The Philosophical Psychology Lab

By Natalie Ferjulian, (communication arts major ’10, summer student worker)

Though working for the Office of College Communications is always an adventure, I never imagined spending an afternoon rigged up with a light sensitive backpack computer, light proof goggles and buzzing headphones.  But I did.  All is part of a research project, coordinated by assistant professor of philosophy Brian Glenney, called the Philosophical Psychology Lab.

“We’re researching philosophical perceptions which pertain to what it’s like to experience the external world,” said Glenney.  “Practically, my hope is to develop a device for the visually impaired that informs them of their surroundings via sounds.”  The study mimics one done by Harvard professor Sean Kelly.

My experience of the device consisted of trying to tag a heart-shaped light attached to my opponent’s chest by relying on the camera on my head, which transmitted sounds to my headphones.  A sound in my left ear meant that the light was to my left while a sound from my right ear meant that the light was on my right.  At the same time a low-pitched sound meant that the light was below me, a high-pitched sound above me.  Aside from the confusion of signals from the necessary “exit” signs, my ears informed me well as I earned a six for six winning record.  Not to brag or anything.

But upon completing the Marco Polo-style experiment, Glenney shared that my efforts had just been a warm up for the real experiment.  “A little friendly competition is the best way to get you ready for the big game,” he said.

For the real deal I was put in a square room with push lights on three of the four walls.  My task? To locate and shut off the three lights as quickly as possible by relying on my sense of hearing, not touch.  It was frustrating until I made the connection that by getting the sound to play at equal volumes in both ears put me on the longitudinal plane of the light. 

While I spent only one afternoon participating in the project, Glenney and four other students have been working on the project since spring semester and are now completing their four-week summer research.  One student, Zachary Capalbo, a sophomore computer science/philosophy major, has even programmed his own device that translates color into sound.

Along with experiment that I participated in, "The Sensory Substitution Device," Glenney is working with shape consistency, the moon illusion and double vision.

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A Sustainable Farm on Fellows Road

In 2008 Fellows Farm was created by Erika Gorgenyi ’97, Amie Charland ’05 and another friend because of a shared interest in healthy, local foods and a desire to serve and educate the community on healthy living. Tim Laird—full-time farmer with The Food Project—has served as a consultant for Fellows Farm.
The farm, located in Ipswich on Fellows Road, was acquired after the three put an ad on Craigslist looking for space to farm. A family responded, offering two and a half acres of their land. “We love growing food for the community,” says Gorgenyi. “It’s so good to see our members week after week, getting to know them and showing them how their food is grown and who is growing it. It’s such an important connection that has been lost in our society. We also like being able to educate people. Members not only learn about food and healthy eating but also about the land and responsibility. We give opportunities for our members to walk around the farm, we offer recipe ideas for their produce, and we’ll also be offering a canning and preserving workshop so they learn how to not waste any of their food.”
Our driving principles are community, locally and organically grown produce, and sustainability. We are committed to growing organically—not using chemicals, synthetic pesticides, herbicides or fertilizers. We are committed to restoring nutrients to the soil with practices such as crop rotation, planting crops that are beneficial to the health of the soil, and using compost. Additionally, we have a strong commitment to the surrounding community and donate to a local shelter at least twice each week. We seek to provide our shareholders with as much information as we can about their food, including ways to cook and preserve it and the opportunity for our members to get out in the fields with us and experience the farm firsthand.”
Gorgenyi explains how a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) farm works: “People pay for their season of produce up front. This money helps us cover the costs of running the farm—buying seeds, equipment, etc., as well as working the land. Then the shareholders pick up their food weekly throughout the season. Members recognize they are sharing both the risks and rewards of farming since it is always subject to forces beyond our control—weather and pests. In this sense it is much more a community endeavor—sharing in the understanding of healthy food production and also investing in/supporting the local economy.”
Many members from the Gordon College and Gordon-Conwell communities have volunteered at Fellows Farm, and this past spring Ming Zheng, professor of biology, took a class to help with the construction of a new “hoop house,” a nonheated greenhouse.
Gorgenyi continues: “The produce is local and seasonal, meaning that we will have what grows well in this region at each stage of this growing season. So in early summer you’ll see lots of greens and the crops that do well in cooler temps. As the summer goes on you’ll see increased quantities and lots more variety—many of the more standard or familiar crops like tomatoes, peppers, carrots, squash, etc. Then as we get into the fall we’ll be back to some of the cooler weather crops and autumn veggies as well as pumpkins, winter squashes and the like. The growing season runs from late June through October (18–20 weeks).”
For more information email fellowsfarmipswich@gmail.com.

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The Institute for Public History Receives Grant

At the Park Plaza in Boston, David Goss (center), assistant professor of history, represented Gordon’s Institute for Public History (IPH) on the day the IPH received a $75,000 Partners in Preservation Grant for Salem’s Old Town Hall from Mayor Thomas Menino (2nd from right) and the American Express-National Trust for Historic Preservation Grant Committee. The grant will be used to help make renovations to Old Town Hall and Pioneer Village. Gordon’s Institute for Public History placed 2nd in a contest with 25 Massachusetts historic sites seeking grants from the committee!

(Photo by Nathan Fried-Lipski.)

