantastic job of making connections and making the topic come to life through story and examples.

“To me, this award is a product of the student-centered culture that flourishes here at EMU,” Showalter said. “Nearly all of my teaching strategies and approaches were born out of feedback from students or a discussion with a colleague.”

Showalter was nominated for the award by Professor Owen Byer, who wrote in the nomination letter that Showalter is one of EMU’s “most beloved and effective faculty members … I have seen first-hand how much students in all of his [his] classes love him, in no small part because they know how much he cares about them and their learning.” 

The topical application of mathematics was one of Showalter’s pedagogies that the selection committee found most impressive.

“Each of [his] quizzes has a theme of social importance,” Duckworth relayed from another supporter. “Each begins with an engaging class discussion, and then the students analyze and interpret related, authentic data on such topics as gender equity, racial discrimination in hiring, child poverty, and depression and suicide.” 

Of course, Showalter is so good at teaching these uses of mathematics because he practices what he preaches. One example from his impressive body of published research is the study Showalter led on rural schools’ strengths and challenges, which made national news.

Showalter was the 2020 recipient of the university’s Excellence in Teaching Award for tenured faculty.

Teacher education majors at ��ݮ���� who are preparing for careers teaching in the STEM fields will soon have access to new scholarship funds. EMU is the recipient of a five-year grant from the Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program, a program funded by the National Science Foundation.

The scholarships, worth $10,000 each year, are available to junior and senior education majors who are earning secondary teaching certifications in biology, chemistry, computer science, or math. 

By the conclusion of the grant, 24 new STEM teachers will be placed in high-need school districts. The grant also includes professional support and development for participants while they are studying at EMU and once the EMU graduates are working in their new positions.

“This grant is unique in that it helps us create a pipeline to recruit and mentor STEM majors towards considering a teaching career, then helps to prepare them to teach in high-needs schools with a unique skillset of content knowledge and restorative justice practices,” said professor of teacher education Paul Yoder, the grant’s principal investigator and director of EMU’s Graduate Teacher Education program. “Once they are hired, we also will support them, all of which we hope leads towards retention of high-quality STEM teachers in our schools.”

The grant team also includes three STEM professors:  Kristopher Schmidt, professor of biology and director of the MS in Biomedicine program ; Daniel Showalter, professor of mathematics; and Laurie Yoder, professor of chemistry. The faculty members will serve as mentors and advisors to pre-service teachers, and coordinate with lead teachers in their respective fields at Harrisonburg City Public Schools (HCPS).

“In a time of critical need for more STEM teachers in K-12 settings, EMU is committed not just to supplying these teachers, but to rooting their education in restorative justice practices,” said Showalter. “This grant allows for an intentional focus on developing teachers who can respond wisely and gracefully in classrooms where growing numbers of students have experienced trauma.”

HCPS, which has a linguistically and culturally diverse student demographic with 66 percent of students qualifying for free or reduced-price lunch, is EMU’s local partner in the grant. 

The program “would be a tremendous asset, resource, and shared effort for our district in helping to meet the needs of students and teachers,” wrote Superintendent Michael Richards.��

The district will support the grant through mentoring of practicum students, providing STEM educators as guest speakers at EMU events, developing internship opportunities, and creating pathways for EMU students to participate in HCPS STEM outreach activities, according to Richards.

The project strengthens and enhances existing partnerships between EMU and HCPS, Yoder said, including current practicum and student-teaching experiences. HCPS also partners with EMU to provide restorative justice in education (RJE) professional development opportunities, including a cohort-based graduate certificate program for HCPS teachers and staff.

“Teachers who are prepared to implement restorative justice in diverse school settings can help to improve learning outcomes and strengthen school-wide RJE efforts,” Yoder said. 

Yoder says the grant’s multi-year commitment will also provide data for a study on the impact of implementation of RJE-infused curriculum among pre-service and in-service STEM teachers in high-need schools. The EMU professors will look at the ways in which “RJE-infused curriculum helps pre-service and early-career STEM teachers feel prepared to meet the challenges associated with teaching in culturally and linguistically diverse school settings.”

On December 5, 12 graduate students in ��ݮ����’s MS in Biomedicine program defended their original research in a virtual oral presentation. Their work ranged from laboratory experiments with cardiac proteins and African clawed frogs to public health inquiries on and off campus.

Since 2013, the master’s in biomedicine program has helped graduates prepare for careers as health professionals. The research component is just one unique curricular offering. Students also benefit from a unique approach to cadaver dissection, which many alumni say has provided optimal preparation and a strong background for the rigors of medical school. Several articulation agreements with professional health schools enhance opportunities to matriculate and continue with career goals.

Each oral defense is evaluated by professors in the MS in biomedicine program, committee members, other faculty and other graduate students.

The research component brings graduate students into mentoring relationships with faculty, alumni and other professionals across many disciplines. Committee members for this round of research projects included Doug Graber Neufeld, professor of biology; Daniel Showalter, professor of mathematics; Jeff Copeland, professor of biology; Scott Barge, vice president of institutional effectiveness; Kristopher Schmidt, professor of biology; Ryan Thompson, director of the psychology program; and Tara Kishbaugh, director of the biomedicine program.

Master’s candidates and their research topics include:

Josephine Awotoye: Predictors of not having a primary care provider in the United States: a cross sectional analysis of the 2018 behavioral risk factor surveillance system;

Mecca Baker: Direct and indirect regulation of cell cycle genes by HLH-25 in Caenorhabditis elegans;

Luz Contreras: Health literacy and demographics in Spanish speakers in Harrisonburg, Virginia: a two-part survey questionnaire with self-reported sections;

Cesar Corona Gutierrez: Which neurons play a role in lifespan extension in Drosophila melanogaster;

Jessica Hindle: The effects of nicotine and glyphosate-based herbicide on orofacial cleft;

Carmen Meacham: The effects of progesterone and estrogen on the feminization of Xenopus laevis;

Jennifer Rojas: The effects of electronic cigarette liquids on immunity and lifespan in Caenorhabditis elegans;

Jessica Saunders: Investigating young Black Christians’ attitudes towards medicine in America;

Sukriti Silwal: Effect of bovine milk and NovaMin on the demineralization and remineralization capacity of teeth;

Kristen Snow: analysis of cardiac troponin levels as an indicator of recovery time and myocardial infarction reoccurrence;

Gene St. Val: Influences of transportation, insurance and demographics on DSM-5 cross cutting symptom measures and treatment adherence;

Benjamin Wright: The role of unc-53 in ced-3 mediated apoptosis in Caenorhabditis elegans.

