Classrooms are in crisis.

The teaching profession is experiencing its lowest levels of employment in 50 years, according to the . More and more of those who are teaching have a short-term provisional license in lieu of a standard license and often have little to no actual training as teachers. There’s a growing need in the educational landscape and EMU has responded.

A new graduate certificate program equips provisionally licensed teachers with the skills and tools needed to better serve their students, while preparing them for licensure and helping tackle a nationwide teacher shortage. 

The Teaching and Learning Graduate Certificate, offered through EMU’s Graduate Teacher Education , is designed for those with a bachelor’s degree and a provisional license.

EMU’s Teaching and Learning Graduate Certificate program, which launched during the Spring 2025 semester, consists of five courses totaling 15 credit hours. Those who complete the sequence of courses advance their academic training and fulfill the professional requirements set by the Virginia Department of Education for a full teaching license, while earning graduate credit. The classes can be applied toward a master’s degree in education if students want to continue their studies. The graduate certificate also serves as a standalone credential and can be used to burnish a resume.

The program is fully asynchronous and online, offering flexibility that allows students from across the commonwealth and beyond to complete the coursework on their own schedules. Despite the virtual nature of the program, students can find belonging in a supportive professional learning community, said Paul Yoder, associate professor of teacher education and director of graduate teacher education at EMU.

“Some folks with a provisional license will take programs that are completely autonomous,” he said. “We’re bringing people together to learn and share their experiences with a seasoned educator as well as with others who are in the same boat. Rather than just reading something or watching videos, we want to engage people so that they can support each other.”

Yoder said the graduate certificate offers another way that EMU can meet real needs in the community.��

“While we have existing programs at EMU, including the preservice teacher program for undergraduate students, and that has been the predominant way that teachers have been prepared in the U.S. and Virginia, we see that it’s been shifting in the past decade,” he said. “We want to help meet that significant emerging need for training nontraditionally prepared teachers.”

From addressing social and ethical issues in the classroom to supporting positive classroom behavior and human growth and development, the courses enable new teachers to serve confidently and lead in a global context while making a difference in their classroom. The five courses that form the graduate certificate are: Curriculum and Instructional Strategies, Supporting Positive Classroom Behavior, Assessment of Learners, Social and Ethical Issues in Education, and Human Growth and Development.

One quality that sets EMU’s program apart from its peers is its fundamental emphasis on principles of restorative justice in education, such as building relationships and healthy communities.

“That’s going to be integrated within all of these courses,” Yoder said. 

He said that EMU looks forward to leveraging its existing partnerships with school divisions such as Harrisonburg City Public Schools as well as with others that have relied on quality EMU teachers over the years.

For more information about the Teaching and Learning Graduate Certificate, visit:

 Teaching science is… not only an opportunity to interact with the coming generations, but to teach students how to learn. This is particularly special in the STEM field because science educators must teach their students how, in a student’s unique way, to interact with the world, to gather understanding from it, and to later apply that understanding as they grow and experience the world outside of the classroom. 

—Abby Olmstead, Noyce Scholar, class of 2023

Junior STEM education majors Morgan Evans, Christian Knight, and Abby Olmstead have been named as Noyce Scholars at ��ݮ����. Each Noyce Scholar receives an annual scholarship of $10,000 or more during their junior and senior years. Once they are hired in a high-need school district, EMU will provide mentoring, professional development and support.

This is the first year of a five-year grant, funded by the National Science Foundation and Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program. By 2026, 24 new STEM teachers, all graduates of EMU’s teacher education program, will have been placed in high-need school districts.

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

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

Meet the Scholars and their inspirations to teach

It was a trip to the Bahamas to study marine biology that sealed the deal on Morgan Evan’s love of science. Other experiences, too, were fostered by Fauquier High School teacher George Murphy.  Evans took biology, marine biology and AP biology courses with him and thrived on “super cool experiments”  such as the study of genetics through fruit flies and managing a saltwater aquarium. “I did not realize how truly blessed I was to have this exposure to what science really is at such a young age,” she said.

Her professional goal is to create a similar atmosphere in her classroom, “an environment of inquiry where students can engage in their own thoughts about the world. Everyone does not have to go off and be a top-notch scientist, but we are all responsible for understanding the world around us so we can better treat it with respect.”

Evans says she was initially leaning towards teaching at the high school level. But now that she’s in the classroom, she has lately been thinking a lot about “how important and influential my middle school teachers were to me.” Those teachers helped her realize she was a person of worth, even when “your emotions are making you feel like your world is falling apart.” 

Christian Knight remembers one elementary school teacher in his hometown of Stanley, Va., prepared to jump up on tables to get his young students’ attention. He was all about finding creative ways of teaching concepts, too, just so long as the students learned the material. Later in high school, Page County High School math teacher Brenda Nickerson “showed me teaching is about more than just teaching the subject, but also making connections to students and positively influencing them in and out of the classroom.”

Knight came to the Noyce Scholars with some prior internship experience and taste of what it’s like to be remembered as a teacher himself. As a junior, he participated in the Virginia Teachers for Tomorrow program and interned with a sixth-grade math class. “Whenever I see students I had in that class, they always wave and say, ‘Hey, Mr. Knight, do you remember me and how have you been?”

Knight plans to teach high school mathematics, and has a special passion for supporting students who don’t think they like math. He’s thinking algebra, geometry, probability and statistics and/or discrete math. His goal is “to make what a lot of students find one of the hardest subjects to be fun, enjoyable and relatable” while still teaching important fundamentals. 

