Members of the Class of 2025 Micaiah Landis, Adam Stoltzfus, Laura Benner, Hellena Gebremedhin, Lleyton Stutzman, and Rebecca Tezazu, guided by faculty mentor Stefano Colafranceschi, spent hundreds of hours during the past school year restoring and improving the Spitz A-4 planetarium projector at EMU’s Suter Science Center. The projector, originally installed in 1968 when the science center was built, has spent most of its time in storage since the M.T. Brackbill Planetarium closed in 2007. 

On Tuesday, April 29, the engineering team unveiled the product of their hard work with a planetarium show—the first in more than 15 years, according to Stutzman—attended by about two-dozen guests. Titled “Stars for a Night in Spring,” the show was adapted from a program first performed by former planetarium director John Horst ’60 and featured synthesizer music he composed. As the lights cut off inside the Discovery Room, the domed ceiling transformed into a sea of stars, while members of the team pointed out constellations and shared the legends behind them.

Guests included past and present STEM faculty, staff, and alumni with ties to the planetarium. Joan Horst ’66, who recalled watching shows there as a student, said she hadn’t seen one since her late husband, Professor Emeritus John Horst, retired nearly 20 years ago. “I’m amazed they were able to convert it from electronic to computer controls,” she said of the restoration project.

For Joe Mast ’64, longtime professor and planetarium director from 1986-2005, watching the stars and galaxies drift across the dome brought back memories of leading Sunday afternoon programs and teaching astronomy classes at EMU. “It was a very popular class,” he said. “We had 65 seats in here, and it ran every semester, with rarely more than four or five empty seats.”

A trio of alumni at the show had spent a semester in an engineering design class disassembling the projector to understand how it worked. One of those alumni, Andrew Troyer ’19, said, “It was cool to see someone take something you’ve done to the next level like this.”

History of the planetarium

In 1968, the Suter Science Center at EMU was completed, featuring the M.T. Brackbill Planetarium and a then-state-of-the-art Spitz A-4 star projector. At the time, the projector cost about $25,000, equivalent to roughly $230,000 today when adjusted for inflation.

The projector replaced the university’s Spitz A-1 model, which had been used at the Vesper Heights planetarium atop the EMU Hill since 1946. The original A-1 model is still on display in the Discovery Room. Both planetariums are said to have attracted annual crowds of up to 4,000 visitors, from astronomy students to local residents to nearby grade school students

When John Horst retired in 2007, EMU was left with no prospective astronomers on the faculty to continue the planetarium’s programming. And, the 40-year-old projector had mechanical problems that would have been costly to fix or replace. As a result, the planetarium closed and the projector was lowered into storage beneath the floor. The space was converted into a classroom for workshops and a display area for large specimens, such as the giant Kodiak brown bear that stood guard above the projector in the center of the room. After renovations to the science center, the projector was brought back out and placed on a pair of tables.

Resurrecting the projector

The six students on the team installed new motors, sensors, and a Raspberry Pi mini-computer to control the movement of the projector. The large panel of switches and dials that once operated the machine has been replaced with a web application that can be accessed wirelessly from any internet-connected device. Enter a location, date, and time into the app, and the projector can simulate the night sky as it would have appeared then and there. “We had some friends in here who were checking out the sky at the time they were born,” Benner said.

The students also designed, welded, and built a custom steel-and-wood base to support the projector and allow it to be stowed away when not in use. To darken the room, they sewed heavy-duty blackout curtains to cover the many surrounding windows.

During the restoration, the xenon bulb inside the projector’s star ball broke, and students scrambled to find a replacement, eventually swapping it out for an LED bulb. In total, the team spent about $2,400 on the project.

Members of the team said their goal for the project was not only to bring the projector back to life but also to make it more accessible and user-friendly. “It’s very easy to use,” Stutzman said during a presentation at EMU’s ACE Festival on April 17. “You don’t have to know anything about astronomy.”

By documenting their work, they said future students will have a clear understanding of the projector’s inner workings and will be able to perform additional upgrades. For instance, a future engineering capstone project could focus on restoring the planet orrery, which projects five planets, the sun and Earth’s moon but is currently inoperable.

Professor Daniel King, director of EMU’s engineering program, said he had long kept the idea of revitalizing the planetarium in the back of his mind. When he saw the team of engineering students searching for a project, he proposed they take it on. He said there’s potential for future planetarium shows, open to community members of all ages. “I would love for that to happen,” King said.

Read more about the history of the EMU planetarium below:

Over a 44-year career at Eastern Mennonite College and then ˛ÝÝŽÉçÇř, Horst gained a reputation as a “dedicated and valued colleague in the Science Center” with an excellent knowledge of his field, said Professor Emeritus Joseph Mast ’64.

Equally known for his deft expertise in wider subjects, Horst was a “Rennaissance man,” Mast said. 

“As a faculty member able to teach courses across a wide range of disciplines, John was an invaluable asset to EMU,” said Professor Emeritus Millard Showalter ’62. “Without a doubt, John L. Horst will be remembered as a ‘Man for all Seasons.’”  

Horst’s wide-ranging intellectual interests — from physics and mathematics to music and history — challenged, amazed and entertained in many venues, from classrooms to faculty lounges and in later years, at Sabbath evening Bible studies and other events at Virginia Mennonite Retirement Community. 

In later years, he shared his love of music as the host of WEMC’s “Mostly Mennonite, Mostly A Capella” and in compiling and writing liner notes for nine CDs from the “Mennonite Hour” music archives.

Horst also contributed to the conceptualization of pictorial histories in prominent locations that have served to educate campus visitors, and regular denizens, too. (An athlete throughout his life, Horst appears in one photo, wearing No. 77 on the Smith Literary Society basketball team.) Take a tour with John in this article.

“I am forever grateful for his initiative and leadership in the creation of the athletic history display on the first floor of the Commons, which would not have happened if he had not brought the idea and did most of the research,” said Director of Athletics Dave King ’76, who also has vivid memories of sitting in an interdisciplinary studies course (better known as IDS) as an undergraduate and watching Horst’s visible delight as he taught about baroque music. 

In retirement, Horst and his wife, Joan Graybill ’66, lived adjacent to EMU. He was an almost daily presence on campus, where he’d power walk and do wall push-ups in the University Commons (at certain times of the morning, one knew to take a wide turn around the corners), then stop by the Athletic Department (and other places, too) for a visit. King says he’ll miss those chats, as will many of us.

Park View Mennonite Church will host a live-streamed memorial service Saturday, Sept. 26, at 2  p.m. Visit for the link. His family will be present but the service will not be open to the public.

Horst is survived by his wife, Joan; his son, Michael Horst and wife, Stephanie, of Dover, Pa.; daughter Grete Horst Johnson and husband, Christopher, of Newport News; five grandchildren, Caleb, Luke and Daniel Horst, Emily and Sarah Johnson; and by a sister, Rachel Witmer and husband, James, of Alliance, Ohio.