The COVID-19 pandemic has wreaked havoc on educational institutions across the country – with students, instructors, and families seemingly in limbo as they try to navigate public health precautions and an increased migration to virtual learning. At ��ݮ���� (EMU), faculty have had to adapt their curricula to a semester that will begin and end online and accommodate in-person instruction in the middle. And fields that rely on practicum study have added challenges to face.

Some professors are finding this an exciting challenge.

“In many ways, this is an incredible time to be teaching students about public health and how medical and nursing research should influence practice,” said Professor Kate Clark. She’d normally be setting up clinical experiences with families and in other community health settings. Instead, a partnership with Harrisonburg City Public Schools will have student nurses assist with COVID-19 screening. The students will also perform a variety of nursing tasks at the Harrisonburg-Rockingham Free Clinic and at the Purdue poultry plant’s wellness center in Bridgewater.

These opportunities are the result of many years of relationship- and trust-building between the EMU nursing department and local agencies. Clark said she often hears from area healthcare providers “how ‘different’ our nursing students are – how professional, caring, broad-minded, culturally competent, et cetera. This is why they allow us to help in their work – because they trust our students to do this difficult work well and with great care and compassion.”

[Read more how spring 2020 nursing students gained unique experiences during the COVID-19 here and here.]

Future teachers also have a practicum-heavy course load. This semester, they’ll be learning through the same trial-by-fire as established educators, as they’re paired with local middle and high school teachers leading virtual classes for Harrisonburg City and Rockingham County Public Schools . 

“With local public schools providing primarily virtual instruction, our EMU students will have important opportunities to learn and apply new strategies in the context of online education,” said Professor Paul Yoder. “As a professor, I will similarly have opportunities to engage new technology and instructional platforms like VoiceThread as part of classes I am teaching.”

VoiceThread is a software platform that allows users to interact with video clips and voice and text comments for a multi-media forum experience. It’s one of the many new technologies emerging as prominent teaching tools in the era of COVID-19, and one that was introduced in a summer course for EMU faculty titled “For Our Students: Fall 2020.” Professor Daniel Showalter helped design the course along with professors Mark Sawin, Tara Kishbaugh, Barbara Wheatley, and Steve Cessna.

“The primary motivation for the course was to equip faculty to provide positive learning experiences during the challenges and unpredictability of the pandemic,” said Showalter.

The course included a four-week module in course development, safe classroom configurations, resources for effective online teaching, and examples of creative solutions EMU faculty are employing this semester – like this introduction video Sawin made for his History 101 and 102 classes – which students can attend in person, via Zoom, or just complete the coursework asynchronously.

Kishbaugh led the module on course development. She said one of the biggest challenges this semester is the “cognitive load” of having to re-do, or at least reevaluate, every element of a class to make sure it fits in the new normal of COVID-19.

“It feels like nothing is on auto-pilot. This is true in other areas of our lives as well which leaves all of us with less energy,” said Kishbaugh. 

She drew inspiration for this semester from a training she took years ago on institutional transformation work to improve the retention of students in STEM. The training, which came as part of a National Science Foundation grant, focused on “increasing our teaching efficacy and learning to be more responsive in our classrooms,” Kishbaugh explained. “The principles we focused on in this training were the ones that we highlighted this summer. Empathy and checking our assumptions are key to the rest of the pedagogical tools being effective.”

Showalter said this summer’s course participants came with a number of concerns and anxieties. How would they build relationships with their students in an online setting? What if they encounter technical difficulties? Will important conversations on racial justice, microaggressions, and disabilities be lost in the chaos of COVID-19? Showalter and his team tried to address each of these questions with digital resources, knowledgeable guest speakers, and small-group troubleshooting. 

At the end of the day, everything we do, teaching college classes included, is “winging it” this fall – but in EMU’s classrooms, it’s done with particular care. 

“The main idea here is that this semester will probably be stressful and there will be plenty of mistakes, but amidst it all, the goal is to center ourselves on the students’ needs and those relationships,” Showalter said. 

What will a post-pandemic world look like? How is COVID-19 affecting each of us differently, and what are our responsibilities to one another in the face of those disparities? What do we know about the biology of the virus? And are there things that are changing for the better because of this crisis?

A free seven-week online course offered at ��ݮ���� this summer will delve into those questions and more. Community members are welcome. Students can opt for a pass/fail grade and will have online access to readings, videos, and other materials before each class. 

The course meets each Tuesday evening, beginning June 30, from 6:30-8:30 p.m. for seven weeks, with a different pair or trio of faculty and staff from different academic fields leading each class.

The lectures and Q and A will be recorded and available for viewing later.

The course is co-led by language and literature professor Kevin Seidel and chemistry professor Laurie Yoder.

“What pulled me in at first was the possibility of teaching with faculty from all three schools – sciences, social sciences, and humanities – talking together and learning from one another about the virus,” Seidel said. When the pandemic hit, he started fervently gathering information and perspective: from scientists, from fictive literature, and from poetry, trying to make sense of “this strange new world.” 

Week 1 | June 30, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Treating COVID-19

What do we know about the biology of COVID-19? What’s next in vaccine development? What public health measures are working to slow the spread of COVID-19?

Kristopher Schmidt, Associate Professor of Biology

Kate Clark, Assistant Professor of Nursing

Week 2 | July 7, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Pandemic History and Data

What can we learn from past pandemics about life after this one? What can we learn from visual presentations of data about the pandemic? 

Mary Sprunger, Professor of History

Daniel Showalter, Associate Professor of Mathematics

Week 3 | July 14, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Politics and Collective Trauma

Why has the U.S. response to COVID-19 been so contentious and uneven? What is collective trauma and what might it have to do with that response?

Mark Metzler Sawin, Professor of History

Ryan Thompson, Assistant Professor of Psychology

Trina Trotter Nussbaum, Associate Director, Center for Interfaith Engagement

Week 4 | July 21, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Zoonotic Viruses, Wet Markets, and the Economics of COVID-19

Where do coronaviruses come from? What are the links between environmental degradation and pandemics? What does COVID-19 have to teach us about how our economy is connected to the natural world? What are the economic impacts from a pandemic?

