“That first or second week, I thought, ‘I’m not gonna make it. This is my last semester here, and I’m not coming back,’” she recalled.

But then, she said, she began forming deep connections with her professors.

“Going to school with students nearly half my age, I felt a little more connected with my professors than with my fellow students,” she said. “When I started making those connections, I had this feeling that I was going to be OK after all.”

She had met her advisor, English Professor Dr. Kevin Seidel, during an open house the previous fall. “He checked in one day to make sure I was doing all right,” Beachy said. “We talked about how my experience was going, and that was super helpful.”

Beachy graduated with degrees in English and writing studies last spring after five semesters at EMU. She had transferred to the university from online classes at Blue Ridge Community College. By the time she enrolled at EMU, she had already spent four years teaching at the church school she graduated from and another 10 years developing curriculum at in Harrisonburg.

When Beachy, who lives in Staunton, expressed interest in pursuing a bachelor’s degree, a co-worker at Christian Light recommended EMU. He thought the close-knit community would be a good fit for her, and he was right.

“The fact that EMU is small makes it more personable,” she said. “I feel like you get to know your professors better. I didn’t know that when I started, but I’ve enjoyed that.”

She mentioned Dr. Marti Eads and Chad Gusler as faculty members she’s grown close to. “I appreciate the connections I made here, and I feel that some of my professors are still my friends,” she said. “They’re people I connect with when I see them, which is really useful.”

Beachy worked part-time at Christian Light while taking classes as a full-time student and tried to find courses that fit her busy schedule. When the registrar suggested she take a sociology class, she enrolled in Dr. Gaurav Pathania’s class.

She described the sociology professor as “very personable” and fondly recalled that he served chai and cookies in class. “That was something I always enjoyed,” Beachy said. “We would have discussions outside of class, too, and it was interesting to hear his perspectives on life in India versus life here.” She enjoyed his introductory sociology class so much that she signed up for more classes with Pathania. Those sociology classes helped her think about the world differently and better understand social issues.

Pathania remembers Beachy as never missing a class and demonstrating a level of thoughtfulness and maturity that set her apart. “Joyce is truly one of the most exceptional students I have encountered in my five years of teaching at EMU,” he wrote.

Through a “Local Context” intercultural program, Beachy spent a summer studying various neighborhoods and social groups in Harrisonburg. That experience led her to try different ethnic restaurants in the area. “I still enjoy doing that to this day,” she said.

Last spring, Beachy served as an editorial intern for EMU’s marketing and communications department, writing many well-received articles for EMU News. She attended the 2025 Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference and wrote a recap about it. Her story about the intercultural to Guatemala and Mexico was one of the most read stories of 2025. She also wrote about an initiative by the Latinx Student Alliance to distribute “Know Your Rights” cards to members of Harrisonburg’s immigrant community. At the same time, she volunteered to help adult English learners at EMU’s Intensive English Program, which was at the heart of another article written by her.

Near the end of her time at EMU, Beachy was promoted to the role of literacy coordinator at Christian Light Publications. She said her employer is helping reimburse her for tuition costs.

“In the (conservative Mennonite) setting where I come from, it’s not as common for people to pursue higher education,” she said. “They didn’t have any program in place to help with tuition costs, but now they want to offer it to others who want to go to college, which I’m really excited about. It means some reimbursement for me, but it also opens a path for other people.”

Beachy said there are advantages to attending college as a nontraditional, older student. She met students who knew what they wanted to do and were serious about studying, as well as others who were in college because their parents wanted them there. “They didn’t know what they were doing,” she said. “I always felt sorry for them and wished they could just go out and work for a couple years and figure out what they actually wanted to do.”

She mentioned reading The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, a short story by F. Scott Fitzgerald that was turned into a Brad Pitt movie a couple decades ago.