Memorial contributions may be made to the Valley Brethren and Mennonite Heritage Center, PO Box 1653, Harrisonburg, VA 22803 or to WEMC FM radio station, 1200 Park Road, Harrisonburg, VA 22802.

Memories and condolences shared below in the comments will appear publicly. They will also be shared with the family. 

***

Born in Connellsville, Pa., to the late John L. Sr. and Emma Zimmerman Horst, John Horst Jr. grew up in Scottdale. His lifelong love of music began early: at Scottdale High School, he sang in a male quartet that reached state-level competition. Horst’s reputation as a vocalist preceded him: Wilmer Lehman ’57, who is four years older than John, remembers attending Music Week at Laurelville and hearing J. Mark Stauffer ’38, who led EMC’s choirs, “rave” about the teenager’s wonderful deep bass voice. The two would meet again at EMC in 1956, when Lehman was a senior and Horst a freshman — and then become colleagues. Lehman, professor emeritus of mathematics, retired in 2000.

At EMC, Horst earned a degree in mathematics and music. He then completed graduate work in physics education at the University of Virginia, as well as additional graduate work in music. He taught at Eastern Mennonite High School for three years and then moved to the college, where he spent 37 years as an associate professor of physics and mathematics. Among other responsibilities, he was the planetarium’s director. [Read more about the Astral Society and the planetarium.]

He was passionate about teaching. EMU records capture a few examples of his professional development activities. In 1969, he was selected to participate in a National Science Foundation (NSF)-funded six-week summer institute for professors teaching nuclear physics at Vanderbilt University. The next summer, he represented EMC among 19 colleges and universities at a selective summer institute focused on making physics courses meaningful to non-physics majors. Three weekend conferences were also part of the commitment; in return, Horst secured a $1,000 NSF grant for laboratory equipment.

Showalter remembers that Horst developed and often taught a special course for biology and business majors who needed to take physics but were lacking in “the knowledge of the essential concepts of differential and integral calculus, concepts which are very helpful in the study of physics,” Showalter said. “His class, titled ‘Elements of Calculus,’ aimed to “dispel the phobia of calculus as an ‘impossible’ course.” 

Roman J. Miller’s first memory of Horst is one of gracious hospitality. The new faculty member arrived to teach at EMC in the summer of 1985 with plans to stay in an inexpensive hotel room as he located a more permanent residence. Horst offered him use of his family’s summer cabin out in the county.

“In our trans-departmental discussions and debates in the faculty lounge over the years, I was often stimulated by John Horst’s broad interests in life far beyond physics and math, which he very capably taught,” said Miller, who after retiring in 2016 as emeritus professor of biology, often saw Horst at VMRC events. “His love of music and reflections on a wide range of historic and religious happenings enlarged my world.  I appreciated so much his warm friendship and his openness to conversation about the state of the world.”

Horst’s love of learning, teaching and science was present in the classroom even after retirement.  “A few times, John was a substitute teacher in my physics classes and I keenly remember that he was fond of examples over lectures,” said Braydon Hoover ‘11, director of development and annual giving. “No matter how often he conducted a physics experiment, his face would light up like he was an undergrad experiencing it for the first time, himself.”

Hoover also remembers singing next to Horst and his clear joy in sharing music together at the doctoral defense of Ben Bergey ‘11 (now a music professor at EMU).  

Throughout his life, Horst was a vocal performer and composer. He also composed works for piano, synthesizer and carillon. At Park View Mennnonite Church, where he was a member for nearly 55 years, Horst sang in the choir. He also sang in the Mennonite Hour Men’s Quartet for seven years; in the Men’s Chorus and Mixed Chorus in the 50’s and 60’s; and with several community choirs, most recently the Valley Collegium Musicum. 

Around EMU’s Centennial year, Horst worked on a compilation  CD of EMC/EMU’s greatest choral and orchestral hits. Members of EMU’s marketing and communication department fondly remember his visits to the Anderson House office during those months, when he would work his way around to each and every desk, greeting everyone, sharing ideas for articles about campus history, handing over type-written or hand-written remembrances or attending to various to-do items related to the CD. 

With thanks to Wilmer Lehman, Joe Mast, Roman Miller and Millard Showalter for sharing memories and stories. You are most welcome to do the same in the comment box below. We’ll make sure they are passed along to his family.

In the past, the planetarium drew annual crowds upwards of 4,000 people – from astronomy students to local residents to nearby grade school students. The directors were as much a draw as the fantastic equipment. From its beginning in 1946 to its closing in 2007, it was led by a rotating array of directors:

• Maurice Thaddeus Brackbill, 1946 – 1956;

• Robert C. Lehman, 1956 – 1958;
• John Hershey, 1958 – 1960;
• John Horst, 1960 – 1962;
• Lehman, 1962 – 1979;
• Horst, 1979 – 1986;
• Joseph Mast, 1986 – 2005;
• Horst, 2005 – 2007.

But the roots of the planetarium run even deeper, hailing back to a group of students and Professor Brackbill, circa 1930, on the roof of the Administration Building. Brackbill, who had a master’s degree in astronomy, was a science, math and English professor, registrar, dorm hall manager, chorister and athletic association president during his decades of service to EMC – from the school’s founding in 1917 to his retirement in 1956.

In the early thirties, he founded the Astral Society – a group of students who gathered on top of the Ad Building to watch the stars. An “Astralite” was a member who could name all the constellations and 90 stars.

New observatory contains state-of-the-art projector

The Astral Society, along with the class of 1938, raised funds to build the Vesper Heights Observatory on top of “The Hill” (the white-domed, cylindrical building still exists adjacent to the Discipleship Center).

Brackbill called the observatory, equipped with a six-inch refracting telescope, an “enviable little sky port where the star rays land and you take off.” However, the metal dome did not open or pivot easily, and the space was converted into a 22-seat planetarium in 1946. The telescope was moved outside.

At that time, planetarium projectors were rarely found outside of metropolitan areas. Brackbill’s friend, Armand N. Spitz, set out to change that. He created the Spitz A-1 star projector, a hand-cranked device with twelve pentagonal sides for displaying stars on a domed ceiling. EMC received the very first Spitz A-1 created; Princeton bought the second.

Professor Emeritus John Horst and Ruby Lehman, wife of the late Professor Robert C. Lehman, both remember Brackbill’s creative nests of wires and devices.

“Brackbill was known for rigging up many special effects,” says Horst.

“It wouldn’t pass a fire code now!” Ruby says.

Ever inventive, Brackbill also created an “Astra Guide” for his wife, a rotating chart which reveals what is visible in the Northern Hemisphere sky on a given date. The chart and Spitz A-1 are both on display in the Science Center foyer.

