INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY AldersgateJOHN WESLEY HONORS COLLEGE Review A Year in the Life of the John Wesley Honors College 2011-2012 JOHN WESLEY HONORS COLLEGE TABLE OF CONTENTS 3 A Note from the Executive Director by Dr. David L. Riggs 4 Extravagance and the Academic Vocation by Dr. Amy L.B. Peeler 5 Convocation 2011: An Autumn of Love and Learning by Dr. Mary Brown and Courtney Bidwell 8 Visiting Authors by Stephen German, Taryn Coates and Melia Sneden 11 Lunch with Ken Starr by Jeffrey Dunn 12 Review: From Bible Belt to Sunbelt by Zachary Todd Arneson 14 Leymah Gbowee: Nobel Prize Winner Visits IWU by Dr. Lisa M. Toland 16 Review: Resounding Truth by Katherine E. Loughead 18 An Excerpt from Beyond Integration by Dr. Todd C. Ream, Dr. Jerry Pattengale and Dr. David L. Riggs 20 Review: Switchfoot’s Vice Verses by the PHiL 14 21 Review: Coldplay’s Mylo Xyloto by the PHiL 16 22 Student Spotlight: Samantha Tan by Ali Cravens 23 Alumni Spotlight: Emily Hathway and Lisa Velthouse by Holly Willman & Laurel Stone 24 Bringing Back Childhood by Jaki Brueggen 25 The Magician Behind the Monsters by Lauren Martin 26 Who is the Lord of the Rings? by Natalie Wierenga IWU’s John Wesley Honors College (JWHC) publishes the Aldersgate Review annually to highlight some of the ways its 27 Faithful Feminism by Dr. Amy L.B. Peeler community embodies the ideals of Christian liberal learning. The Aldersgate Review aims to provide prospective students 29 JWHC Student and Faculty Achievements with a window onto life in the JWHC, help alumni develop as lifelong learners, and enrich a broader audience of readers who 34 JWHC Upcoming Events possess a “faith seeking understanding.” EDITOR ASSISTANT PHOTOS indwes.edu/jwhc DR. KATIE KARNEHM EDITOR JER NELSEN SARA SCHEUNEMANN HOLLY WILLMAN JWHC STUDENTS Published Summer 2012 2 INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY JOHN WESLEY HONORS COLLEGE A NOTE FROM THE EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR Thanks in large part to research conducted at UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute, a growing number of stakeholders in higher education are pondering how greater attention to spirituality might foster a more meaningful and holistic education for college students. This past May, the John Wesley Honors College hosted a national research symposium on “spirituality and holistic learning in collegiate honors education.” The symposium was part of an ongoing book project for the National Collegiate Honors Council that is exploring how research and the developing national dialogue on spirituality in higher education might relate to the efforts of honors programs to educate academic high achievers. The participants in the symposium hailed from a diverse range of academic communities, from public and private non-sectarian campuses to universities sponsored by the Jesuit, Franciscan, Baptist, Pentecostal, Reformed and Wesleyan Methodist traditions. As I listened to the various presenters reflect on how their schools integrate spirituality into the learning experiences of their honors students, I was struck by two things. Firstly, I was reminded of how blessed we are in the JWHC to have the freedom and resources necessary to cultivate a community of academic excellence that embraces the fullness of human development: intellectual, moral, spiritual, interpersonal and vocational. Secondly, I felt a deep sense of gratitude for the increasing opportunities the Lord is giving us to share with the broader academy how a rigorous, holistic, liberal education forged in the historic Christian tradition can prepare students for meaningful lives of virtue and accomplishment. I hope and pray both that educators’ dissatisfaction with the reductionist nature of American higher learning will continue to grow in the years ahead and that we will have many more opportunities to embody and share the essence of the JWHC’s motto: “the glory of God is a human fully alive.” In this second issue of the Aldersgate Review, we are delighted to share with you some of the ways that the “glory of God” has been manifested in and through our learning community (of faculty, students and alumni) during the 2011-2012 academic year. It is particularly rewarding — and a sign of the vitality of the JWHC’s educational ministry — to see more than thirty JWHC student and faculty authors contributing to the richness of this issue. We are once again indebted to Katie Karnehm (JWHC alumna and assistant professor of English at IWU) and Sara Scheunemann (JWHC program coordinator) for the tireless editorial work they devoted to integrating the work of so many contributors into the final publication. May