Olmstead took algebra II as a sophomore and AP calculus as a senior with Broadway High School math teacher Becky Harris.

“An alumnus of EMU, she takes a holistic approach to the student and their education,” Olmstead says. “She paid careful attention to the wellbeing of her students alongside their levels of academic success. She told me time and time again that I’d be a great math teacher, but I of course dismissed it every time!”

Just a few years later, Olmstead is working on fulfilling that prediction. “For me, it’s not just about numbers and derivatives and triangles–it’s about a student’s ability to believe they can. In EMU’s education program, we call it “The power of ‘yet.'” Math is a subject that is generally disliked because it’s a learning process that no one aces on their first try, and that discourages students. I want to bring this Power of Yet to the classroom and help kids understand that it’s not just applicable to math but to life in general, and there’s no demographic that needs this encouragement more than middle and high-schoolers.” 

Olmstead has personal experience with the Power of Yet: in AP Calculus she enjoyed seeing all the skills developed in earlier classes of algebra, trigonometry and geometry come together. It wasn’t easy for her, but her hard work, and the encouragement of Harris, paid off with a coveted 5 on the AP test, “one of my proudest achievements from high school.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Beginning in fall 2021, ��ݮ����’s MA in Education: Restorative Justice in Education degree program will offer an online option, in addition to the current curriculum on the Harrisonburg campus. The new virtual learning opportunity comes both in response to the pandemic and a desire to expand the program’s reach to include educators who live outside of the Shenandoah Valley. 

“When we offered the annual RJE Conference in a virtual format in June 2020, we immediately realized these benefits as participants from places like Chicago said they would have never been able to travel to Virginia to join us,” said Professor Paul Yoder, director of EMU’s Graduate Teacher Education program.

The virtual conference drew in over 200 people from 25 states and three countries besides the U.S. – almost twice as many participants as came to the in-person conference in 2019.

“We recognize that another benefit of hosting events online is that we reduce our carbon footprint for those who would have traveled but are now a click away,” Yoder said.

Professor Kathy Evans said she’s excited by the prospect of working with more and more educators that can’t make the trek to EMU’s campus. 

“I really love working with our local educators in the Shenandoah Valley. I have learned a lot from them and we have been able to grow together. Because EMU is a smaller institution, we’re nimble, and so it enables us to work with our grad students in ways that make sense for them,” Evans said. “This online option means being able to also sit in Circle and grow with restorative justice educators beyond Harrisonburg, beyond Rockingham County.” []

More learning opportunities

Join educators and practitioners at the 2021 RJE Conference, which will take place virtually June 22 and 23. David Yusem, the restorative justice district coordinator at Oakland Unified School District in California, will be the keynote speaker.

Additionally, Kathy Evans will be speaking at the April 11 – 21.

The master’s degree in education with a focus on restorative justice education is offered through EMU’s Graduate Teacher Education program. The program also offers a graduate certificate in restorative justice in education, and EMU offers a master’s degree in restorative justice through the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding. 

A few structural changes have accompanied the online shift. Previously, the program included one-week summer intensive courses, which now will be held in half-day sessions over two weeks to prevent Zoom fatigue “while maintaining rich and immersive engagement,” Yoder explained. They’ll also draw on EMU’s hefty toolbox of online instructional resources, including software like VoiceThread, to facilitate asynchronous communication.

One challenge of the online model is preserving the quality of connection and interaction that have been intrinsic to restorative justice programming at EMU since Professor Howard Zehr, a groundbreaker in the movement,  joined the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding faculty in the 90s.

“Restorative justice (RJ) at its core is relational,” Evans said. “We can’t sacrifice the relational aspect of it just because we changed contexts. And I think that that’s a principle that transcends online versus face to face contexts. That’s a principle that’s important whether you’re in a first grade class, a college class, community development circle, or a juvenile justice circle.”

Evans said that the online format does require “a greater level of intentionality,” because it’s easier to be distracted on a computer than in a physical circle with your classmates. That intentionality takes the form of opening and closing rituals to circles, and having participants identify their distractions and develop shared expectations about how they will stay focused.

She also noted that a commitment to justice and equity have to be at the heart of any restorative justice program or work, down to the logistics of a class. 

“I think having a new context, i.e. online, requires us to specifically identify what justice and equity look like in an online format. What needs to happen to ensure that those things are evident?” Evans said. 

For example, some students may have internet connectivity issues, which then become an equity issue in an online class. Evans recalled a recent circle where a participant had some audio instability, even when they kept their camera off to preserve bandwidth. But the class discovered that this participant could keep their camera and mic on if the rest of the class muted themselves and turned off their cameras. 

Evans said that was a “beautiful analogy about stepping aside so that silenced voices can be lifted up. It was a lovely moment … this is what we need to do.” 

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

Some professors are finding this an exciting challenge.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Describe your field of study and research.

After graduating from EMU, I studied government at Johns Hopkins University concentrating on political communication and democracy studies. My thesis topic was on the importance of local government and how it has a greater impact on the everyday lives of citizens than our federal and state governments that tend to dominate the headlines. I examined this through a case study of the impacts high school consolidation in Rockbridge County, Virginia, and national trends to consolidate schools.

After I finished graduate school, Paul Yoder [professor of teacher education at EMU] and I wrote an article for the , where we used a lesson about school consolidation in Rockbridge County as a way to teach how local government works through inquiry and primary source research.