Jim Yoder, Professor of Biology

Jim Leaman, Associate Professor of Business and Leadership

Week 5 | July 28, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Our Life with Animals, Our Life with God

Why are so many people taking refuge in nature during the pandemic? Why is that refuge harder to come by for some people? What do the scriptures say about how our life with God is related to our life with animals? 

Steven Johnson, Professor of Visual and Communication Arts 

Andrea Saner, Associate Professor of Old Testament

Week 6 | August 4, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Systemic Racism in the U.S. before and after COVID-19

Why has COVID-19 hit African-Americans harder than other groups? Why does rural Navajo Nation have the highest infection rates in the country?

Jenni Holsinger, Associate Professor of Sociology 

Matt Tibbles, Teaching Fellow, Applied Social Sciences

Jim Yoder, Professor of Biology

Week 7 | August 11, Tuesday, 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Resilience, Repair, and Transformation after COVID-19

How do we carry forward what we’ve learned about COVID-19, trauma, and restorative justice? 

Johonna Turner, Assistant Professor of Restorative Justice and Peacebuilding

Katie Mansfield, Lead Trainer, Strategies for Trauma Awareness and Resilience (STAR)

• in the Tenured Faculty category, Daniel Showalter PhD, associate professor of mathematics; 
• in the Pre-tenure Faculty category, Johonna Turner PhD, assistant professor at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding; and
• in the Non-tenure Faculty category, Bonnie Yoder, adjunct instructor in EMU’s Teacher Preparation Program.

The award honors the gifts of faculty across all the positional categories of employment. Criteria include impact on students, effective teaching practices, subject knowledge and continual growth, including a commitment to professional and pedagogical development.

The selection process began with nominations from the campus community. A committee appointed by Faculty Senate reviewed the nominations and selected the honorees.  

Tenured Faculty: Daniel Showalter, PhD

Since summer 2015, Showalter has taught a range of classes in computer science, mathematics, statistics, and education. He has also advised thesis projects for the MS in Biomedicine program and teaches an online Biostatistics course for the Doctor of Nursing Practice program.

“The variety is one of the reasons I absolutely love teaching at EMU,” he said. “Of course, the main reasons I love it here are the students–who constantly challenge each other and myself with their insights during our discussions–and our supportive community of colleagues.”

Showalter “clearly loves his content, respects and aims to help empower his students, and delights in coming up with new ways to engage them. He also takes faith integration seriously,” wrote one nominator. “Students have spoken to me about the ways in which he communicates his appreciation for Scripture and the Christian tradition in natural, gentle, and inviting ways. He serves also as a public intellectual, engaging in policy conversations that extend his teaching role far beyond our campus.”

A second nominator praised Showalter’s capabilities and interest in developing practical application of math and statistics principles to real-world problems, 

Read more about Showalter’s contributions on his personnel page and in recent news coverage about his leadership of a national study on rural students and schools.

Showalter earned a bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Urbana University, an MS in mathematics from Ohio University, and a PhD in mathematics education from Ohio University.

Pre-tenure Faculty: Johonna Turner, PhD

Turner is assistant professor of restorative justice and peacebuilding at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding and in the applied social science department. She joined EMU as an instructor at CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute in 2014 and joined the full-time faculty in fall 2015. She is also co-director of the .

She regularly teaches graduate courses in restorative justice, as well as joins in co-teaching the core 6-unit “Foundations of Justice and Peacebuilding Level II” for all CJP MA students. Additionally, she has taught graduate courses in social movements and formation for peacebuilding practice, as well as undergraduate courses in restorative justice and trauma awareness and facilitation and group dynamics. 

Next semester, Turner will teach a new course titled “Ending Violence, Shifting Power,” which will introduce students to “the rich body of thinking and practice emerging from feminist, antiracist and LGBTQ anti-violence movements,” she says.

Turner’s innovation is also highlighted in other courses she has designed and taught at EMU,  Eastern Mennonite Seminary and CJP’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute, including “Peacebuilding through Biblical Narrative,” Christian spirituality for social action; and “Justice, Peace and the Biblical Story,” cross-listed with the seminary.

Turner often invites graduate students who show an interest in facilitation and teaching in and out of academia to join her as a course co-designer and co-instructor: “My practice of teaching is enmeshed with my mentoring practice,” she explains. 

Nominators cited Turner’s contributions to integrating faith into coursework and university faculty/staff events; she is a member of CJP’s Faith Integration Taskforce but has actively influenced the broader university on this topic as well. She received several nominations from students, who shared that her compassion, sensitivity and method of inquiry sparked not only excellent discussion but helped to engender self-confidence on their own journeys of discovery.

Turner “graces the world with an incorrigible spirit of joy, a curious intellect, and a deep compassion for all whose liberation has been shackled by the injustices of violence and oppression … She is keenly aware that her emancipation is all wrapped up in the freedom of those around her,” wrote one colleague.

In addition to her teaching responsibilities, Turner is also a sought-after speaker and a widely published scholar. Learn more about her journey at her personnel page and in this Peacebuilder podcast episode.

Turner earned her PhD in American studies at the University of Maryland. She holds bachelor’s degrees in journalism and interdisciplinary studies from the University of Missouri, and two graduate certificates: in Women’s Studies from the University of Maryland, and in Urban Youth Ministry from Fuller Theological Seminary. 

Non-tenure Faculty: Bonnie Yoder, Adjunct Faculty

Yoder has taught at EMU since 2010, working with teacher education students in the beginning of their professional preparation and then supervising many during their culminating student teaching experience. She has also taught courses in management and organization in early education, content area reading and writing, and foundations of curriculum development, at the graduate level.

Nominators cited Yoder for her commitment to the program, her openness and flexibility in working with various groups of students, her care and compassion for students, and her teaching and facilitation strategies, which emphasize critical reflection.

She brings vast experiential knowledge and relationships from her 17-year career as a teacher and administrator in the local school system. This enables EMU students to begin this important pre-service experience with beneficial, positive relationships with other mentoring supervising teachers.