“It’s about a guy who’s born an old man, and he goes through life backwards,” she said. “I’ve thought about that story sometimes with my experience at EMU. I felt like I was doing things backwards. Most people go to school and then start their careers. I did my career first, then went to school. But I’m really glad I did it. Now, if I have friends in their 30s who say, ‘Oh, I want to go to college,’ I tell them, ‘Yeah, you should. It’s absolutely worth it.’”

It’s no secret that print newspapers are an endangered species.

Cities as large as and are without printed daily newspapers, as media companies shift to digital, reduce their print schedule, or close entirely.

For colleges and universities, it’s more of the same. In the past four years, the state flagship universities of , , and have shifted their student newspapers from print to online-only editions.

At EMU, the ink and newsprint are still very much alive. Every two weeks during the school year, a dynamic team of writers, editors, designers, and photographers works to put together and publish . The student-run print newspaper, which averages 12 pages of stories and color photos per issue, captures the buzz on campus through reporting and perspectives on campus policies, cultural trends, and national politics.

The half-broadsheet (a term referring to the paper’s physical size) prints 14 issues each academic year and is in its 72nd volume. Read about the history of EMU’s student newspaper, from its first issue as the mimeographed “Purple Press” in 1939 to its merger with The Journal in 1956, in this EMU News article from 2016. 

A paper of record

This semester, juniors Caleb Metzler and Alex Belisle serve as the paper’s co-editors-in-chief. They lead a mix of work-study, practicum, and volunteer student staffers.

It’s a new experience for Belisle. The biology and political science major from Newport News, Virginia, is in his first semester in the post. He’s recently been reading articles from old Weather Vane issues and says it’s exciting to think about how their stories might be viewed years into the future.

“It gives a view into what students from a certain time were thinking and what the attitudes were from that time,” said Belisle. “I think we underestimate how much norms can change.”

For example, he said, one article he read in an archived issue of The Weather Vane quoted a student predicting that the United States would elect a Black president before electing a Catholic one.

“There’s definitely going to be a story in this issue or the next one that isn’t super interesting to us,” he said, “but in four years it’ll be like, Oh, why were they thinking that at the time? That’s so weird.”

For Metzler, the role is a familiar one. The York, Pennsylvania, native, who is majoring in political science, sociology, and Spanish, is in his third semester leading the paper. He joined as a staff writer during his first year at EMU, where he “wrote a lot of stories and learned a lot of lessons,” he said.

“You have to be a team player,” said Metzler, sharing one of those lessons. “If you don’t do your work, everybody else is going to be scrambling to pick up after you, and that’s not fun.”

Metzler said they’ve been free to express their opinions without fear of censorship from the administration. “Shannon,” he said, referring to Interim President Rev. Dr. Shannon W. Dycus, “has been very supportive of what we do.”

Sitara Hackney, managing editor for The Weather Vane, agreed. “We try and encourage people to express themselves as they want,” said Hackney, a junior history and education major in her sixth semester with the paper. “As copy editors, part of our job is changing what people write, but it’s still their names getting printed with their articles.”

From plan to print

It’s just past 5:30 p.m. on a Wednesday in January when Metzler and Belisle call the production night meeting, their first of the spring 2026 semester, to order. They stand in front of a whiteboard in the basement lounge of Maplewood Residence Hall, dry erase markers in hand.

“What is everybody interested in writing about?” Metzler asks the group of 10 students.

Staff Writer Samuel Castaneda calls out an idea for an : “Having an 8 a.m. virtual class on a snow day is not something that should happen.”

Another student pitches a on the hazing training required for all EMU employees. “Maybe there’s a story there,” ponders Metzler. “What’s EMU’s history with hazing?”

After his older brother, Campus Life Editor and Micah Wenger, suggests getting tickets to see a one-woman show, Sell Me: I am from North Korea, at James Madison University’s Forbes Center for the Performing Arts, first-year student and Opinion Editor Reuben Wenger agrees to for the paper.

There’s almost always space in the paper for the word search, sudoku, and maze puzzles contributed by Copy Editor Ethan Kanagy. It’s typically among the most popular sections of The Weather Vane, says Belisle.