How did your academic studies and professors at EMU prepare you for your graduate studies?

Professors Paul Yoder and Mary Sprunger helped me immensely in my preparation for graduate school. My senior history seminar thesis focused on Rockbridge County’s school and local history and I carried that over into my Honors Program capstone, where, under Paul’s guidance, I used my research to develop lesson plans to teach students about local government. 

These two projects challenged my ability to synthesize, summarize, and analyze a ton of information in such a way that I could present it clearly to a younger audience. Going into graduate school, these skills were useful for my work on my thesis portfolio and for comprehensive assignments and projects for my other classes.

What do you think made your application to graduate school stand out among others?

I think the focus of my writing samples on local government helped. I submitted one short paper that I wrote in a juvenile justice course about the closing of one juvenile facility in Natural Bridge, Virginia. Most of my colleagues in the graduate program were focusing on national or state level issues of government and politics. While these are still important, my focus on the local level from Day One provided a unique perspective. While my colleagues would focus on President Trump, redistricting, and partisanship, I would discuss how individual communities would be affected by different policies.

What attracted you to attend EMU as an undergraduate?

When I was looking at different colleges I had three criteria: I wanted to go to a school with a strong education program, I wanted to go to a Christian university, and I wanted to run cross country. As I got to know some of the faculty and staff through my visits at EMU, I felt that not only did  it fit my criteria, but that I was at home. Even though my family had a strong military background — very different from a Mennonite one — I was accepted by the staff and eventually my peers in my first semester. EMU provided a welcoming community along with the tools for success I was seeking. 

What are some favorite memories of your time at EMU?

I best remember my time with my cross country and track and field teammates. We bonded well, had great discussions, and were very competitive against other teams. My roommates all studied very different majors from me, so I remember always discovering different or unique perspectives in conversation. My time at EMU helped me grow a lot.

What do you think makes EMU graduates distinctive?

Their focus on worldview and placing their perspective in the context of other perspectives. This focus fosters a big picture approach to problem-solving and critical thinking when it is easy to get stuck in the small details.

Tell us about your current work and what you most enjoy about it.

I currently teach government, both regular and for college credit, and world history at Powhatan High School. I greatly enjoy the discussions that take place in my government classes. It is an interesting time to study our president and Congress, and the students have so many questions and are genuinely interested. My students in all of my classes are very curious and I enjoy working with them and teaching them through their inquiry.

This was neither the end of the semester we anticipated nor the graduation we expected, but it is the semester we have completed and the graduation we celebrate, said Dean David Brubaker this past weekend to a virtual celebration for graduates from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding.

Those words encapsulate the whirlwind experience of the last nine weeks, as our semester was completely disrupted by the Covid-19 pandemic.

This was not the semester we anticipated, but it was the semester we completed.

And what choice did we have but to persevere, adapt, be flexible and patient, flatten one curve as we were being slung faster on an accompanying learning curve of what exactly to do with ourselves, our bodies and minds in this strange new world.

The following collection of photos and text is a snapshot of the semester, collected in real time and revisited now, for those of you who are more peripheral to EMU. It might help to give a sense of how faculty, staff and students responded in and out of classroom — in true EMU fashion, with resilience, empathy and commitment.

Here we go (online)!

Some of the first on campus to sense an impending switch were employees in Information Systems. They began thinking about remote learning during EMU’s spring break the first week in March, and in anticipation, beefed up their HelpZone articles on a variety of relevant topics.

By March 12, when EMU announced a move to online learning, IS had reviewed and increased capacity of all systems and equipment (including webcams, laptops and Chromebooks) necessary for online teaching and campus operations. Needless to say, they were busy.

Two graphs from Jenni Piper, director of User Services, tell the story:

First Helpdesk Tickets. The green line shows last year’s demand and the blue line this year’s.

And second, the number of daily Zoom meetings hosted through the campus account, beginning in early March.

After hosting a training for faculty March 13 and the shift to online the classes the next week, IS handled 64 tickets on March 16, something of a watermark that shows when faculty and staff began to engage with the reality of a move to remote work.

Pedagogues thinking positively

About 10 days into the online shift, I asked a few professors how things were going. Some of their answers are included below. I was particularly struck by the positive perspective of veteran educator Carolyn Stauffer, professor of applied social sciences:

In reality, what we’re experiencing now is the presence of hybrid education. We’ve had the chance to meet in-person for the first part of the semester and now I get to know each participant’s online presence as well. It’s wonderful to be able to build on the assets of both sides of that equation!

Solo field trips

Professor Doug Graber Neufeld‘s “Natural History of the Shenandoah Valley” course syllabus was packed full of fantastic field trips to local natural wonders and lab experiences (like taxidermy practice below).

With his students scattered in mid-March, the field trips turned into independent explorations, such as Katelyn Dean‘s below. Here she holds morel mushrooms she and her dad found in the George Washington National Forest, just one find shared during class time.

“It’s the highlight of my day to hear students who daily recount the joy they find in now recognizing the animals, plants and rocks around them,” Neufeld said. “In such unusual times, experiencing the beauty and complexity of the natural world together has been a unique source of hope for us.” Read more about this class.

Conversations continue

In Professor Marti Eads’ class “Ways of War and Peace,” students met virtually with Reverend Masayuki Sawa, the pastor of a Reformed (Calvinist) congregation in Japan.��He spoke of his perception of contemporary Japanese attitudes toward World War II and Japanese perceptions of the US and our own military actions, then and now, among other topics.