“I feel blessed to serve EMU and the wider community through the meaningful work of guiding students as they discover the call to teach,” she said. “EMU’s education department has a strong reputation and high goals in preparing pre-service teachers to impact the world. The collaboration and camaraderie within the department makes this possible. What a joy to watch our students develop into confident teachers.”

Yoder earned her BA degree from EMU and an MEd at James Madison University. Among other accomplishments, she is a former National Economics Teacher of the Year.

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Nearly one in five U.S. public school students are enrolled in a “rural” school, and those students and schools face challenges particular to their rurality, according to the of “Why Rural Matters,” a report published by the Rural School and Community Trust.

The study was led by ��ݮ���� mathematics professor Daniel Showalter, who has collaborated on the publication since 2012, when he was a graduate student at Ohio University. That year, he says, he was just a “data guy” – now, he leads the team of four researchers and statisticians from three different institutions to produce “Why Rural Matters” every other year.

“The main point is just to generate discussion, whether it’s in the media, academia, or politics,” Showalter explained, “so rural isn’t just this forgotten land in our country. It’s bringing attention to it.”

Showalter spoke with EMU News about the importance of this research and why it’s been in the limelight since being released in November – , , and Atlanta’s NPR affiliate are just a few of the media outlets that have featured the 2018-19 edition.

Responses have been edited for space and clarity.

Why is this issue important to you? Did you attend a rural school growing up?

I grew up in a rural area. Maybe even more so, I did some backpacking for a few years through Asia and ended up spending the majority of my time in rural areas just because people were so incredibly welcoming, so they would often let me stay in their homes for as long as I wanted. One tribal family in India let my friend and I stay at their house for six months, without ever having met us before. In some of the countries, the rural education was barely existent, and the children would work in the fields during the day.

I also like how this report is nonpartisan. In our polarizing political climate, it’s refreshing to be able to try to figure out what types of things people, regardless of their beliefs, see as important to the health of rural education and then just track down high quality data that I can put into a usable form to inform discussions and debates.

What are the main components of the report?

It really centers around ranking the rural areas of each state on a set of 25 indicators. By indicators, I mean some way of measuring rural education health, [for example] the percentage of rural students in poverty, the rate at which rural students change residences, or the graduation rate of rural students.

I rank the states almost like a competition. So say we’re talking about child poverty rates, the state with the “number one” ranking would have the most child poverty. Rather than being “good” or “bad,” the ranking is just a flashing red light to say, “Hey, let’s pay attention to this state.”

Each state has a page full of data and infographics about their rankings; that’s the heart of the report. And then we have a narrative that weaves all the data together in a more story-like form.

This edition of the biennial report includes a featured subsection on early childhood education, before kindergarten. What were some of your findings there?

One of my coauthors is an expert in that area, so she did the work there. She found that there’s a disproportionately high rate of abuse and neglect. Opioid use has really influenced that population in the last few years.

Also, the rural early childhood demographic is hit harder by poverty than any other age group, and non-white, non-Asian children in that age group are three times more likely to be living in poverty than white children. She also presented some of the research on action that could be taken to improve the conditions for these children.

Were there any other significant changes in your approach for this edition?

We’ve always included race, because it’s an important issue, but in the past it’s always just been white versus non-white, which seemed inappropriate and oversimplified. So this time, we came up with what we called a “rural diversity index.” This gives every race a unique place in the data. The way we measured it is, if you would go to any rural school in the country, and you would randomly pull two students from that school, what’s the chance that they would be of a different race?

Delaware, North Carolina, and Oklahoma have the largest rural diversity indices in the country – in those states, two randomly chosen students from a rural school are more likely than not to come from different racial or ethnic backgrounds. It still only scratches the surface, but it’s an improved measurement, and we’re planning to go more in depth in a special side report on racial issues this year. 

We also looked at the poverty gap in each state, so just in the rural areas, we compared the educational outcomes of the students living in poverty to their peers living above the poverty line. As expected, in every state, the students living in poverty performed worse, but in some states like Pennsylvania, that gap was relatively small.

Has the report resulted in any direct political outcomes?

One that I can think of deals with the Title I funding formulas. Title I funds are supposed to go from the federal government to the highest-poverty schools in the country, but there are a couple loopholes in the formulas that result in large, wealthy suburban schools getting some of the money that really is designated for high-poverty rural and urban schools.

Our report was one of the tools that was instrumental in raising awareness of that inequity. A congressman who was at a briefing I gave on Capitol Hill presented the findings of our report to the House of Representatives and introduced the All Children are Equal Act to fix the formulas.

The act then went to a House subcommittee vote, but some last minute lobbying prevented it from passing. However, it did start drawing some attention and led to the approval of a $10 million rural education Center being approved this past year.  

What stereotypes about rurality or rural schools does the report challenge?

One, that rural students tend not to be as academic as other areas, or that there’s a “brain drain” where all the smart kids from rural areas leave to go to the cities. I was curious about what the data say, and it turns out that in 28 of the 48 states with data, the rural students actually did better than the non-rural students on the National Assessment of Educational Progress tests. 

Another is that “rural” is shrinking, that it’s drying up, and that’s not really true. We have seen a decrease in rural students, but it’s primarily because of suburban sprawl. A high school might have been considered rural five years ago, but the census now classifies it as non-rural. There are rural areas where the population is shrinking, but in many areas of the country, the rural population is actually growing.

Another stereotype is that rural students are basically white farmer kids, when in reality, rural is becoming more racially diverse at a faster rate than urban and suburban areas.

How are these findings relevant to students at EMU?

I mention this report in my statistics classes to help make my point that statistics are not just formulas, but they are stories you can tell. There are impacts you can make. You can see the world in a different light using statistics.

Another group would be our student teachers. When they go into a rural placement, it sometimes blows them away; there are attitudes they can’t relate with. Our education program includes some focus on cultural approaches, because students don’t really know where they’re going to end up as a teacher.

How did you choose the theme of this edition – “The time is now?”

When Donald Trump was elected as president, it was quite a shock to many people, and since then a lot of attention has been focusing on the rural base that elected him. Our hope is that spotlight can also show some of the injustices that are occurring in rural areas, why people are frustrated, and that maybe change can happen in those rural areas. 