“I’ve seen people in the caf doing the puzzles,” he says.

“We hear complaints when there aren’t any puzzles,” Metzler chimes in.

After collecting story ideas for the issue coming out in two weeks, the co-editors-in-chief lead their team of staffers into the Weather Vane newsroom to put together the next day’s paper. Fueled by camaraderie and slices of Marco’s Pizza, the students work through the night editing and designing pages until the paper is put to bed (meaning it’s finished and ready to print). On Thursday morning, the newspaper will be printed at a site about 40 minutes away and delivered to campus later that afternoon.

Despite the pitches they hear at the planning meeting, one unexpected event ends up dominating the front page. Four nights later, a burst of extremely cold weather causes a inside one of the residence halls. It isn’t until 2 a.m. that the issue finally comes together.

For more information about The Weather Vane, contact faculty advisor Mary Ann Zehr at maryann.zehr@emu.edu or the student editors at wvane@emu.edu.

For Mennonite-raised Nightbitch author Rachel Yoder, what excites her most about speaking at EMU is learning how Mennonites will react to her book. “Will they be offended? Will they relate? Will they see it as productive or worthless?” — all questions she’s pondered in an email to EMU News.

“Now that I’m more outside the Mennonite tradition than in, it feels important to me to remain in conversation with the community regardless, not only as a means to understand the tradition better, but as a means to understand my own story, why I make art, why I have to write things that are ‘dark’ or ‘evil’ or ‘unpleasant,’” said Yoder, who will present at EMU’s Writers Read Author Series on Friday, Feb. 28.

Yoder grew up in a Mennonite community in the Appalachian foothills of eastern Ohio before studying English literature as an undergraduate student at Georgetown University. She is a graduate of the Iowa Nonfiction Writing Program and holds an MFA in fiction from the University of Arizona. Currently, she serves as assistant professor of screenwriting and cinema arts at the University of Iowa. 

Her debut novel Nightbitch, published in 2021, is a “strange and unforgettable story about a sleep-deprived stay-at-home mother who, after apparently growing extra nipples, sharper canine teeth and a tail, develops an ‘exhilarating and magical’ ability to literally become a powerful bitch. ()

“It became a cult hit, was named one of the best books of the year by Esquire, got shortlisted for a PEN/Hemingway award — and has now been made into a film starring Amy Adams and directed by Marielle Heller.”

EMU Professor Kevin Seidel said the Language and Literature Department tends to invite authors for its Writers Read series who have some connection to the Mennonite tradition or who can “help us see past the edges of that tradition.” Yoder, he said, meets both of those conditions.

Seidel credited fellow EMU English Professor Kirsten Beachy with introducing him to Nightbitch a couple years ago. 

“She handed me the book with a smile that, looking back, probably meant I dare you to read this,” he recalled. “The first paragraph was so brilliant, so affectionately self-deprecating, and so off-kilter funny that I had to read the rest.” 

New York Times-bestselling author Douglas Abrams, who has worked with many of the most inspiring people on the planet — from Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama to Stephen Hawking and Jane Goodall — is the keynote speaker for EMU’s Academic & Creative Excellence (ACE) Festival.

Abrams will deliver a virtual address titled “Two Truths and Three Lies About Hope and Humanity” from 10:10 to 11 a.m. on Wednesday, April 17, in Lehman Auditorium. His address explores the importance of hope in our lives and how to cultivate it personally and collectively when we need it most. It invites audiences to see hope not as a passive or weak response, but as an act of resistance that challenges the status quo. Following his address, Abrams will remain available for a talkback session until 11:30 a.m.

The talk will draw on his work writing The Book of Hope: A Survival Guide for Trying Times (2021) with Goodall (EMU’s Common Read selection for 2023-2024) as well as his collaborations with leading spiritual teachers, activists and scientists. Together with the Dalai Lama and Tutu, Abrams co-wrote The Book of Joy: Lasting Happiness in a Changing World (2016), which inspired the documentary .