The class was slated to visit the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C. Instead, guest speaker Gillian Steinberg, an educator at the Salanter Akiba Riverdale Academy in the Bronx, and her students from the Modern Orthodox Jewish tradition met online with EMU students.

This conversation and the de-brief afterwards held richness and nuance, Eads said, with several classmates opening up about their own religious experiences, choices and identities. Recognizing the common humanity, despite labels — “just the idea of all of us sitting together talking and all of us from different groups” was a moving experience, said one of her students. []

Creating community with virtual high fives

Engineering professor Esther Tian (pictured above at top right) continued teaching synchronous classes, preferring the structure and the presence of students. “It is also good for students to see each other and talk to each other before class as they would in a classroom.

We do high fives, thumb-ups (and downs) during class, we find out new features of Zoom and use them right away. It has been fun. I also found that one-on-one and small group Zoom sessions were working really well in answering students’ questions as well as advising..”

Senior Collin Longenecker, visible below Tian in the photo above and also at right, was an embedded tutor with a first-year engineering course. Though initially he wasn’t sure how Zoom sessions would work, he adapted well: “The students pop in and out and they can share their screen with me. It is almost like I am in the engineering lab looking over their shoulder trying to help them troubleshoot the problem. I have been helping a few students that I had not helped before we went to online school which is cool.”

Read more about EMU tutors at work during online classes.

The power of community to enhance learning was the top tip in a blog post titled ” by Dean (and chem prof) Tara Kishbaugh for fellow organic chemistry teachers using the same texbook. “Community Matters,” she began. Use the relationships that have already been built to help students continue asking questions and learning in small peer groups. And she reminded readers, you can still greet each student individually when they enter your Zoom classroom.

Tech fails/wins: ‘chipmunky’-ness and new relationships

Professor Mark Sawin teaches U.S. History 103, from World War I to the present, with a focus on “power and paradox.” Sawin tried to do a synchronous class on Zoom and “it rather hilariously and spectularly failed,” he reported.

“So, since then, I’ve been pre-recording all my lectures on Panopto so students can watch them asynchronously, and with that program, you can adjust my speed. At 1.5 speed, I start to get rather chipmunky… at .5 speed I sound like the television show ‘Drunk History.’ I’m not sure if that amuses students, but it certainly amuses me.”

With the lectures available at any time, he began using normal class time as an open forum where students could drop in and ask questions.

“I’ve had some wonderful 1-on-1 conversations with students that I would never have had in our normal class setting. In this sense, our ‘social distancing’ has actually provided some closeness that wasn’t there before, and for that I’m grateful,” Sawin said. “I’ve also been pleased and touched by the grace that students have extended to us as we struggle to move our classes online. And I believe we, too, are showing that grace, focusing on the learning objectives and the big important ideas, and allowing a lot of latitude when it comes to the many wifi issues, isolation stresses, and general quarantine chaos we’re all learning to live with.”

Grace and connection

That grace is something education professor Paul Yoder has also experienced. Students in his classes are pre-service teachers and as a pedagogical specialist himself, the shift to online classes provided ample room for discussions around topics related to the digital classroom.

He wrote: “The key word in my planning for weekly class sessions via Zoom has been connection. We have taken time for each of the 18 students to rate how they are doing on a scale of 1-10 and then share with the group. Last week I sent individual emails as a follow up to the few students who placed themselves on the low end of the scale. I have also been excited to hear from some of my advisees who have shared their affirmations of how professors are providing flexibility as needed.  Particularly as we recognize that not all of us have the same level of internet access, I know that living into an ethic of care is essential.”

Nancy Heisey, seminary dean, also used check-ins with her classes, which often included adult students who juggled many responsibiliities, including pastors working in ministry settings.

“We take time every period to share ‘how it’s going’ and encourage one another. Some students are struggling with a household where everyone is working on line in a crowded space—spouse tele-working, children trying to do homework, and seminary student worrying about class work and how to get a video service up for their congregation’s Sunday service.

“I’ve been amazed, though, at the depth of engagement—this morning, my New Testament students each did a creative rendering of a parable of Jesus. They were funny, sobering, and encouraging!”

Hearing some of those needs led seminary professor Sarah Bixler to host an April 1 online gathering that drew 32 pastors, including 22 alumni, from four denominations and eight states. This has led to a free online series for pastors. Check it out here.

A wider global market for CJP

Innovation happened quickly during the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding’s facilitation class, co-taught by Professor Catherine Barnes and Amy Knorr. Students usually practice skills they’ve learned in person by helping clients with a planned discussion, strategic visioning or group dialogue. With face-to-face options limited and practice still required, students moved online.

Above, one group produced an online strategic planning for Shenandoah Green, a local environmental group, including a circle process, a historical reflection using a digital timeline that folks could fill in, and a card sort, a way of getting ideas out into the open and then grouping them together. “Board members at Shenandoah Green were delighted,” said Knorr, who helps coordinate practice settings for CJP students.

In the midst of the pandemic, CJP also hosted several online gatherings for alumni to connect and share resources.

And significantly, center staff moved quickly to adapt the Summer Peacebuilding Institute to online classes, expedite a new hybrid graduate degree program in transformational leadership, and prepare upcoming semester classes for online delivery.

The massive disruption and accompanying move towards online learning and programs have created new opportunities, said Executive Director Jayne Docherty, especially in a previously untapped market of prospective participants who could not have afforded to travel or would not have been issued a visa in the current environment.