1955: Astral Hall

In 1955, the Astral Hall was built. The terraced one-room building next to the observatory hosted astronomy lectures and Astral Society meetings. (It eventually became the WEMC studios.) In 1956, Brackbill retired, and Lehman was hired to take his place on faculty and as planetarium director.

Notably, Brackbill published The Heavens Declare (Moody Bible Institude of Chicago) in 1959, a book of religious and philosophical musings, humor, and astronomy facts. (EMU’s Historical Library has a non-circulating copy.)

Spitz, his friend who created the star projector, wrote the introduction, naming Brackbill as “a quiet, unassuming individual, in a quiet, unassuming college, representing a quiet, unassuming faith, in a quiet, unassuming community. Yet his influence has spread throughout the years.”

After assuming directorship, Lehman used the Vesper Heights vantage point to sight the Soviet satellite Sputnik in 1957. With 11 students and faculty dressed in surplus navy coats against the cold, they took shifts looking into a row of monocular stations lined up along the north-south meridian. Their lenses were tilted at various angles to provide a certain altitude and longitude reading when the satellite came into view. EMC radioed in the second observational fix in the U.S., part of a large network of sightings used to establish Sputnik’s orbital track.

Lehman took two breaks from directing the planetarium to finish his master’s and doctoral degrees in biophysics at Penn State, during which John Hershey and John Horst acted as interim directors.

Brackbill Planetarium

In 1968, the Suter Science Center was completed. Lehman was a major contributor to the design, according to Horst.

The new building included the Brackbill Planetarium, which could seat 80 people, and a more accurate, spherical Spitz A-4 star projector. Tiny holes in the metal sheeting on the inner dome surface “gave you more of a starlight feel,” says Horst.

Lehman had many assistants – physics majors helped give presentations, his son Jim helped install equipment, and the D. Ralph Hostetter Natural History Museum helped attract patrons. In the 1980s, Marijke Kyler, a professor in the Literature and Language department, assisted with school group programs.

Joe Mast, “a very competent professional astronomer” according to Horst, took over the program in 1986, continuing to bring in thousands of children and adults to learn about the stars. In 2003, he installed a new 10-inch digital Meade telescope in the Vesper Heights observatory.

John Horst took over the planetarium in 2005 when Mast retired, adding “some meditative cosmic space music” which he performed on a synthesizer to welcome visitors before the presentations.

By 2007, the 40-year-old Spitz A-4 projector had mechanical problems that would have been costly to fix or replace. Besides, Horst was retiring, with no prospective astronomers on the faculty to continue the programming. The planetarium closed. Horst, Mast and Lehman gathered at a farewell reception to tell stories from their decades as Mennonite ambassadors to the heavens.

Discovery Room

The site of the former planetarium continued as a popular learning destination for thousands of school age children and other visitors. Professor Jim Yoder, director of the D. Ralph Hostetter Natural History Museum, proposed that the planetarium become a Discovery Room.

In 2008, the auditorium seating was replaced with carpet, tables and chairs; the star projector was lowered into storage, and fossils, rocks, animal skins and aquariums took center stage. On the platform over the top the star projector, a taxidermied Alaskan Kodiak bear roars, courtesy of head softball coach J.D. McCurdy.

Science center renovations beginning in 2015 required the natural history museum’s main room to be emptied. The Discovery Room became museum storage, and currently hold more than 2,800 specimens.

The space will be updated in the course of Suter West renovations, with the iconic dome and cylinder remaining.

Click here to learn more about the museum .

For years, Professor Joe Mast was the forefront of technology at EMU. You’re not misreading that last sentence. Mast was not at the forefront; he was the forefront.

Mast graduated from EMC in 1964 with a degree in mathematics. Following graduation, he taught math and physics at Eastern Mennonite High School before enrolling at the University of Virginia in astronomy.

Mast’s research for his dissertation, conducted at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Greenbank, West Virginia, explored the motion and distribution of interstellar hydrogen clouds near the sun. It was during those studies that he was introduced to the new field of computer science.

In 1968, Mast returned to EMC to join the new department of physics with fellow professors Robert Lehman and John Horst (some of the information in this article comes from an article that John Horst wrote for , the mathematics department newsletter, upon his colleague’s retirement).

That same year, the first computer arrived on campus: The IBM 1130, which took up its own room in the new Suter Science Center, quickly captivated Mast. The next year (fall of 1969), he started teaching “NatSci 151 Programming Computers” (in Fortran).

He used the machine to grade tests for professors in all departments – using a punch card system that, he jokes, indicated answers in a similar manner to “the hanging chads in the 2000 election.”

Mast started using email in the ‘70s, when addresses were comprised of two numbers (“375,75,” he easily remembers years later.)

Around this time, he also used a teletype, or electromechanical typewriter, to communicate with professors at UVa.

In those early days, Mast says modem connections allowed data transfers at 300 characters per second (2400 bits/sec). To put that in perspective, “If you’re going to send a picture [today], that would be a million characters … now we send things at billions of characters per second.”

Mast taught programming through the ‘70s, complimenting his autodidactic nature with coursework at then-Madison College across town.

Notably, he didn’t have a formal degree in computer science until 1986, when he earned a Master’s of Computer Science at University of Virginia. This was several years after he gained approval, in 1979, to introduce a two-year computer science degree, and in 1981, a four-year degree.

The field was so new at the time that many academics, with tentacular knowledge that spreads across linked fields, could tell similar stories about the genesis of computer science programs at colleges and universities around the country.

John Horst writes appreciatively of his colleague’s eclectic knowledge and teaching responsibilities: “The span of Joe’s teaching responsibilities through the 1970’s and early 80’s, was remarkable: teaching courses in astronomy, courses in the physics major, courses in the math major, courses in computer science, helping with planetarium programs, and on occasion teaching in the interdisciplinary humanities program!”

With such knowledge naturally came the task of developing and supervising technological acquisitions. Mast served as Academic Computer Center Coordinator from 1980-85, during which time an Apple IIe word processing lab was installed (1983) and the first laser printer arrived (1987).

He also opened an Apple store for students, until the company took control of all sales.

In the mid-‘80s, Mast also taught courses in the Information Systems major developed by the Business Department.

In 1993, Mast wrote and submitted a National Science Foundation grant that resulted, the next year, in the internet’s arrival to campus. (NSF managed non-military Internet connections from the early ‘90s through 1998.)

“The internet is like a great big tree, so our connection went directly to James Madison, which went maybe to the University of Virginia,” Mast explained. “We were glad to have it funded.”

In fall 1994, Dan Marple was hired to head the new Information Systems Department, while Mast was on sabbatical at UVa.

In his 38 years at EMU, Mast also taught physics, mathematics and astronomy classes (45 different courses total), as well as directing the M.T. Brackbill Planetarium.