Abrams lives in Santa Cruz, California. He is the founder of Idea Architects, a literary agency and media development company that helps visionaries create a wiser, healthier and more just world.

He worked with Tutu as his co-writer and editor for more than a decade. He was a senior editor at HarperCollins Publishers and served for nine years as the religion editor at the University of California Press.

About the ACE Festival

The ACE Festival invites keynote speakers to engage the community in conversations around values important to us at EMU. The speaker is typically selected with the themes of the year’s Common Read in mind. We invite engagement and response from diverse perspectives, and encourage continued conversation around these themes.

This event is co-sponsored by EMU Convocation and the Language and Literature Program. It will be livestreamed on Facebook Live from the .

The new faculty, announced by provost Fred Kniss, are:

Amy Gillespie, EdD, assistant professor of the practice of nursing

Gillespie earned a BS in nursing from Duke University and an MSN from the University of Virginia. She holds an EdD from the University of Phoenix and has over 30 years of floor and administrative nursing experience. Gillespie also brings collegiate adjunct faculty experience in teaching acute care medical-surgical nursing.

Jennifer Holsinger, PhD, associate professor of sociology

Holsinger earned a BA in sociology at Seattle Pacific University. She holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Washington. Holsinger has collegiate experience teaching as an associate professor at Whitworth University and served as interim director of the U.S. cultural studies minor in 2012-13. Her areas of scholarly interest are race and ethnic relations, urban sociology, environmental sociology, demography, applied sociology and African and Middle Eastern studies.

Daniel King, PhD, assistant professor of physics

King earned a BA in physics and music at Goshen College. He holds an MA and a PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. King served as a teaching assistant providing laboratory instruction at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. His research interests include ultrasound, microbubble dynamics, acoustics, biomechanics and fluid mechanics.

Kristen Kirwan, assistant professor of the practice of nursing

Kirwan earned a BS in nursing at the University of Virginia and an MSN from Vanderbilt University School of Nursing. Kirwan brings a variety of nursing experience both in hospitals and family nurse practitioner settings. Her most recent professional experience has been at James Madison University as a family nurse practitioner.

Nate Koser, PhD, assistant professor of counseling

Koser earned a BS in psychology and an MA in counseling from EMU. He completed his PhD at Saybrook University in summer 2013. Koser has collegiate experience as an instructor in the MA in counseling program at EMU. His interests are in assisting and accompanying individuals to move towards an authentic life.

Jessica Kraybill, PhD, assistant professor of psychology

Kraybill earned a BA in psychology at Earlham College. She holds an MS and PhD from Virginia Tech. Kraybill has collegiate teaching experience as an instructor at Virginia Tech. Her specialty is in developmental and biological psychology and shares that teaching is her passion.

Justin Poole, PhD, assistant professor of theater

Poole earned a BA in communications with a theater emphasis at Eastern University. He holds an MA from Villanova University and a PhD from the University of Maryland. Poole spent two years studying with the Austrian Academic Exchange Program, one year in Vienna and one year in Salzburg, Austria. His research interests are devised theater/ensemble play development, contemporary European experimental performance, and contemporary performances of classical texts.

Andrea Dalton Saner, assistant professor of Old Testament and Hebrew Language

Dalton Saner earned a BA in Bible at Messiah College and an MA at Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. She completed her PhD at Durham University in the United Kingdom in 2013. Dalton Saner’s faculty appointment will be a joint one with Eastern Mennonite Seminary and the undergraduate Bible and religion department. She has previous collegiate teaching experience at Goshen College. Her areas of interest include Old Testament theological interpretation.

Maria Esther Showalter, lecturer in the language and literature department

Showalter earned a BA in foreign languages from Gabriel R. Morena University in Bolivia and an MA from George Mason University. She has prior collegiate experience at EMU, having taught as an instructor in both the Intensive English Program and the language and literature department.