I also want to clarify that by saying that there’s often a “deficit mentality.” It’s not uncommon to hear “rural” as synonymous with uneducated, poor, or inferior – I certainly don’t believe that. I think rural has much to offer in terms of a sense of community, priorities in life being maybe less materialistic at times, and sustainability.

So, there are a lot of assets in rural areas, and the report brings some of those to light.

Soil Cycles HVA – “Compost Collection on Two Wheels” – offers food scrap pick-up services to residential and business subscribers. Collected compostables are delivered to bins placed in the city by Black Bear Composting, which composts them. The returned soil matter can be used by subscribers or donated to community gardens or local farms.

Since its first pickup on May 3, has biked 529 miles to collect 1,461 pounds of compost, preventing 2,749 kg of carbon emissions, according to its website. Residents pay $25 a month for weekly pickup and supplies, and businesses pay according to their volume.  

Similar services are underway in 27 other states, all working to curb the more than 50 million tons of food sent to landfills each year in the United States, Vinod said.

But Soil Cycles is about more than simply preventing waste. It seeks to “lift our local economy” with subscriber reward cards offering monthly discounts and deals such as free coffee at Shenandoah Joe’s – a perk for subscribers and an advertising boost for the vendors – and, eventually, by growing to become an employer, one that pays its workers livable wages.

“We’re able to hit so many points, like fossil fuels, regeneration, restoration of land, having more trees and plants and community gardens, and providing services for our community members and more money for local economy,” she said. “It ties together all things.”

Vinod, who grew up in Bengaluru (formerly Bangalore), India, has traveled for two and a half years to Central and South America, Japan, Nepal, Indonesia, Malaysia and elsewhere. The experience left her with an increased appreciation for the sustainability efforts of her grandparents, who on their farm in India grew their own food and planted coconut trees for oil.

The travels also instilled in her a need to learn more about the world’s problems, in order to solve them – for example by biking, she said, noting the famed assertion that it is “a silent protest against fossil fuels.”

As a sophomore, she transferred from James Madison University – where art history professor Charles Maddox still encourages her in her environmental activism – to EMU after learning about its sustainability program’s “really good reputation” in the city and campus efforts such as the Sustainable Food Initiative and bicycle-powered recycling collection.

“Once I looked at the campus and met some of the professors, I felt really inspired to be here and learn more in terms of peace and justice,” she said.

In 2017 she began laying the groundwork for Soil Cycles, along with JMU student Amelia Morrison and sustainability activist Taylor Evans, and she found EMU professors to be “very supportive.” A discrete math class taught by Professor Daniel Showalter devised efficient collection routes that avoided steep climbs and dangerous streets, and in a Python coding class taught by Showalter, and with input from Professor Stefano Colafranceschi, Vinod created a tool for looking up what is or isn’t compostable.

Vinod plans to remain in Harrisonburg following her graduation and to continue with Soil Cycles along with the team that has developed, which includes Kristen Grimshaw, Brian Nixon and Nolan and Quintin Peters.

Consider the approach ��ݮ���� math professor Owen Byer took when deciding which problems to include in the new textbook he co-authored with math-professor-turned-vice president and academic dean Deirdre Longacher Smeltzer, and Regent University professor Kenneth Wantz:

“In my own view,” he said, “either it should be a really interesting question, or – lacking that – the solution should be beautiful. Even average problems are worth including if the solution teaches you something.”

This November marked the publication of the long-anticipated – and, already, long-used – textbook Journey into Discrete Mathematics (Mathematical Association of America Press, 2018).

“This is definitely the best math textbook that I’ve ever used,” said sophomore Andrew Nord after a recent session of his discrete math class, which is the latest to use the – until now, pre-published – book. “It explains the concepts very fully and in a way that can be understood fairly easily.”

From the start

Byer, Smeltzer and Byer’s University of Delaware PhD advisor Felix Lazebnik began talking about writing Journey at about the same time the trio’s earlier textbook Methods for Euclidean Geometry (MAA, 2010) was published. All three had doctoral training in discrete math and had taught it many times, and “it seemed like a good second joint project,” Smeltzer said.

A year into the writing of Journey, however, Lazebnik needed to bow out – but generously granted permission for materials that he had developed to remain in the textbook. Byer and Smeltzer then invited Wantz, a former grad school colleague of Byer’s, to join them, and the new trio continued even as a new wrinkle developed: Smeltzer’s transition to being undergraduate dean left her little time to focus on the textbook. While each author ultimately made similar contributions, she said, Byer provided leadership and did “more of everything, especially generating problems and solutions.”

Once drafted, Journey entered what Byer modestly dubbed “a long process” of revising and polishing. For Smeltzer, that process posed the biggest challenge of writing Journey, second only to her limited time: “It’s hard to see something with fresh eyes when you’ve been working on it for a long time.”

There was a beautiful way to help with that problem, however.

A beautiful solution: students

As early as half a decade ago, Byer and his colleagues at EMU began using Journey in the classroom, first in pdf form �����Ի� later – including this fall, even as the book was heading to press – in three-ring binders in Professor Daniel Showalter’s discrete math class.

Doing that had distinct benefits: Students could learn from a textbook grounded in experienced educational practice. Plus, students’ fresh eyes would help tease out what needed better explanation – and they’d find mistakes, discoveries that were often rewarded with bonus points.

Another of Showalter’s students, sophomore Silas Clymer, remembers – with a note of satisfied glee in his voice – finding a misleading hint in a homework problem. But more importantly, “It’s definitely cool having the writer of the book downstairs in an office,” he said. “You can go to talk to him if you need to.”

Showalter often teaches using a flipped classroom model, a model that depends on having a clearly written textbook: students learn concepts on their own from the textbook, and show up to class for answers to their questions and content-related activities. Even prepublicaton, he said, the evolved Journey proved an effective flipped-classroom text.

“It’s very clear,” Showalter said. “It’s rigorous and precise, and has plenty of examples.”

His students agree.

“I’ve never really learned from a textbook before,” said first-year student Jeremiah Yoder after a recent class period during which Showalter guided students in applying newly learned concepts to solve a variety of famous problems. “The textbook was always supplementary. But with this textbook, I feel like I’m on course without assistance, so I’m learning well.”