the Lord bless you with glimpses of his glory as you read the articles, reviews and essays that follow. Dr. David L. Riggs Executive Director, John Wesley Honors College INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY 3 JOHN WESLEY HONORS COLLEGE EXTRAVAGANCE AND THE AcADEMIC VOCATION MEDITATIONS ON MARK 14:3 by Dr. Amy L.B. Peeler, JWHC Postdoctoral Teaching Fellow, 2010-2012 While he was in Bethany at the home of Simon the leper, and reclining at the table, there came a woman with an alabaster vial of very costly perfume of pure [a]nard; and she broke the vial and poured it over his head. Mark 14:3 Amy offered this devotional meditation Jesus is at the house of Simon The crazy thing about this passage at the JWHC faculty retreat prior to the leper, a character previously is that Jesus isn’t upset with her. the start of the 2011-2012 academic unmentioned in Mark’s gospel, but She has performed a good work, year. Although her words apply whose story is surely similar to he says. She has anointed his body particularly to that community, that depicted at the beginning of for the upcoming burial, showing we trust that you may also find the book, where Jesus, moved with her grasp of the unfolding events. It encouragement in considering how compassion, heals a man afflicted would seem to be the case that hers God has called you to minister with leprosy. Simon the leper is a is a one-time act, an extravagance extravagantly. leper no more; he can now host justified only in light of his Amy, her husband Lance, and guests including the one who upcoming death. But Jesus goes their two children recently moved to rehabilitated him into society. The on to say that wherever the gospel Wheaton, Illinois, where Amy accepted very presence of this gathering is is preached, her story too will be a tenure-track position in New tinged with the air of Jesus’ power. remembered. Something about her Testament studies at Wheaton College. The group proclaims we are gathered act is paradigmatic, exemplary for here because Jesus has healed this future generations. You might have picked up on one man. It was a celebration of what I see a correspondence in what of my struggles in the time we have Jesus had accomplished for the she does and in our daily vocations. spent together. I often have this outcast of outcasts, the despised of We also do something extravagant. nagging — this biting — feeling society. We take the bountiful resources that I am not doing enough, During this meal, a woman enters given to us and pour them out in specifically for the poor. I have with a jar. Mark tells us in protracted ministry to our students and to our found myself thinking that the really prose that it is an alabaster jar, of guilds, our local manifestations of committed Christians are out there, ointment, of nard oil, pure and the body of Christ. All of us in our in the streets of Calcutta or at least expensive. This is no ordinary own ways contribute to the good of working full-time at St. Martins object. After lingering for just this God’s kingdom. This story reminds in Marion. What I do — what we moment to convey how exceptional me that the life of God’s kingdom do — seems so luxurious. We read, her possession is, in his quick-paced is not just one of survival, but of we contemplate, we discuss, we narrative style, Mark paints the abundance. We may not be out there research, we lecture, and not only picture of this woman walking in healing the lepers, but we could do we get paid for it, but we are to a meal already in progress and very well be blessing those who in respected for it. immediately breaking this jar and a few short years will do so. This is In times when those feelings pouring its contents over the head of not to say that we should ignore the become pressing, I’ve done some Jesus. The cultural gap being what poor or stop asking if God might soul searching. Am I truly where it is, this certainly wasn’t par for the call us to something unexpected and God wants me to be? And, at least so course. She surely would have gotten uncomfortable, but I am convinced far, time and time again, I have been everyone’s attention. The initial that, for this time, God has placed impressed with the peace that this is reaction of some is indignation, me here to minister extravagantly. the task for which God has equipped wonder at why she would destroy My prayer is that he will empower all me and to which he has called me in such a valuable possession. It could of us to be confident in our call and the present time. have been put to practical use, sold give us the strength and creativity to Reading Mark 14:3 caused me at a hefty price and given to meet the be exuberant in its practice.