“In the face of the pandemic, many people are waking up to the fact that our societies have become more unequal and unjust and that we are teetering on the edge of violent confrontations between social subgroups. Some of those people are saying, ‘This can’t continue. This is just wrong. What can I do? I want to be part of the solution.’ By moving our programs online quickly, we have helped channel their energy and impulse to help others in ways that prevent violence and address injustices.”

’12 hours ahead of our students’

As daily reports arrived into faculty in-boxes about the closure of practicum and internship placements to students, the nursing department focused on making sure their seniors could graduate on time and join the fight against covid-19.

For one cohort, that meant three 12-hour shifts at a local hospital. For others, they logged clinical hours (and their supervising professor also took calls) at a special covid-19 public health hotline.

“The faculty were meeting hour to hour, staying 12 hours ahead of the students as we were making decisions,” said Professor Melody Cash.

Eventually, a waiver allowed faculty to substitute simulation hours for live clinicals and all 16 seniors finished out the semester in good standing, ready to join the workforce.

It’s the small things…

Marci Frederick (above), director of Sadie Hartzler Library, and Professor Kevin Seidel dressed in academic regalia in honor of their senior seminar students for their last Zoom class meeting.

Congratulations, EMU family, on the end of the semester we did not anticipate.

We celebrate.

Two researchers have taken the pulse of Mennonite PreK-12 education in the United States. Paul Yoder, a professor in ��ݮ����’s teacher education program, partnered with colleague Peter Wiens, a professor at University of Nevada, Las Vegas, to survey nearly 400 teachers from Mennonite Council Schools.

The survey asked educators to reflect on their values and practices as educators, to identify reasons for choosing to work in Mennonite schools, and to evaluate their self-confidence in teaching some of the core tenets of Christian education.

Among the results: Educators in Mennonite schools describe the purpose of Mennonite education as teaching peace and pacifism, social justice, love, restorative justice, and service, among other Anabaptist/Mennonite values.

Further, educators generally feel the context of Mennonite education in which they’ve chosen to work supports them in the goals of building a community with students that shares these values.

Finally, the prioritization of these values reflects a strong and fertile context for the implementation of restorative justice in education, specifically as defined by Kathy Evans and Dorothy Vaandering in the Little Book of Restorative Justice in Education: “Restorative justice in education can be defined as facilitating learning communities that nurture the capacity of people to engage with one another and their environment in a manner that supports and respects the inherent dignity and worth of all.”

Yoder and Wiens reported some of their findings in .* 

In February, they will also report findings at the upcoming Feb. 7-9 in a session titled “Igniting Creativity in Teaching: What Research Has To Say.” In April, they will present a paper at the annual conference of the American Education Research Association in San Francisco.  

Both professors were students at Mennonite K-12 and higher education institutions, and bring varied professional education experiences.

Yoder is a graduate of and ��ݮ����. He taught in Virginia public schools before finishing his doctorate in curriculum and instruction at the University of Virginia.

Wiens graduated from Eastern Mennonite School and Goshen College. He was a teacher and administrator for more than 13 years at K-12 schools, including Penn View Christian School and schools in Taiwan and Niger. He also earned his PhD in curriculum and instruction from the University of Virginia.

*The issue also included articles by Center for Justice and Peacebuilding graduates Katrina Poplett MA ‘19, available behind a paywall, and by Michelle Jackett MA ‘13, in a .

Good is assistant director of the in Washington D.C. and assistant professor of applied social sciences. Yoder is assistant professor of .

Good: Effects of private funding on public school inequities

Dr. Good’s paper, co-authored with Katharine Nelson, is titled “With a Little Help From Our Friends: Private Donors and Public Schools in Philadelphia” and chronicles the increasing trend of local “friends” groups incorporating as independent 501c3 organizations to support individual neighborhood public schools. The paper focuses on sixteen such organizations in Philadelphia. The research reveals how these organizations created the fiscal architecture to independently raise, manage, and disburse private funds on behalf of individual schools, supplementing public funding in a context of resource scarcity.

The schools with established 501c3 organizations are disproportionately found in gentrified, gentrifying, or historically wealthier parts of the city and are whiter than the school system as a whole.

“It is an important story to tell because it highlights how efforts to decentralize the
management of public schools and to increasingly rely on private capital can result in
exacerbating existing inequalities between local communities,” says Good. “This project
illuminates how cuts to traditional public education funding play out on the ground and
intersect with trajectories of neighborhood development and gentrification.”

He holds a PhD in planning and public policy from Rutgers University, an MA in geography and urban studies from Temple University, and an MA in theological studies from Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary.

Yoder: Preparing pre-service social studies teachers to work with ELLs

Yoder’s paper, co-authored with Dr. Stephanie D. Van Hover, University of Virginia, is titled “Teaching History to English Language Learners in Standards-Based Settings: Implications for Teacher Educators” and focuses on the ways in which teachers have developed instructional effectiveness for teaching ELLs history and social studies, content areas in which there is less context and a compelling higher purpose of learning.

Using a case study of one middle school history teacher in a culturally and linguistically diverse Virginia school district, Yoder’s findings indicated that use of the regular lesson plan and materials along with differentiated instruction for ELLs provided opportunities for students to be “active agents” in the classroom. The intentional grouping of students, devoting extra time to activities, and using varied speech patterns and call-and-response techniques were some of the classroom strategies used with ELLs that successfully supported both the subject and content requirements and the larger goal of promoting the civic purpose of social studies.