Mast now lives in Lancaster, Pa. He was married exactly 50 years to Nancy Noll ’67 Mast, who retired after 30 years as a teacher and administrator in the Rockingham County Public School. Nancy died in 2015. He has two married sons: Brian, a nuclear engineer with Peach Bottom Atomic Power Station, and Darrell, a computer specialist at Data Computer Corporation of America in the department that handles the Medicaid program for the US government.

Rutt initially earned $1.85 per hour as a trainee in underwriting. Three years later – at age 25 – he was named head of the automobile underwriting department, succeeding his mentor, a pastor who was transitioning to full-time ministry work.

Suddenly, Rutt was managing a department of about a dozen people, developing underwriting procedures for no-fault automobile insurance. “The job of an underwriter is to find people you don’t want to cover with insurance and to exclude them,” he now says wryly, by way of explaining why he decided not to make a career out of the position as his predecessor had done.

Goodville did, however, expose him to the workings and possibilities of computers – the company had an IBM mainframe that processed data that Rutt’s underwriters needed.

Next life stage: one of six owners and president of an office supply and furniture business. Through the 1980s, this new company, The Office Works, added a personal computers sales division and grew to have seven retail outlets in Pennsylvania and North Carolina.

Rutt found himself writing the software code that his company needed for inventory control, accounts receivable, and service-work orders. He worked on a mini-computer that was one of the first to challenge the dominance of IBM mainframe computers for small businesses.

Ironically, the only class Rutt had ever dropped at EMU was Fortran taught by Joe Mast, because the challenging class didn’t seem worth it when Rutt already had a full courseload. As a result, Rutt had to learn about computer technology the hard way – on the job.

Rutt and his partners sold their computer division to a national chain in 1990. Almost immediately, Rutt was recruited to be systems manager for a health maintenance organization affiliated with Blue Shield of Pennsylvania. There he supervised a small group of employees responsible for keeping three high-availability, multi-million dollar computer systems running. There, too, he earned the highest annual income of his lifetime.

That work continued until Beryl Brubaker, then vice-president of enrollment at EMU, contacted him to consider the role of information systems director at EMU, where Rutt’s two children were then undergrads. Feeling called, Rutt took a substantial pay cut to come to a place in December 1999 where stability was needed – he would be the third IS director in as many years.

The changes in EMU’s information systems since 1999 have been extensive. Computer technology now claims about 5% of EMU’s total budget. Key markers: the staff nearly doubled in size under Rutt’s leadership; about every seven years, the core networking infrastructure has been replaced; its student information system was converted in 2007-09 to a new operating platform.

In May 2014, Rutt handed over his departmental leadership to someone he had trained, Ben Beachy ’02 and stepped into a pre-retirement role of doing project management and communications facilitation for EMU’s building renovations.

Rutt is married to Gloria Short Rutt ’72, a schoolteacher for much of their married life. Their children are Eric Rutt ’01Ěý˛š˛ÔťĺĚýMegan Rutt Rosenwink ’02.

John Swartzentuber ’85 has been working on that very sort of software with a company called OSIsoft for the past eight years. Swartzentruber is a development lead, working out of the company’s Philadelphia office. He leads a team of developers working on next iterations of the data analysis software, while coordinating with other team leaders, helping to plan release cycles, recruiting new staff and consulting with clients – power plants aren’t the only ones; many different industries have lots of data to manage – to improve the software’s “user experience design.”

An ideal user experience would render its designers invisible. When programs are working smoothly, doing what they’re supposed to, people don’t spend time thinking about why that’s the case.

“We strive to be unappreciated, almost,” Swartzentruber says. “If people don’t notice the software, you’re doing your job right.”

Accomplishing that often requires out-of-the-box thinking; new challenges keep things interesting.

“It’s not just rote,” he says. “You really have a lot of creative flexibility to figure out the best way to get there.”

Thirty years ago, when Swartzentruber was working on his computer science minor at EMU (a major wasn’t available yet), he took a class called “Programming Languages,” during which longtime computer science professor Joe Mast assigned something involving a fairly esoteric language known as LISP. It was a toughie – so difficult, in fact, that Mast eventually cancelled the assignment. Inspired by the challenge, though Swartzentruber buckled down and kept at it and finally came up with a solution.

LISP isn’t something he actually uses anymore, but the appreciation it taught him for approaching problems from new angles has. Thinking of becoming a programmer? Go down the rabbit hole with something weird or obscure. Diversify your toolbox.

“It’s important to think in a different kind of way, to try something completely different,” he says.

Between Swartzentruber’s junior and senior years, EMU’s nascent computer science program suffered something of a setback: its PDP-11 – the machine that every computer student shared time on – died. (The PDP-11 was a “minicomputer,” an amusingly dated description in this smartphone era.)

That meant Swartzentruber spent his senior year working on Apple IIe computers, which turned out to be at the vanguard of the coming PC revolution, and which ultimately meant that the demise of the PDP-11 was actually a stroke of good fortune for students affected by the loss.

“In a lot of ways, I felt very well prepared [for work after college],” he says. “We sort of got into the PC world a little quicker.”

“When I first began working at Eastern Mennonite College,” recalls professor emeritus Wilmer Lehman ’57, “teaching at EMC was seen as a kind of mission of the church.” Back in the era of Sputnik, was a carefully calculated national priority, and teachers of mathematics were in high demand. This small private school struggled to compete with the demand for higher-level mathematicians generated by Cold War anxieties, especially given its status as a Christian-pacifist institution that garnered no funding for defense-related work.

But being a devout Anabaptist, Lehman opted to take the proverbial “road less traveled” in U.S. academia and returned to teach at his alma mater two years after graduation. “When I came [for the 1959-60 school year], I did not know what my yearly salary would be,” Lehman says. “I found that it was about $2,500, spread over nine or ten months – all of which it took just to live. We had to scrape by in the summers.” Later, Lehman would earn a with a math concentration from Cornell University and become a full professor at EMU.

Lehman became the foundation of what has grown into a thriving program in the mathematical sciences. Early in his 40-year career at EMU, he taught Millard Showalter ’62 and then recruited him to be a fellow faculty member. Lehman’s education continued, even as he was educating another generation. In the early 1990s, Lehman earned a second master’s degree (this time an , focusing on counseling) at in order to prepare himself for leadership roles in his congregation, Mt. Clinton Mennonite Church, and the conference to which it belongs.

Like Lehman, Showalter earned his graduate degrees while working for minimal pay at EMU. Showalter holds two master’s degrees, one in math from the University of South Carolina and another master’s in arts (with a math major) from Vanderbilt, and an EdD from the University of Virginia.