“We really don’t need a teacher,” his classmate Isaac Andreas joked. “That’s why we can just play math games in class every day. I mean, we spend a little bit of time on the content during class, but then we go off and [solve fun problems]. It’s still math.”

‘Exquisite and engaging’

Byer expects Journey to be adopted more widely than the “niche” Methods, as discrete math is taken not only by math majors but also students in computer science, and since MAA Press is now an imprint of the American Mathematical Society.

The publisher describes the text’s exposition as “,” with “detailed descriptions of the thought processes that one might follow to attack the problems of mathematics. The problems are appealing and vary widely in depth and difficulty.”

That’s no surprise, of course, taking into account the authors’ cumulative expertise from decades of teaching – and loving the beauty of – math.

A second of the three EMU teams placed 48th in the Nov. 10 computer science competition, high enough to outscore the top teams from local (and friendly) rivals Bridgewater College (49th) and James Madison University (52nd).

First place in the five-hour contest went to Duke University, followed by Drexel University and Swarthmore College. Last place – 89th – was shared by the 96 of the 184 competing teams who solved none of the eight problems.

“This is the premier computer science contest for undergraduates, a highly competitive international contest,” said Professor Daniel Showalter. “The competitor list includes most of the elite schools in the country, and many of these schools have large teams that train year-round for the competition with coaches who devote most of their energy to the training, whereas EMU had just a two-credit problem-solving course this semester for the first time.”

This was only the third time that a team – and the first time that multiple teams – from EMU entered the competition. The problem-solving course, which allows students to approach the topic from a math perspective, taught by Professor Owen Byer, or a computer science perspective, taught by Showalter, requires participation in a major competition and, as Showalter said, the ICPC – a “mental marathon” – was “the obvious choice.”

EMU’s top-scoring team included sophomore Cameron Byer and juniors Ben Stutzman and Daniel Harder, a power trio that won the international Kryptos cryptanalysis competition last spring. The second-place team for EMU included seniors Austin Engle, Brandon Chupp and Andrew Reimer-Berg, and a third team included juniors Dan Hackman, Darren Good and Jamie Stoltzfus.

The EMU teams competed at the 500-computer Math Emporium at Virginia Tech, one of the Mid-Atlantic competition’s eight sites. (EMU’s top team outscored every team at three of the eight sites: Christopher Newport, Shippensburg, and Wilkes.)

Each team clustered around a single computer to solve as many of the eight problems as possible using not only familiarity with popular algorithms but also insight and creativity.

“The problems are chosen to be very challenging and push students to the edges of their problem-solving capacities,” Showalter said. For example, one problem dealt with two bicycle courier services that wanted to increase their collective customer base. The students had to write a program that would take the customer locations and determine how to split them among two companies to minimize the guaranteed delivery time.

The indicators of each team’s progress, however, were delightfully low-tech, he said: “Each problem had a color associated with it, and whenever a team solved a problem, a balloon of that color was tied to their computer station for all the other competitors to see.”

As a small liberal arts university, EMU provides a myriad of ways for students to practice leadership – to learn, experiment, make mistakes and grow outside comfort zones  – whether through athletics and academics, student government, residence life, campus ministries and more.

“Today we want to recognize a number of folks who have been engaged in this practice, using their time, gifts and abilities for the betterment of our community,” he said. “From my vantage point in student life, it has been inspiring to see up close and personal, the many leadership contributions, of so many on our campus. Today we celebrate with you, and thank you for these contributions.”

Academic Success Center

Senior tutors with the Academic Success Center were recognized: Johanna Burkholder (accounting); Emily Clatterbuck (writing and Spanish, three years), Phoebe Coffie (biology, 1.5 years), Aaron Dunmore (economics, two years), Liesl Graber (writing, three years), Corey Hostetler (history tutor, three years), Austin Huff (math and computer science, three years), Sammy Kauffman (biology, two years), Maisie Kirkley (psychology, two years), Cerrie Mendoza (environmental science, one year), Susanna Sewall (nursing, two years), Rachel Shenk (core curriculum, two years), Stephanie Slabach Brubaker (nursing, one year), and Lara Weaver (psychology, three years).

Janae Kauffman was awarded the Tutor of the Year Award for her three-year commitment to students “who often requested her, the ways in which she fulfilled the mission of the writing tutor, and her strong philosophy of tutoring overall,” said Professor Vi Dutcher, director of the university’s writing program.

Applied Social Science

Josh Good was inducted into Alpha Kappa Delta, the international sociology honor society. Professor Jenni Holsinger presented him with the cords.

Athletics

• Newcomer of the Year awards went to Rachel Sauder, soccer,�����Ի� Brett Lindsay, baseball.
• Athletes of the Year are Michaela Mast, cross country and track and field,�����Ի� Connor Faint, track and field.
• Presidents Awards went to Emily Augsburger, field hockey, and Dan Lutz, volleyball.

Other award-winners from the spring semester were also recognized, and can be viewed at .

Bible and Religion

Michaela Mast won first place and $300 in the Haverim Writing Awards contest with her paper, “The Wilderness of the Bible in the Age of the Anthropocene,” which traces the theological and cultural constructions of wilderness from Genesis to her own cross-cultural in the Middle East.

Sarah Longenecker earned second place and $200 with “Art as Mediator.”

Luke Mullet won third place and $100 for “Toward Composition: Creatively Performing Scripture in a Dynamic World.”

The awards were made by Professor Peter Dula, who used his remaining time to encourage submissions for next year’s context with this line: “If you want to receive more money for an academic paper than you will ever get in your life, we invite you to participate next year.”

Campus Ministries

Undergraduate campus pastor Lana Miller recognized the following:

• Ministry assistants Lindsay Acker, Victoria Barnes, Sara Byler, Caitlin Campbell, Maya Dula, Larissa Graber, Val Hernandez, Emma Hoover, Yonas Ketsela, Anisa Leonard, Skylar List, Olivia Mbualungu, Bekah Mongold, Caleb Oakes, Meredith Stinnette, Christian Stutzman, Nik Tucker, Matthew Zimmerman.
• Pastoral assistants: Perry Blosser, Rachel Breidigan, Cela Hoefle, Grayson Mast, Austin Sachs, Elizabeth Resto, Amanda Williams, Brittany Williams.