“What really stood out from our study was the way the case study teacher focused on the skills or action-based aspects of social studies to make class engaging for students who were learning English,” says Yoder.��“Rather than simply lecturing or assigning a textbook reading on the Holocaust, the teacher used a reader’s theater so students could examine different historical perspectives.��At one point two students started to ad lib lines while still in character, which showed how invested they were as active agents in their own learning.”

Yoder earned his PhD in curriculum and instruction with a concentration in social studies education from the Curry School of Education at the University of Virginia. Yoder is an EMU graduate with a BA in history and an MA in education. He taught history at Thomas Harrison Middle School and English as a Second Language at Dayton Learning Center.

EMU Teachers of Promise are

• Erick Luna: Elementary Education major from Harrisonburg, Va.;
• Amy Nussbaum: Special Education graduate (Dec. 2016) from Union, Michigan;
• Dorothy Hershey: Elementary Education major from Waynesboro, Va.;
• Rebekah Hertzler: English Education major from Harrisonburg, Va.;
• Miranda Lyle: Elementary Education major from Blue Ridge, Va.

Professor r enjoyed hearing EMU students share about their student teaching experiences and plans for the future. While at the conference, Yoder was delighted and surprised to see his former fourth-grade teacher who had taught at Waterman Elementary School. “Mrs. Amy Jackson has lived in Tennessee for almost 20 years so it was very unexpected,” Yoder said. “I loved telling her that my wife, Katrina Martin ’07 Yoder now teaches fourth grade at Waterman.”

Miranda Lyle was inspired to see so many people willing to “support us on our journey as teachers. I was reminded of all of the strong relationships I have built with my professors and friends in the education department. I look forward to joining the education profession during a period of unification and determination in creating equity for ALL students.”

A highlight for Dorothy Hershey was seeing so many committed professionals. “I will look back on this conference as a token of encouragement and a reminder that I am never alone. Even when the hardships momentarily outweigh the joys of teaching, I can count on my fellow educators to support me through the journey.”

Erick Luna said, “Hearing about the experiences of so many world-class educators, I was energized by their passion and commitment to education and to, most importantly, the children. I left knowing more than ever that this is my calling.” The event also made him thankful for educators at EMU as well as Harrisonburg High School teacher Phil Yutzy, who “believed in me when others did not.”

The honorees “exemplify strong potential for impacting students in the classroom, high academic standing, commitment to the teaching profession, and embody EMU’s teacher education mission to ‘teach boldly in a changing world through an ethic of care and critical reflection,’” says department chair and professor of education . “I am confident that these future teachers will positively influence the lives of each student in their classrooms as they create and advocate for just and equitable learning environments.”

EMU’s education program values experiential learning, offering early practicum experiences that help candidates determine their professional path. Teacher candidates choose from 17 different licensure programs.

The education program is one among five private colleges in Virginia accredited by the National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education.

The new faculty, announced by , provost; Michael King, dean of the School of Graduate and Professional Studies and of Eastern Mennonite Seminary; and , vice president and undergraduate academic dean, include:

Linda Alger, instructor of nursing. Alger earned a MSN at Walden University and a BS in nursing from EMU. She brings extensive nursing experience as a staff nurse and director of the critical care unit at RMH/Sentara. Alger has taught at Blue Ridge Community College and will bring her clinical experience to the clinical classroom setting at EMU.

Clement Acevedo, instructor of music. Acevedo is a DMA candidate at James Madison University School of Music, with an anticipated completion date in 2016.  He earned a BM from University of the Philippines College of Music; an MM in piano performance from Temple University Boyer College of Music and Dance; and an MM in piano pedagogy from West Chester University of Pennsylvania School of Music. Acevedo’s professional experiences include serving as the choir director and minister of music at a Lutheran church in Pennsylvania, teaching Suzuki and traditional piano, and performing in the Philippines, China and the United States.

Syafaatun Almirzanah, PhD, professor of religious studies. Almirzanah is a Fulbright Scholar from Indonesia who will teach religious studies. She has a PhD and master’s degrees in theology from the Lutheran School of Theology, as well as a DMin degree from Catholic Theological Seminary, all located in Chicago, Illinois. She earned an MA in philosophy and a BA in comparative religions at Islamic University Sunan Kalijaga, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

Tammy Duxbury, assistant professor of accounting. Duxbury earned an MS in taxation from Bryant University and a BS in business and commerce-accounting at the University of Houston-Downtown. Duxbury brings accounting experience in the areas of taxation, taxation research and tax consulting along with experience in personal finance planning and consultation. She was an adjunct accounting instructor and a scholarly practitioner at several institutions.

Jan Emswiler,  instructor of nursing. Emswiler earned a MPH in international health and development from Tulane University School of Public Health and a BA in nursing and biology from ��ݮ���� . Emswiler brings international nursing experience in the areas of public health, HIV/AIDS care and support, and maternal child health care. She has taught in Zambia and Tanzania, and at Goshen College and James Madison University

Dana Farrar, instructor of nursing. Farrar holds an MSN and BS in nursing from ��ݮ���� . She brings hospital floor experience in medical/surgical units and orthopedics as well as experience as an e-health specialist at Sentara RMH.