“Millard was quite popular,” said Lehman, adding he was gifted at making math understandable and enjoyable. In fact, at one point Showalter’s students wore T-shirts that read “Millard’s Magnificent Mathematicians.”

Lehman and Showalter taught in tandem for decades – serving under four presidents and seven academic deans – until Showalter retired in 1998, with Lehman following in 2000. Both were beloved for their willingness to work one-on-one with students having difficulty in math, acting as both tutor and encourager.

In the summer 2011 issue of , Lehman displayed his “mission” approach to teaching in an anecdote recounted by Wayne Lawton ’71. Lawton had returned to college as an older adult and was struggling to catch up in math. Serving as a pastor in Waynesboro while taking classes, Lawton sheepishly approached Lehman, asking if more help might be possible. Lehman replied, “When you pastor a church, do you mind people coming to you for help?” When Lawton said no, Lehman replied, “Well, I don’t mind helping you!”

Showalter recalls his years teaching with Lehman at EMU as “the best years of my life.” Although he struggled both to make math interesting to students and to integrate changes in technology and teaching methods, he credits his students for making his career memorable. “I was very fortunate to have had excellent math majors. My students not only challenged me to be a better teacher, but also brought creativity and a desire to develop critical thinking and problem-solving skills.” Perhaps because of his infectious enthusiasm – he once spent an entire sabbatical rewriting lesson plans to adjust to technological changes – it is no surprise that Showalter says: “If I were to again be given the opportunity to choose a life career, I don’t doubt that teaching mathematics at EMU would be my first choice.”

Reflecting on the “ripple effects” coming from his lengthy career, Lehman realizes that he’s internalized some aspects of teaching. “I’m always on my best behavior, no matter where I go,” he says. “I never know when I’m going to run into a former student. I’ve run into them as far away as the Nairobi (Kenya) marketplace.”

In addition to Lehman and Showalter, four other EMU alumni taught mathematical sciences for extended stints: two members of the class of 1962, Del Snyder and Donald C. Miller (who also attended the seminary in 1976-77); Roy E. Heatwole ’64; and John L. Horst ’60, who taught both physics and mathematics and coached award-winning teams in international math-modeling competitions.

When Joe Mast ’64 was a student at EMU in the early 1960s his long-term goal was to be a high school math and physics teacher.  “At the time, I did not aspire to teach at the college level,” he says. “[But] I had a great interest in astronomy and electronics.” His physics professor, Robert Lehman, encouraged him to pursue astronomy and return to his alma mater.

As a student at EMU, Mast helped to manage the as chief engineer and station manager and was part of the Astral Society, which focused on astronomy. In the Cold War era, space-race money was available, and he received a special fellowship that allowed him to pursue a master’s degree and a PhD at the University of Virginia, both in astronomy. Upon returning to then-EMC as a faculty member, the college received its first computer under a grant to small colleges. Mast became EMU’s first professor.

On sabbatical in 1978, Mast went to JMU, where he studied computer science courses, and later received a second master’s degree in computer science. He returned to EMU, where he ushered in a two-year associate’s degree in computer processing, followed several years later by a major in computer science.

In response to a need by fellow EMU employees for banking services, in 1969 Mast helped to found Park View Federal Credit Union, an idea originating with Dan Bender and developed by Robert Lehman. Three years later Mast began managing the credit union out of his office in the basement of the Suter Science Center, continuing for 10 years.

One of EMU’s best-known mathematical sons is Robert P. Hostetler ’59, who retired from teaching in 1996 and only stopped writing textbooks in 2007. He now lives as a retiree within walking distance of EMU.

Hostetler holds a bachelor’s degree in secondary education (math certification) from EMU, a master’s degree in mathematics, and a doctorate in mathematics education, both graduate degrees from Penn State University.

Hostetler is perhaps one of the most successful authors of math education texts in any language; his books have been used widely by students and teachers for decades. About 300 titles with Hostetler’s name as author or co-author reside on the Barnes and Noble website. Google Books puts the total count of books, editions, study guides – anything with his name – at about 2,400. Some of Hostetler’s dozens of textbooks have been translated into Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese; they range from college algebra, trigonometry and calculus to The Mathematics of Buying.

One of Hostetler’s challenges as a professor, he says, “was how to share my Christian faith with students,” given the constraints of teaching at a state-supported university, which necessarily is based on the separation of church and state. After consulting with his pastor, Hostetler decided that he would “self-identify” with the faith when introducing himself to each new class. “I simply stated that I am a Christian; I believe in a living God to whom I pray for guidance in my teaching and relationships with you students,” he told them. “I want to do my best for you.” He says he sometimes learned the outcome of his “sharing of faith” years later, when former students would get back in touch and tell him, “Dr. Hostetler, guess what—I’ve become a Christian! What you shared in that first day of calculus class, I just couldn’t get out of my mind over the years, so I’ve made that decision!”

Outside of the university, Hostetler has shared his faith and enthusiasm for teaching and learning as a Sunday School teacher for more than 40 years.

In the spring 2006 issue of Crossroads, Hostetler spoke about an unusual sabbatical he took in 1997-98 during which he taught without pay at EMU as a way of “going back to my roots.”

In comparing his classes at EMU and those at Behrend College of Penn State University, Hostetler said the classes were similarly sized – about 30 to 32 students, with comparable academic abilities. He used the same textbooks (his own), the same curriculum and grading standards at both universities. Though the percentage of students at the high and low ends of the grading spectrum was the same, it was the middle group of students that surprised Hostetler. “At EMU, the middle group of students went up in their performance [as the semesters progressed]; at Penn State, the middle group shifted downward.”

Hostetler attributed the improved performance of the average student at EMU to “a more caring faculty, the work ethic of students at EMU, the community spirit that helped each student to feel valued, and the fact that EMU students act with Christian charity toward one another and help each other out.” Plus, he added, “attention was given to all students equally, rather than just to the excellent or the deficient.”

At the University Park Campus of Penn State, James L. Rosenberger ’68 is an internationally recognized statistician, with a master’s degree from Polytechnic Institute of New York and a doctorate from Cornell University. He says that EMU professor Roy Heatwole first sparked his interest in working with statistics. Graduating with a major in math, Rosenberger was able to secure 1-W conscientious objector status during the Vietnam War by working as an analyst and programmer in the Cardiovascular Research Center at New York University Medical Center.

Rosenberger, who is now vice-president of the 18,000-member American Statistical Association, believes statisticians are uniquely situated in positions where ethical decisions are amplified. “We are constantly faced with real data which can easily be misrepresented for the benefit of proving a point. Understanding the importance of integrity informs much of my work,” he says. “I teach students and consult with researchers to honestly represent the uncertainty in the conclusions of a study or research experiment.”

During the past decade, Rosenberger has guided the development of an online professional master of applied statistics program at Penn State, aimed at mid-career professionals who cannot return to graduate school full time. “More than 500 students enroll in our graduate courses each semester, allowing us to extend the reach of statistics education beyond the campus,” he says.