  

Center for Justice and Peacebuilding

Graduate students Samira Abou Alfa, Talibah Aquil, Astur Tahlil and Mikayla Waters-Crittenton were recognized for sharing  their concerns with CJP faculty and staff about prioritizing inclusion around race, gender, sexual orientation and religion as well as making classes and community more trauma-sensitive.

Biology and Chemistry

The following awards were presented by Professor Tara Kishbaugh:

• Outstanding first-year chemistry student: Austin Yoder
• Outstanding second-year biology student: Kevin Sungu
• Outstanding senior chemistry student: Marchelle Smucker
• Outstanding senior biology student: Katherine Lehman and Samantha Kauffman
• Award for Excellence in Biology/Chemistry Research: Braden Herman
• Biology/Chemistry Award for Exceptional Service: Melissa Kinkaid.

Additionally, the winners of the STEM Celebration poster contest were recognized. Click here for those results.

Education

Jasmine Miller, currently on cross cultural, was awarded the Courage to Teach Award.�� The award is modeled after principles in Parker Palmer’s book, a copy of which is given to the winner. Faculty select this student on several criteria.

The five annual Teachers of Promise from EMU are Emily Clatterbuck, Jessica Longenecker, Keyri Lopez-Godoy, Hannah Shultz�����Ի� Alexa Weeks. Read more here.

Language and Literature

• Emily Clatterbuck was awarded the Carroll Yoder Award for Teaching Excellence in honor of a senior or junior who has demonstrated academic excellence in both literary studies and education courses and demonstrates a clear call to the teaching profession.
• Laurie Serrell earned the Ervie L. Glick Award for Excellence in World Language Study, which honors a senior or junior who has exhibited academic excellence as a Spanish major and has show a clear sense of call to pursuing graduate work or using language skills in service to the church.
• Liesl Graber earns the Jay B. Landis Award for Excellence in Literary Studies, honoring a student majoring or minoring in the language and literature field of study who completes an essay, research paper or scholarly presentation for a literature course that exemplifies the components of good literary analysis.
• Liesl Graber also was awarded the Omar Eby Writing Award, honoring a senior majoring or minoring in Writing Studies who demonstrates excellence in the craft of creative writing and who provides insightful critique and support for other writers in creative workshops.
• Kevin Clark earned the Ray Elvin Horst Award for Excellence in Spanish.

  

At the end of her presentation, Professor Vi Dutcher noted that each award was named for an esteemed emeritus faculty member, and she recognized two emeritus professors Ervie L. Glick and Ray Horst present at the event.

Mathematical Sciences

Cameron Byer, Daniel Harder�����Ի� Ben Stutzman were recognized for their win in the international Kryptos crypto-analysis competition. Read more about that win here.

Cameron Byer won the EMU Math Competition, introduced by Professor Daniel Showalter as “a competition for people who go out of their way to take a math test when they don’t have to,” a description epitomized by the second-place-tie-winner Andrew Riemer-Berg, who took the test from Latin America where he is traveling on cross cultural. Ben Stutzman was the other second-place finisher.

Music Department

Andry Stultz and Hannah Schultz received the Excellence in Music Education Award.��Perry Blosser earned the Excellence in Music Composition.

Nursing

The following students were chosen by their peers and faculty.

Rachel Breidigan was awarded the Servant Leadership Award for her service to others. She is president of the Student Nurses Association and will be working on the progressive care unit at RMH.  She chose nursing for many reasons, including “the desire to help others, the strong biblical parallels it has, and, of course, job security.”

Stephanie Slabach Brubaker is awarded the Sacred Covenant Award and the award for academic achievement. The first award reflects the high performance of the embodiment of the Sacred Covenant Model EMU nurses use to guide their practice. In the choice of nursing as her profession, Stephanie hopes to “combine my desire to help others with my fascination with how God orchestrated the human body. I find that through nursing, I can comfort others in their time of need.” Next year, she will join Mennonite Central Committee SALT program to work at a clinic in Bangladesh.

Residence Life

Carissa Luginbill and Scott Eyre recognized eight senior Community Advisors: Elizabeth Eutsler, Austin Huff, Ben Durren, Rediet Girma, Victoria Campbell, Keyri Lopez-Godoy and Robert Weaver.

Scott Eyre mentioned that a record number of CAs are returning next year, one way in which this particular group has left a legacy.

The five nominees for Residence Life’s Transformational Leadership Award, voted by their peers, are Bailey Hall, Capril Mirarchi, Keyri Lopez-Godoy, Jakya Jones and Phoebe Swe. The finalist will be announced later this week.

Psychology

Four students were recognized by Professor Gregory Koop.

Michael Austin and Michaela Mast jointly earned the Galen R. Lehman Outstanding Achievement in Research, judged on the criteria of initiative and ingenuity, public dissemination, and quality of writing.��Michaela’s research was titled  “The brain on music: An inquiry of shared music-color associations.” Austin’s research was on “Directed forgetting: Examining accounts through negative priming”

Hannah Cash was awarded the Theory to Praxis Internship Award, for her work with The Making Space, a local art therapy program. Along with other responsibilities, Hannah helped to improve social media presence and community outreach, and was asked to continue her involvement as the new secretary to the board of directors.

Lara Weaver earned Best Undergraduate Poster at the Virginia Association for Psychological Science conference earlier this month. Her project was entitled “Role of intrinsic and extrinsic religious motivation and empathy in predicting theological ideation.”

Student Programs

Jack Hummel and Da’Jahnea Robinson were recognized for their work on Campus Activities Council. Jack served for two years, doing “all things technical,” and Da’Jahnea was marketing director 2016-17 and vice president in 2017, among other roles.

From Common Grounds, the following leaders were recognized: Abe Hartzler, the events manager who hosted 70 campus events; Taylor Esau, who spent two years as a barista and this year as operations manager, a human resources specialist who works with 25-plus employees; Tim Callahan, finance manager; and Sammy Kauffman, who worked for one year as a barista and then two years as catering manager.

Tim Callahan was also recognized for his work with Recreational Sports.

Student Government Association

Caleb Schrock-Hurst and Adam Harnish, co-presidents of spring 2018, ceremonially passed the gavel to Mario Hernandez and Nicole Litwiller, recently elected co-presidents for the fall 2018 semester.

