The annual faculty-staff conference, to be held Wednesday and Thursday, Aug. 19-20, focuses on the theme, “Promise and Possibility: Serving and Leading in a Global context.”

Keynote Speaker Robb Davis

Dr. Robb Davis, director of health initiatives at Freedom From Hunger, will address faculty and staff on Wednesday, Aug. 19

Robb Davis of Davis, Calif., will open the conference 9:30 a.m. Wednesday with an address on the program theme. Dr. Davis received a masters of public health as well as a doctorate from the School of Hygiene and Health at Johns Hopkins University and has considerable international experience.

He is director of health initiatives at Freedom From Hunger, an organization that combines microfinance, education and health protection to help poor women in Africa, Asia, and Latin America achieve a sustainable, self-help end to hunger. Davis has taught in EMU’s Summer Peacebuilding Institute a number of years.

An interactive session with Davis will follow at 11 a.m.Main sessions will be held in Martin Chapel of the seminary building.

EMU President Loren Swartzendruber will give a “state of the campus” address 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

Other activities will include a music and storytelling session, faculty workshops on cross-cultural programs and intensive writing, a voluntary cholesterol screening and worship led by Kenneth J. Nafziger, professor of music.

Other back-to-school activities

The annual all-campus picnic will be held on the front lawn Wednesday evening, Aug. 19.

Students who will serve as community advisers or ministry assistants will begin arriving for training sessions Friday, Aug. 21.

First-year students will check into the residence halls Aug. 29. Orientation programs for new students run through Monday, Aug. 31.

Returning students will arrive on campus Sunday, Aug. 30. Final fall semester registration will be held Monday, Aug. 31.

Fall convocation, Sept. 2

President Loren Swartzendruber will speak at an opening convocation 10 a.m. Wednesday, Sept. 2 in Lehman Auditorium on the theme, “Educating to serve and lead in a global context.” Student cross-cultural groups going to South Africa and Lesotho for the fall semester will be commissioned.

EMU’s fall semester runs through Dec. 18.

Jews, Muslims and Christians may nurture interfaith understanding via an Abrahamic traditions studies center.

These proposals come from a smorgasbord of about 30 submitted by EMU students, faculty, staff and friends at the invitation of an ad-hoc "Micah Think Tank." Each of these visions, unveiled at a March 23-24 conference on campus, aims at helping the university better exemplify its mission described in Micah 6:8: "to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God."

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The weekend of sharing dreams and visions is the result of a year-long "Micah Think Tank" process, referring to the call in Micah 6:8 to "do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with God." These words, which provide the core of EMU