Jeanne Heil, PhD, assistant professor of Spanish. A scholar of applied linguistics with the ability to teach both language and linguistics, Heil earned a BA  in Spanish from Wittenberg University and an MA and PhD in Hispanic studies from University of Illinois. She will contribute both teaching expertise and administrative experience as a language coordinator to the language and literature department.

Cassandra Kennell, PhD, assistant professor of psychology. Kennell, an experienced substance abuse therapist, holds both a PhD and MA in clinical psychology from the American School of Psychology. She earned an MA in counseling at EMU and a BS in psychology from the University of South Florida. At Shenandoah Psychological Services, LLC, she has provided individual and group therapy for children, adolescents, families and couples, as well as psychological and neuropsychological testing,

Roxann Allen Kioko, instructor of business. Kioko anticipates completion of a PhD in strategic leadership from James Madison University in fall 2016. She earned an MA in conflict transformation from the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at EMU and a BA in history from EMU. Kioko brings professional and administrative experience in numerous non-governmental organizations along with teaching experience in Ethiopia with Mennonite Central Committee. Kioko has been an adjunct instructor for both undergraduate and graduate courses at EMU.

Eva Pastalkova, PhD, assistant professor of biology. Pastalkova holds a PhD and MS in neuroscience, and a BA in biology from Charles University in the Czech Republic. She has been an innovative researcher, teacher, program developer and administrator to both the undergraduate biology and graduate biomedicine departments. Her expertise in the areas of bioinformatics, neuroscience and biology will add value and breadth in both departments.

Andrew Suderman, instructor of theology. Suderman anticipates completing a PhD in systematic theology from the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa this year. He earned a BA in philosophy from Canadian Mennonite University and an MT in theological studies from Conrad Grebel University in Canada. He brings international and cross-cultural experience in Costa Rica, Bolivia, Colombia and South Africa.

Paul Yoder, PhD, assistant professor of education. An experienced teacher at several levels, Yoder completed his PhD in curriculum and instruction from University of Virginia. He earned his MA in education and a BA in history and social science from ��ݮ����. He has taught social studies, US history and English as a Second Language in Harrisonburg area public schools. In addition, he has been an adjunct instructor at James Madison University and EMU, and taught in the EMU’s Intensive English Program

Zelijko Mirkovic, instructor of digital media. Mirkovic is an award-winning film and television director who contributes expertise in the areas of producing, scriptwriting, technical skills and new media knowledge. He anticipates completion of his PhD in media and communication from the University of Vienna, Austria. Mirkovic earned a BA from The Academy of Art Braća Karić  in Belgrade and an MA in media practice from Bournemouth University, United Kingdom.

Each year, a new group of highly motivated and gifted scholars is invited to join the EMU . From this group, two prospective students are selected to receive the annual full-tuition .

Nicole Litwiller of Sarasota, Florida, and Maria Yoder of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, will begin their education in the fall of 2015 as contributors to EMU’s legacy of academic excellence.

During Honors Weekend in February, Litwiller and Yoder came to campus with 42 other candidates for the final interview process. The group averaged 1,269 on the SAT critical reading and math sections, 29 on the ACT and a high-school grade point average (GPA) of 4.11.

Full Tuition Yoder Scholarships

The Yoder Scholarships, established in 1993, are named for Paul and Carol Yoder of Harrisonburg, Virginia, both 1963 graduates of EMU. The rigorous selection process for the two scholarships includes a comprehensive academic and service resume, letters of recommendation, creative essays and interviews with Honors Program professors. Candidates who do not win the full-tuition scholarships receive academic scholarships covering approximately half of tuition, as well as membership in the Honors Program.

“We are looking for creative students with wide-ranging interests and strong leadership abilities,” said , a mathematics professor and faculty member in the Honors Program.

Benefits Include 1:1 Mentoring and Critical Thinking Boosts

Over the past three years, the graduation rate for EMU honors students was 100 percent, with a third completing double or triple majors. These students, representing diverse cultural, racial and religious backgrounds, participate in special academic and co-curricular opportunities to learn from and be mentored by faculty.

A majority of honors graduates responding to a 2009 alumni survey “strongly agreed” that the program increased their overall learning and deepened critical thinking skills. Forty-two percent of the survey respondents indicated an educational track beyond their undergraduate degree.

Maria Yoder: The Animal Lover

Maria Yoder loves cats and dogs, and as she took biology classes in the past year, she thought about becoming a veterinarian someday. Lately she’s been volunteering at an animal hospital. At EMU, she plans to enroll in the pre-professional health sciences program.

At Hempfield High School, Yoder is involved in sports, music, tutoring and academic clubs. She was captain of her school’s volleyball team, which won consecutive state championships in 2013 and 2014. She is also captain of the track and field team. A cellist in the school orchestra, she was selected this spring for the state orchestra.

At EMU, Yoder will run , her favorite sport, and join the team. She will play cello in the orchestra.

“I like to keep a busy schedule,” she says, “but I have to be organized and make sure to leave some time for relaxing so I don’t feel overwhelmed.”

Her parents, Randy and Marianne Kurtz Yoder, graduated from EMU in 1982 and 1983, respectively. Her mother earned a in 2013. Although EMU was high on Yoder’s list, she also considered Haverford College near Philadelphia and the University of Mary Washington in Virginia.

Nicole Litwiller: Looking Forward to Cross-Cultural

Nicole Litwiller says that “EMU has been on my radar since I was young.” Her parents are both graduates – Larry ’80 and Nelda Rempel Litwiller ‘85. “I am excited to expand my faith and be challenged by professors,” she says. “Also, I love how EMU puts a huge focus on becoming more knowledgeable about other cultures worldwide.”