Spring 2018 leaders completing their service include:

• Emmanuel Kampanga, vice president
• Erik Peachey, treasurer
• Rachel Holderman, vice president for marketing
• Jeremy Brenneman, Secretary
• Senators Fred Flores, Hannah Nichols, Ruth Reimer-Berg, Susanna Sewall, Emma Yoder, Grant Amoateng, Joshua Curtis, Mario Hernandez, Paul Kayembe, Donaldo Lleshi, Ella Spitler, Austin Tomlin.

Recently elected fall 2018 officers are:

• Nicole Litwiller and Mario Hernandez, co-presidents;
• Paul Kayembe, vice president;
• Ben Zook, treasurer;
• Luke Mullet, secretary.

Visual and Communication Arts

Junior Missy Muterspaugh was awarded the Matthew Alan Styer Scholarship Grant, which honors “exceptional skill and dedication to photography and/or graphic design.”

Royals Cup

Andrew Troyer claimed his third consecutive individual Royals Cup title, for attendance at a wide variety of campus events throughout the year. Elmwood gathered the most points to take the Royals Cup.

“We knew some things we could try right away, but there was a lot of pondering,” he said.

The thinking paid off, as the team of three – Stutzman and math and computer science majors first-year Cameron Byer and sophomore Daniel Harder – took first place over 60 other teams from three countries on three puzzles.

Only four teams solved all three puzzles within the five-day contest window, with EMU’s winning trio submitting correct answers first and in less than 20 hours – and that’s without pulling an all-nighter. After a 7 p.m. start on Thursday, April 5, they submitted their answer to the first puzzle, and then saved the following two puzzles for the next day.

The annual Kryptos contest, hosted since 2011 by the mathematics department at Central Washington University in Ellensburg, was sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Section of the Mathematical Association of America.

Teams could use books, the internet and computer programs – but no living person other than a teammate – to solve the challenges. Along with their correct answers, they were required to describe how they reached a solution and list any sources used.

Discrete math proved most useful, Byer said, but the open-ended nature of the coded messages required lots of “trying this, trying that” until hitting on breakthroughs.

In one problem, they were provided with a series of personal ad clippings, only one of which contained a coherent phrase: “Knowledge is Power.” That, they discovered, was a quote by Francis Bacon, and a clue that finding the solution would involve using Bacon’s cipher. The rest of the ad contents, they noticed, were all five letters long and completely nonsensical – binary encryption, they realized.

In another, an invitation to a Stephen Hawking memorial celebration invited attendees to “bring something to grille,” a subtle suggestion that a “turning grille” would prove useful.

And the remaining puzzle required contestants to decipher incoherent text to find a keyword “chicken” for decoding a message. Harder wrote a computer program to sort through thousands of possible keyword solutions to the Vigenere cipher.

The contest showed the importance of using creativity to solve problems, Stutzman said – and, added Byer, teamwork and camaraderie.

After repeated attempts at breaking the codes would end in “gibberish,” said Byer, finding a sensical answer was exciting – for example when their teammate Harder figured out the “Knowledge is Power” message: “‘Denver!’ I got ‘Denver!’ ‘Ruby Hill!’ ‘Seven p.m.!’”

It’s not the first time an EMU team has taken first place. In 2014, EMU teams took both first and third place. That year Byer was on the third-place finishing team – as a freshman at Eastern Mennonite High School.

***

Imagine the world

Holding it all

Containing the depths

And skies tall

Small spaces unhinged

Winding our way

Light beckons

Steady feet

Close your eyes

It all will repeat

This poem, Worlds, is more than just a tapestry of evocative words to author Luke Mullet, a sophomore at ��ݮ����. It is also the inspiration for a corresponding musical composition. While the math major’s poems are esoteric, sometimes cryptic, his compositions are directly emotional, reminiscent of epic movie scores flavored with a Celtic-Tibetan fusion. He has composed electronic music for five years, but his style has recently shifted towards cinematic songs. He uses synthesizers of choirs, orchestras and other ethnic instruments to “create musical imagery and worlds of sound,” he explains.

“I just let everything that I’m holding go, and free flow with the words that come into my mind,” says Mullet. “I would write a poem, read the poem, then compose music.” He is now in an independent study with professor and composer , which has become as much collaboration as instruction.

Keebaugh commissioned Mullet to compose six poems. These have become part of Keebaugh’s new composition written for the Seen/Heard Trio, an American contemporary music trio of a flutist, harpist, and mezzo-soprano singer. The work, titled The Book of Hours, “will alter the layout, structure, and listening experience of what we term as a “concert” setting,” explains Keebaugh. “The six hour work will include Luke’s poems, one for every hour.” The composition premiers this fall in Iowa, with performances to follow in New Mexico and Richmond, Virginia.

Mullet, who also sings in the choir , is nothing if not well-rounded. His activities range from the right-brained arts to weight lifting to left-brained math to philosophy.

“What makes me, me? I think it’s a reflection of all of these things as a whole,” he says.

“He’s quite the Renaissance man,” says Keebaugh.

Mullet has also been helping professor to edit a peer-reviewed article about mathematical selection bias in statistics, and create an answer key for a high school math textbook. Like many musically-minded people, Mullet has always a knack for math, but is now interested in the more abstract facets of the field. His enjoyment of proof-based math, which deals more with logic than calculations, has led him to take several philosophy courses.

He is one of several students who are trying to revitalize the math club, and is a senator in the Student Government Association. After all these intellectual, sedentary pursuits, Mullet turns to weight lifting for fitness and focus.

“It’s just a great outlet that’s different from math, music, philosophy, and anything else that I’m engaged with,” says Mullet. “It’s kind of a way to be mindful, or be more engaged with your body.”

Last spring, he helped sophomore Matt Holden start the Royals Lifting Club, which disseminates weight lifting information, promotes camaraderie and inclusiveness and meets in the fitness center for lifting competitions. Between 20 and 30 people attend their events.

What’s next? After applying for math internships and assisting the Weather Vane with their year-in-review extended issue, Mullet will spend a week at EMU’s Student Kairos Place, a mountain retreat for undergraduate writers and artists. There, he will immerse himself in a poetry and composition project.

Says Mullet, “I’ve found music to become a really valuable part of who I am.”