To Rosenberger, statistics is “a wonderful profession.” Not only is it a challenge learning the language of scientific collaboration, but it is a quest for truth. “We can get involved in so many interesting disciplines and issues, always facing uncertain information and mountains of data,” he says, “to which we apply our tools and skills to uncover the truth.”

Rosenberger’s accomplishments include: a 2011 Distinguished Service Award from the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, election to Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, serving as program director at the National Science Foundation, and lecturing around the globe.

One of Millard Showalter’s students, Merle Reinford ’72, has gone on to earn a graduate degree in math (where most of his courses were easier than those at EMU, he says) and to devote nearly 40 years to teaching math students at Lancaster (Pa.) Mennonite High School. Some semesters, he also teaches math as an adjunct at Millersville University.

Sharpening the minds of his high school students, he has spent 33 years coaching competitive chess, eventually getting elected president of the regional scholastic chess league.

Reinford’s coaching successes are dramatic. In 33 years his high school teams won 11 league titles, with runner-up success 13 more times. Reinford’s chess teams have accumulated a plethora of state competition titles, with a record of 315 wins to 90 losses and 23 ties. “I have used my enjoyment of the game to play chess with homeless men,” he says. “I am not sure if you could call that a ministry or not,” given how much fun he has.

After graduating from EMU, Larry Lehman ’79 got a fellowship at University of Virginia, where he earned his doctorate. He credits two of his math professors, Millard Showalter and Del Snyder, with preparing him for his own professorship at University of Mary Washington, where he spent six years as chair of the math department. “They [Snyder and Showalter] emphasized not just knowledge of facts, but consideration of why things are true, how different mathematical concepts fit together.”

Larry Lehman emphasizes the role that EMU played in his upbringing from childhood: “It was more than a school, but very much my home community.” He has embraced the educational spirit he saw in his EMU instructors. “Teaching has its challenges, of course, particularly with finding new ways to interest and motivate students, but so far I am still enjoying the challenge.”

Wendell Ressler ’80 stayed in Harrisonburg to teach high school math and physics after he graduated from EMU, and then earned his master’s degree from James Madison University. Ressler, who now holds a PhD from Temple University, found himself thirsting for more knowledge. “I loved studying analytic number theory,” he says. “In retrospect, it seems that I kept trying to get off the academic track, but curiosity kept pulling me back. Or, maybe I just liked being a student.”

Now a math professor at Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pa., Ressler does research in the abstract stream of his field – automorphic integrals, Dirichlet series, and Hecke correspondence. He has an obvious affection for proofs and logic, which he says was nurtured by his EMU profs. “By far the most important thing I learned from Millard Showalter and Del Snyder was how to prove things: how to think about proofs, and how to write them,” he says. “I didn’t have as many fancy courses in my background as many other students in graduate school, but that did not matter because I knew how to prove things.”

Ressler has also found himself living many of the core EMU values of peace and social justice. “My with Ray Gingerich and Titus Bender influenced my thinking a lot. I volunteered with the Mediation Center and Christians for Peace when I lived in Harrisonburg, and with St. Vincent’s Peace Center in Germantown when I lived in Philadelphia. I did war tax resistance and eventually the IRS garnished my wages.”

Ressler is now focused on pursuing environmental justice. He volunteers at Community Mennonite Church of Lancaster, where he pays a voluntary “gas tax” to discourage driving and fund green upgrades for the congregation. He is an avid bicyclist, another love with roots at EMU. “One of my housemates at EMC got me to buy a used bicycle. I loved riding around Harrisonburg and started commuting by bicycle to work. I estimate that I have ridden about 50,000 miles since I graduated from EMC.” Ressler believes that bicycles may help save us from the problems of internal combustion.

Deirdre Smeltzer ’87 returned to EMU in 1998 after graduating from the University of Virginia with an MS and a PhD in mathematics.

Recalling her undergraduate years at EMU, Smeltzer credits two professors, Millard Showalter in Calculus II and Del Snyder in Discrete Math, for nurturing her interest in higher-level mathematics.

“Millard made class interesting, and I found myself doing his homework first,” she says. “In Discrete Math, I discovered that I really loved the abstract, logical thinking required – much more than the hands-on labs of chemistry, which was another major that I was considering.”

As an EMU faculty member, Smeltzer has taught courses on more than two dozen topics in her field and is author or co-author of a number of peer-reviewed articles and a textbook. In the current academic year, she has directed EMU’s extensive cross-cultural programs on a part-time basis. In the late spring, she was named EMU’s vice president and undergraduate dean, effective July 1, 2013.

During his time as an undergrad at EMU, Mark D. Risser ’07 was involved in student government, the student newspaper, and was recipient of a presidential scholarship award. After graduating, Risser worked for EMU in the admissions department before being pulled back to the discipline of rigorous academics. “Working in admissions was a fantastic experience, and allowed me to sink my roots a little deeper into the greater Mennonite community,” he says. “But as I didn’t have an outlet for the mathematical side of my brain, I started feeling the draw of returning to school for something math-related.”

After consulting with his former professors, Deirdre Smeltzer and Owen Byer, Risser was “hooked” on the idea of grad school, and decided to pursue a PhD in statistics. He is now a doctoral student at Ohio State University and recently received his MS (also at Ohio State), where he is also involved in research on HyFlex (hybrid, flexible) education methods. Risser says he hopes to have the kind of impact on a future generation of college students as his EMU teachers had on him.

A common characteristic of all of our alumni in higher-level, academic studies of numbers is a strong appreciation for, and commitment to, the EMU community. “Once I joined the EMU faculty and took on its mission,” Mast says, “I was willing to sacrifice many things to advance the program to the best of my abilities.”

The faculty’s sacrificial efforts seem to have borne fruit: “My educational experiences grounded me in a distinctive Christian understanding where the things I believe impact my life style and goals,” says Jim Rosenberger from his perch as the leading academic statistician at the University Park Campus of Penn State. “In particular, integrity became a central core value from lessons learned at EMU.” — Evan Knappenberger, class of 2014

And when, a decade later, that cornfield on the east side of campus sprouted a science building, capped with a prominent white dome to accommodate a then-state-of-the-art planetarium, those chemicals were carted down to the new laboratory supply closets, in the characteristic spirit of Mennonite thrift.

And when, many years later, Spicher returned to EMU to work as the chemical hygiene officer, he began a process of general inventory and cleanup of the no-longer-new laboratory supply closets, cluttered over the years by Mennonite thrift and other forces of entropy. And it was then with a sense of nostalgia that Spicher discovered some of those very bottles procured 50 years earlier when Spicher was an undergrad, and the Suter Science Center (where the bottles had sat just-in-case, like twist-ties in the kitchen drawer) was still a cornfield.