Debora Snarr, assistant professor of the practice of nursing

Snarr earned a BS in nursing and an MSN at the University of Maryland. She is a certified adult nurse practitioner and brings years of nursing experience in a variety of settings. Her nursing experience has focused on diverse populations in different settings. Snarr is passionate about the voice of the nurse and evidence-based practice.

Jianghong (Esther) Tian, PhD, assistant professor of engineering

Tian earned a BS in mechanical engineering and a MS at Changsha Institute of Technology. She holds a PhD from the University of Virginia. Tian recently taught statistics and calculus at The Miller School of Albemarle in Charlottesville, Va. Her research interests include robotics.

Anne Waltner, DMA, assistant professor of music

Waltner earned a BA in piano performance and biology at Goshen College. She holds an MM from the Chicago College of Performing Arts and a DMA from the Cleveland Institute of Music. Waltner has collegiate teaching experience at West Virginia State University, where she directed keyboard studies. She maintains an active solo and collaborative performing schedule.

“This is the second year we’ve hosted ‘Noche Bohemia’ or Spanish night, and hope to make it an annual tradition,” said , assistant professor in the . “This event allows the students in our upper-level classes to showcase their skills.”

In addition to student participation, language assistants will be doing folkloric dances from their countries of origin – Colombia and Honduras – and the language professors will be singing and emceeing the event.

“The audience will be able to participate in singing a Spanish folksong at the beginning, and dancing salsa at the end of the program,” said Clymer.

Admission to the event is free.

For more information contact Don Clymer at don.clymer@emu.edu.

Nevertheless, Castillo, a national leader in advocating for immigration-law reform, says “deferred action” falls far short of addressing the plight of undocumented immigrants living in the United States. For Castillo, the solution lies in enacting the , along with larger immigration reform and community support.

DREAM (which stands for Development Relief and Education for Alien Minors) and Obama’s have parallel criteria to permit minors brought illegally to America to remain in the country after they become young adults. The criteria include:

• having arrived before the age of 16

• having lived in the U.S. for more than five years

• being between 15 and 35 at the age of applying

• no criminal record

The big difference between the two is that DACA is short term, while DREAM offers the hope of a permanent solution. DACA provides those eligible with work permits and is only valid for a two-year period, putting childhood arrivals at risk of deportation in the future.

“Deferred Action is very temporary, and it’s not a path for legalization,” Castillo says. “There’s still that risk that a new president could come in and cancel this program at any time.”

Castillo has been campaigning for the DREAM Act because it would permit “conditional legal status” – and a pathway to eventual citizenship – for those who meet certain criteria in terms of educational achievement or military service.

While thrilled to see any movement whatsoever in the direction of reform, Castillo feels DACA was a political move on President Obama’s part, timed to garner the votes of Latinos in the presidential election.

Brought from Mexico to the United States at age 6, Castillo has been fighting for immigration reform since graduating magna cum laude from EMU with a social work degree. Unable to work legally, she decided to speak up on behalf of herself and other undocumented young adults, despite the risk of deportation and separation from her loved ones.

Castillo has been covered in the , , , and , a network that produces the second-largest amount of Spanish content in the world. She has spoken before governors, members of Congress and state legislatures, and university students, sharing her experiences and advocating legislative change. She has received an honorary doctorate from the University of San Francisco for her efforts.

The issues faced by immigrants like Castillo go beyond inability to find legal employment. Without a social security number, they cannot get driver’s licenses, apply for government-backed student loans, or even get admitted into most colleges, even if someone pays their way. James Madison University, for example, does not take undocumented students. These difficult realities motivate Castillo to go wherever she can – as close as churches and schools in the Shenandoah Valley to educate residents, as far south as Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to rally against “low-profile” deportations, and as far west as the University of Hawaii in O’ahu, where she discussed how to achieve equality for all immigrant youth, regardless of their legal status.