During the middle of her sophomore year, Litwiller went through an emotional experience when her family moved from Kansas to Florida the day after Christmas. She did not know anyone at Sarasota Christian School, but she looks back on that transition as full of “many new and fun things.”

Today she is president of her senior class, and she is trying to make the year an unforgettable one for her classmates. During her sophomore and junior years, she was on her school’s team that advanced to world competition both times.

A member of her high school soccer team and one of its three captains, Litwiller will probably play for EMU this fall.

Her major, at this point, is undecided. “I hope that through my classes, the cross-cultural trip and other experiences at EMU that my path will become clearer,” she says. “I am looking forward to many opportunities to experience the world.”

Dan Wesser, professor of international and political studies at EMU, gives an overview of the Iran visit, assisted by (l. to r.): Paul Yoder, Rachel Spory, Josh Brubaker and Fatemeh Darabi, a CJP student from Iran. Photos by Jim Bishop

It was Dan Wessner‘s first great surprise.

One of Rachel Spory’s, too.

They had just arrived inI ran – a nation that many in the West view with suspicion and fear – as part of a delegation created by the Mennonite Central Committee. Wessner, a professor, and Spory, a recent graduate, traveled as representatives of ��ݮ����.

An Iranian guide handed his visitors a delicacy – a lemon.

Wessner sank his teeth into its rind.

“It was sweet,” he recalled Tuesday afternoon, just two weeks after he returned from the Islamic Republic. “It tasted like a mild, sweet orange.”

These were sweet lemons, unique to Eurasia.

“To me, that became a really important metaphor for all the surprises Iran had in store for us,” Wessner said.

He adapted the name of the fruit as the title of a presentation he delivered Tuesday at EMU’s Seminary.

Wessner, a professor of international and political studies, spoke alongside Spory, who now works for the university, and graduates Paul Yoder and Josh Brubaker, and current graduate student Fatemeh Darabi, an Iranian native.

Yoder and Brubaker also were recent visitors to Iran. They visited in May to present at an international conference in the city Qom.

EMU, Wessner said, is forging personal connections with academic, religious and government leaders in the country.

Those connections could create partnerships that aid the establishment of a new cross-cultural center at the university, the Center for the Study of Abrahamic Traditions. The center would allow members and scholars of the Jewish, Muslim and Christian faiths to collaborate.

“We have to be intentional about relating to each other,” he said. It’s why he, Spory and 10 others from across the United States made the 2 1/2-week journey to Iran.

Cultural Immersion

The delegation departed for Iran two days after Christmas and returned Jan 13. A packed itinerary introduced the group to Islamic theologians, Armenian Christian leaders, a leading ayatollah, or Shi’a cleric, professors and students, human rights scholars, and Persian cultural experts.

“We were part of a cultural immersion,” Wessner said.

Since the early 1990s, the MCC has related with the Iran Red Crescent Society, spawning opportunities for trips like the one the recent delegation took.

EMU, too, has its own connections. For years, the university has participated in an international film program with students in Iran. They met face-to-face when the delegation arrived at the Imam Khomeini Research and Education Institute and Mofid University, both in Qom.

Twice during the trip, the delegation met with Seyed Kazem Sajjadpour, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations in Geneva, who presented a list of proposals to further connections between the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the delegation members.

The proposals include opportunities for a roundtable on the role of religion in international relations, a peace studies conference, and study-abroad opportunities for students.

“We’re beginning to take very seriously EMU’s role relating not just to Iran but the Islamic traditions,” Wessner said. But, he added, the presentation on this single delegation is just an intermediate step toward something bigger in the future. “It doesn’t stop here.”

We Must Relate

Of all the things that could hinder the connections with Iran, Wessner says it isn’t funding, or faith, or even the logistics of planning. It’s a matter of perspective. He started his presentation with an activity to get at the heart of American perceptions on Iran.

“Give me a phrase, anything that associates in your mind with Iran,” he asked the audience that filled a crowded, standing-room-only auditorium at the seminary. “What does the rhetoric of America say?”

“Terrorism.”

“Axis of evil.”

“Nuclear weapons.”

Those, Wessner said, didn’t fit the complex reality he had seen in Iran.

“It didn’t connect for us as we were experiencing Iran that there could be a threat,” he said.

He showed pictures of the former U.S. Embassy in Tehran, the site of the hostage crisis that began in 1979 during the Carter administration and led to the diplomatic break between the two nations that has as yet been unresolved. The group’s hotel was just across the street.

“It’s a complex country,” Wessner said. The sweet lemon metaphor, he says, repeatedly came to mind.

Spory, the graduate who now works in the university’s development office, said she was surprised by the challenges of wearing the traditional head covering for women, the hijab.

“It’s the most visually different part of the culture, I think,” she said. “I wasn’t prepared for how removed it made me feel. I couldn’t hear for the first couple days.”

The degree of interest Iranians had in the West was also a surprise, the other students added.

“The way they pursued us really exemplified the hospitality we felt,” said Yoder, a 2006 graduate.

“We represented a difference,” added Brubaker, also of the class of 2006. “There’s a pretty significant difference in the way Mennonites have pursued peace.”

Wessner says the faith on each side has been the bond that’s led to the success of these cross-cultural connections.

“We must relate,” he said. “Our faith calls us to. Even when it’s unpopular, and against the wishes of our government, we do it.”