But it was alarm, not nostalgia, that arose when Spicher came across an old bottle of picric acid – a chemical useful for staining tissue when diluted with sufficient water concentration. When insufficiently diluted, however, picric acid forms explosive crystals. (A close chemical relative to TNT, picric acid played a major role in artillery science through World War I.) Spicher backed away, well aware that uncorking a crystallized bottle of old picric acid could cost him his fingers, or more. Mennonite thrift in the Suter Science Center had taken a potentially treacherous turn.

A Northern Virginia bomb squad was called in. The fire department sent personnel for some explosives training. A hole was dug behind the science center, a fuse was lit, and the picric acid bomb, unwittingly improvised in the chemical closet, was disarmed. In the end, says Spicher, the bang was small, but it pays to be careful with the stuff.

UNDERCOVER POET
Daniel B. Suter ’40, for whom the science center was named, joined the science faculty at what was then Eastern Mennonite College (EMC) in 1948. By the time the new building opened 20 years later, his students in the program enjoyed medical school acceptance rates far above the national average. So valuable was Suter’s recommendation that, according to faculty legend, a medical school candidate who had never even attended EMU tried to finagle a letter from Suter.

Suter’s office was in the science center basement, adjacent to the secretary’s office and the lunchroom, where the faculty regularly ate together while skimming the newspapers, telling jokes, chattering and generally enjoying one another’s company. For years, on their birthdays, personalized poems would appear on the lunch table, written by a mysterious poet who published under Salvelinus fontinalis (“Brook trout” in the jargon of scientists).

From a poem on the 64th birthday of Wilmer Lehman ’57, who joined the mathematics faculty in 1959:

Forty years teaching
Is that what he said
How many functions
Are left in his head?

A teacher of Math
And The Liberal Arts
With much dedication
Gave his students some smarts.

Eventually, it came out that Salvelinus fontinalis was the pen name of Bob Yoder ’57, an enthusiastic fisher of S. fontinalis. Yoder, who taught in the biology department for more than 30 years, was the resident jokester of the science center lunch bunch; upon his death in 2005, a volume of his collected poems was distributed to his colleagues.

WOMEN NEED RESTROOMS TOO!
The Suter Science Center reflected its day and age when it opened in 1968. Science was mostly a man’s world then. There were no women on the permanent science faculty, and the college didn’t bother to put in a women’s restroom on the downstairs level; the secretary (always a woman, in those days) and female students had to go upstairs. Before long, agitation against the basic unfairness of this situation began and EMU kept pace with the changing world around it by establishing restroom equality throughout the building.

Because energy was cheap back when the building was built, insulation wasn’t much of a priority. When Lehman began to notice light streaming in large gaps that had opened up between the window frames and the block walls in his math classroom, physical plant staff came over to work at some retroactive solution. Still, the classrooms were a nice improvement over the “E Building,” a former egg processing plant on the south side of Mount Clinton Pike that housed the math department before the science center was built.

Over his four decades of teaching, Lehman taught just about every class that was offered by EMU. One of the memories that stands out was the time a student answered a test question with an unexplained Bible reference. Lehman was tickled when he looked up Psalm 139:6 – Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.

Another long-time mathematics professor, Millard Showalter ’62 loved to encourage creative approaches to problem solving, and thus, routinely offered his Math in the Liberal Arts students an alternative and deceptively simple-sounding way to earn an A in the class: fold an 8 ½ x 11 sheet of paper in half eight times. The challenge was a fun illustration of exponents; making that eighth crease was like trying to fold 256 sheets of paper at once.

RESOURCEFUL GALEN LEHMAN
For years, Showalter’s students tried and failed, until Galen Lehman ’73 marched triumphantly into class one morning, with a look in his eyes that told Showalter his game was up. It had been easy, really. Lehman was supporting his college habit with a job at the Kreider Machine Shop over the hill from campus, where he had access to a 200-ton hydraulic machine press entirely capable of folding 256 sheets of paper.

Lehman also earned an A honestly in the class and went on to become Dr. Galen Lehman, chair of the EMU department and the longest-serving member of today’s faculty. When Lehman joined the faculty, the department was inconveniently housed on the fringes of campus in the same E building that the mathematics folks had previously escaped. Looking for a more respectable location, Lehman settled on an unfinished, dirt-floored crawl space beneath the science center’s planetarium that had been presciently excavated to someday accommodate this very sort of future growth.

Around 1980, Lehman spearheaded the renovation of the space into what still serves as the psychology department. He personally poured the concrete floor, built a large table still in use in the seminar room, and, while breaking through a block wall to run some plumbing, discovered an empty whisky bottle in the wall cavity, likely hidden by a worker during the building’s original construction.

EARRING STUNTS & MORE WITH DEAD ANIMALS

But let’s return to Showalter’s paper-folding assignment. Outmaneuvered by Lehman and his machine press, Showalter learned a lesson that science center faculty have been learning over and over since the building opened: never underestimate the dedication and creativity undergraduates will apply to various capers, tricks and other antics. The famous “Head Room” – SC 104, its walls lined with the mounted heads of various mammals – has been the scene of repeated pranks, often involving the dandying-up of these animal heads with different eyewear, headwear, jewelry and other fashion accessories.

Some of the faculty found this amusing. D. Ralph Hostetter, a professor of biology from the very earliest days of the Eastern Mennonite School until his retirement in 1966, did not. After retiring from teaching, Hostetter curated the natural history museum, now housing more than 6,000 artifacts and specimens (and now bearing his name). With hardly any acquisitions budget to speak of, he paid for most of the stuffed heads out of his own pocket. A highly meticulous man, he simply didn’t find it funny to discover the dik-dik (a tiny African antelope) wearing glasses and earrings.

For years, the sheer size and weight of the 300-lb. American bison specimen on display at the Hostetter Museum of Natural History seemed sufficient to keep it in place in the science center, though this too was an underestimation of the undergraduate determination to prank. In 2007, a posse from Oakwood made off with the stuffed bison and attempted to hoist it up to the three-story residence hall’s roof. When things went awry mid-hoist, however, both the bison and a 19-year-old freshman fell from the roof. The student was airlifted to the University of Virginia medical center with a concussion and fractured hip.

The freshman healed and the bison was none the worse for the experience. Now he stands in his old position at the entrance to the science center on a thick concrete platform, anchored with tamper-resistant bolts.

MASKED PRANKSTERS
On another occasion, while lecturing in the Head Room, physics and mathematics professor John Horst ’60 raised one of the sliding blackboards to discover the one behind it had been covered by a high-resolution enlargement of a Playboy centerfold. After the class regained its composure, Horst made a mental note to check for sliding blackboard surprises thenceforth.