In October 2012, Castillo and supporters of immigration reform achieved a victory on the local level. Castillo spoke at the Rockingham (Va.) County Government Building on the topic of 287G, a contract signed between local government and ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement). Though the ostensible purpose of 287G was to deport high-level criminals, Castillo and her allies found that of the 297 individuals deported under 287G, only 12 percent were high-level offenders.

Thanks to mass emails, phone calls, flyers, and informational meetings, over 100 came to an Oct. 24 rally to ask that 287G be terminated, including many from EMU.

Professor Carol Snell-Feikema of EMU’s , who attended the rally, said afterwards that she was thankful for Castillo’s “gifted voice, speaking on behalf of those most affected.” She added that Castillo “presented solid empirical evidence, as well presented the human side of the issue. She spoke from the heart, told personal stories with real impact, and did a great job of summarizing our work of interviewing Latinos in the community on the real-life effects of 287G in their daily lives.”

ICE wanted Rockingham County to extend 287G for three more months, but Rockingham County took no action at the meeting, causing 287G to end.

Supporters of 287G could attempt to reinstate it in December, and there is ever-constant work to do when it comes to local law enforcement, let alone that of the state and federal level. Castillo does not see herself giving up the struggle anytime soon for more humane laws.

Spicher Kasdorf is an associate professor of English and women’s studies at Penn State University. She will address “Water: Mother of Many Names,” at the 3:30 p.m. session and “Mightier than the Sword: Martyrs Mirror in the New World” at the 7 p.m. session.

Kirsten Beachy, assistant professor English, will be the respondent for the first session and Mary Sprunger, professor of history, will be the respondent for the second session.

The event is free and open to the public. The forum is sponsored by the department of Bible and religion and the department of language and literature at EMU and the Center for Interfaith Engagement.

Theater
As a  student, you’ll act, direct and design productions, exploring your gifts and getting hands-on experience while unpacking the faith and social justice aspects of your work. Cast and crew regularly gather with professors for “faith roundtables” to discuss implications of plays, community response and more.

Art
If you’re a , you’ll work with professor Cyndi Gusler, creator of , a runway show of innovative attire created entirely from cast-off materials. Highlighting sustainable styling and the choices we all make in life, the show .

Music
���ٳܻ��Գ������Ǵڳٱ����, like linking music with digital media for a career in sound design and movie scoring. Or you can weave music with peacebuilding to do conflict transformation through musical productions, or with nursing to do music therapy. 2012 graduate Charise Garber, now in med school,, music and biology, and explored how the mind is influenced by music.

Digital media and photography
 majors learn digital imaging, photography, videography, motion graphics, design, audio and more in a thriving program that is one of the most popular in our university. You can . Student and graduate work has appeared in such outlets as Time Magazine, The New York Times, and The Hill (serving the U.S. Congress).

Language and literature
Mastery of �����Ի� appreciation of literature contribute to success in almost every walk of life. Perhaps you’ll write original poetry and fiction for Phoenix, EMU’s literary and visual arts journal, engage with notable authors visiting campus for the , do a writing internship at a non-profit, or hone your language skills to bring change in cross-cultural settings all over the world.

Find meaningful work in your field

98% of EMU graduates are working, engaged in service or in further study within 12 months of graduation.��Nearly 90% are employed within their field of study.��Check out what two EMU arts alumni are doing now:

• Katie Goins Frewens, an , earned a doctorate of musical arts and now teaches middle school music to urban teens. While a student, she was the piano rehearsal accompanist for the �����Ի� sang with .

• Matt Pearson combined a ���ɾ��ٳ��������Ի��������Դǰ��� to prepare for his goal of becoming an ordained Methodist minister. While a student, Matt acted and directed in the majority of MainStage productions, founded an improv troupe still going strong today, and interned at Second City Improv in Chicago. He went on to earn a divinity degree, and in 2012 became a youth pastor in California.

Contact us

Start the conversation by , scheduling a , talking with a professor or coach, or .��See what life is really like at our Christian university like no other!