That was not the most memorable sliding blackboard surprise of his career, however. For years, Horst and several colleagues team-taught a general humanities class covering art, music and literature in history. The large classes were held in SC 106, the biggest classroom on campus; it also saw frequent use as a recital hall, theater and general performance space before other buildings specifically designed for those purposes were built.

Hidden all the way behind several layers of sliding blackboards in SC 106 was a chemical hood, a relatively large space where professors could safely demonstrate various experiments and reactions. For some time, Todd Weaver ’87 had been aware that the chemical hood could also be accessed from behind, through a storage room, and early in the second semester of his senior-year humanities class, he and a classmate “hatched a brilliant plan,” as he remembers it.

Wearing nothing but boxer shorts and monster masks, and armed with loaded super-soakers, Weaver and his accomplice climbed into the chemical hood from the storage room and waited for class to begin, hidden behind the blackboard. Horst was lecturing in front of the class when the two sprang into action. One by one, the sections of blackboard begin sliding up, eventually revealing the water gun bandits crammed in the chemical hood.

“We caused total chaos,” says Weaver, now a dentist active in EMU’s alumni association. They sprayed at least two of the professors in the room, and unloaded their super-soakers on their classmates as they fled up the auditorium’s two aisles. “The goal was to empty the water by the time we reached the back of SC 106 and sprint out the doors and run for the dorm,” says Weaver, who lived in Oakwood and therefore stands proudly in a long and distinguished tradition of campus mischief.

In what turned out to be a serious lapse of judgment, however, Weaver had let a few other friends in on the plan. And when Weaver and his accomplice reached the back of the room, their prank complete except for the get-away, they found the doors barred with two-by-fours.

“I will never forget Doug Geib ’87 with a big smile on his face unwilling to unbar the door. I was screaming [at him] to give in and let us out, but he only laughed,” Weaver remembers.

Language and literature professor Carroll D. Yoder ’62, one of Horst’s co-teachers in the room that morning, marched slowly up the steps and unmasked the pranksters, who could do nothing but stand with heads hanging, trapped with empty squirt guns at the back the room in their underwear. Ashamed, they walked back to Oakwood, changed clothes, and returned to catch the end of the humanities class. (Horst got one last hurrah. When Weaver approached Horst and asked humbly for one extra point to make a much-coveted “A” for the term, which was needed to maximize his chance of dental school admission, Horst made him squirm in his office for some long moments and then declared he would receive one more point in recognition of his “energetic class participation.”)

EXPERIMENTING, LIVING, BANKING IN THE CENTER
One damp Saturday morning an undergraduate chemistry major named Terry Jantzi ’87 was running an experiment that sent a bunch of sulfur dioxide through the lab hood. Normally it would have drifted off into the blue Virginia sky. But the cool, humid weather caused the sulfur dioxide to condense into a heavy fog that spread across the intramural soccer field – think “acid rain” recalls professor emeritus Glenn M. Kauffman, class of ’60, Janzti’s chemistry prof at the time. Folks at an auction near the dormitories thought the science center was on fire.

That same Terry Jantzi is now Dr. Jantzi, professor of practice associated with EMU’s peacebuilding and development program.

There was the time in 1976 that Millard Showalter’s Modern Geometry students got so jazzed about the non-Euclidian material he was teaching that they showed up to the final day of class wearing T-shirts that read “Millard’s Magnificent Mathematicians.” They arranged for a photo, and after class, went up to chapel and set together at the front, as proud as a bunch of athletes after winning a tournament.

Kauffman recalls his department colleague Gary L. Stucky putting money into a satellite dish on the science center roof in the early 1990s. This enabled him to watch concurrently three different TV channels late into the night in a prep room near SC-106, where he liked to pass his time outside of regular work hours. In the early 1990s, too, a dietetics program headed by Janet Harder ’73 moved into the science center and she also spent long hours at the workplace. By the late 1990s, Stucky and Harder were married, re-settling in his home state of Kansas.

The Park View Federal Credit Union began in 1969, in the Suter Science Center offices of professors Robert Lehman ’50 (physical sciences) and Joe Mast ‘64 (math and computer science), offering financial services to members in the days before easy access to credit. Many of their science center colleagues were the very earliest members. John Horst still has a single-digit account number at the credit union, and says that the credit union’s assets were said to be approaching $1 million by 1980, when it moved off of campus. (Kauffman remains the proud holder of an account number in the low double digits.)

Kenton Brubaker’s two-digit account number – between Kauffman’s and Horst’s – at the credit union gives him away as another early denizen of the science center. A 1954 grad of EMU, Brubaker returned as a horticulture and botany professor well before the science center was built. Up in the old science department, in the Ad Building basement, Brubaker secured grant funding to buy a gas flow analyzer capable of detecting Carbon-14 beta particles. With Brubaker’s help, another colleague, Merle Jacobs, used the tool to examine the low reproductive fitness of homozygous ebony Drosophila fruit flies. The resulting paper – “Beta-Alanine Utilization of Ebony and Non-ebony Drosophila melanogaster” [Science 139 (1963): 1282-1283] – was likely the first science research published in a major journal by EMU faculty.

Jacobs soon left for a job at Goshen College, and Brubaker was in the first wave of professors to work and teach in the new science center. The greenhouse had an automatic ventilation system – a big deal at the time. The planetarium was another big-ticket item. The whole building was exciting and new and fantastic. No sooner had the science department moved in then did Kauffman begin writing grants for other exciting gadgetry. A gas chromatograph and a UV-visible spectrophotometer were among the early acquisitions, allowing for undergraduate chemistry research that has continued ever since. (Students now enjoy research opportunities in a variety of science fields, usually collaborating with faculty.)

AHHH, THE MEMORIES, THE LEGACIES!

By the time Todd Weaver, of SC 106 chemical hood ambush fame, arrived on campus to pursue pre-medical studies, Daniel Suter was approaching the very end of his years on the EMU faculty. On his first visit to Suter’s office for an advising appointment, Weaver learned that Suter had also been Weaver’s father’s pre-med adviser years earlier, and they had corresponded for years while Weaver’s father was in medical school.

Between his graduation and the start of dental school, Weaver got married to Anne Kaufman ’88. Suter – then recently retired – and his wife, Grace were in attendance, and presented the Weavers with an end table.

Suter passed in away in 2006. The next year, Weaver was elected president of the Mennonite Medical Association; joining him in the leadership of the organization was Janice Showalter, the daughter of Daniel and Grace Suter.

“Life feels like it circles sometimes, especially in a community like EMU,” says Weaver.

The end table that the Suters gave him has moved with the Weavers from house to house since dental school. It remains a treasured possession that has been relocated every time in the family car rather than the moving truck, and it largely owes its prominence to the many people and memories that have and continue to inhabit the Suter Science Center.

— Andrew Jenner ’04