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From the NBA to the Fighting Scots

For a man who’s played basketball since he was 5 years old, moving to New England to coach the Gordon College men’s basketball team is no big surprise. “Basketball is in my blood,” he says.
This is Tod Murphy, former National Basketball Association (NBA) player and current assistant coach for the University of California at Irvine, his alma mater. So how does a former NBA athlete come to coach at Gordon? “For six years I’ve led UCI’s men’s basketball team as the assistant coach and was the top assistant for the last three. I’m ready to be a head coach, and Gordon has an amazing level of athletic talent on their court,” says Murphy. He’s excited that academics are important at Gordon and knows the players on his team will not only care about improving their game but also about excelling academically and growing spiritually. “I’m looking forward to being a mentor to my players and getting involved with discipleship. I’m also excited about the quality of individual I get to coach—I know my team will be willing to learn.”

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Evangelicals and the Great Tradition: Part 3

More on “Ancient Wisdom, Anglican Futures,” the 3-day conference I attended June 4-6. Jason Clark (UK Vineyard pastor, and emergent church blogger), addressed the strengths of the emergent movement and also discussed areas of concern that suggest a need to reconnect with the broader range of Christian history and praxis. A (very) partial list, reconstructed from my notes:
• Institutional naivete—the notion that institutions are the enemy of good practice—paradoxically, without institutions there is no good practice. So the issue is not whether you are an institution, but what kind of institution you are. Saying you are a “religionless" church means nothing.
• Romanticizing the early Church—the notion that fellowship in the early Church was like a couple of friends hanging out in Starbucks. There’s a lack of understanding of the place of fallenness in the EC ecclesiology.
• Illusions of revolution—consumerism loves revolution. We think buying a music ticket is ending poverty. Real revolution has to do with the mundane ordinariness of life. The most revolutionary thing we can do as the Church is staying with each other over time and being reconciled.
• Naivete about certain metaphors—e.g., “organic” as opposed to “mechanistic”; “We need to do church like starfish.” We need to filter these metaphors.
• DIY (“do it yourself”) ecclesiology—a tendency towards novelty and pastiche. We may not know where a practice came from, but we like it and we’re just trying it out. Are we producing ecclesiologies that have more logic than the logic of the marketplace?
• Worship aesthetics—tend towards “therapeutic God spaces” when they should have a “cruciform identity.”
Jason has now begun blogging the conference: check it out.
UP NEXT: David Neff, “Robert Webber’s Ancient-Future Faith.”
(Patricia Hanlon, Gordon College Communications)

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Raising Children Who Transform Nations: A Lifelong Journey

After graduating from Gordon, Jeff Lander ’95 thought he would be a youth pastor for the rest of his career because that’s what he studied—youth ministry and Bible. In fact, from 1995 to 2000 he was the youth and children’s pastor at First Baptist Church in Manchester, Massachusetts. He served eight more years as the youth, music and young families pastor in Port Townsend, Washington. But God was working on his heart, preparing him and changing him to do a different kind of ministry.
Today Jeff is a full-time missionary with Children of the Nations (COTN), a nonprofit organization that rescues, raises and supports orphaned and destitute children in Africa and the Dominican Republic. COTN is partnering with nationals to provide wholistic, Christ-centered care, enabling them to create positive and lasting change in their nations. How did he get there? According to Lander, God was doing a work on his heart long ago, during his time at Gordon.
“It wasn’t just the classroom studies that made the biggest impact on who I am and what I’m doing now. It was Gordon’s professors, the extracurricular opportunities, the critical thinking, the friends, the disappointments, the opportunity to fail (and I did some of that) and the opportunity to get up and try again until I succeeded. I needed to think for myself and to make my own decisions. I needed chapel services to appreciate the diversity of God’s love and His extension of grace to all mankind.”
“I remember sitting in chapel and distinctly hearing God break through Reverend Dean Lee’s message, whispering to me, ‘I want you to go to Guatemala with World Focus.’ It was crazy, because I had already missed the sign-up date and had never talked about going on a mission trip with anyone. But He kept on saying it over and over. I truly believe God was calling me then to introduce me to missions, which is what I do for COTN today—I manage all teams going to Africa and the Dominican Republic. Amazing!”
Lander enjoys his work and finds a lot of things rewarding about his job. “I love exposing people to the mission and vision of Children of the Nations through Venture Team trips. I help create positive and lasting change for the children of the nations in Sierra Leone, Malawi, Uganda and the Dominican Republic. I can also attest to the daily provision from God by living out my faith as a full-time, self-supported missionary in one of the worst economies in recent history.” But Lander says the most rewarding part of his job is raising children who were once destitute and helping to transform nations. “I’m a part of a movement of people who aren’t interested in fortune, fame or glory. I’m a part of something much, much bigger than myself—a story God’s been writing for a long, long time.”
To learn more about COTN, to read about children’s lives they’ve impacted or to find out how you can make an impact, go to www.COTNI.org or call Jeff at 360.271.9393. You can also view his blog at http://venturingoutwithcotn.blogspot.com/.
Photo, entitled "Feet," is of children waiting for lunch in Malawi—a COTN ministry to orphans that provides care and lunch for thousands of children. Photo courtesy of Children of the Nations.

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Evangelicals and the Great Tradition: Part 2

What is the emergent movement, anyway?

Jason Clark, coordinator of Emergent-UK, and Holly Rankin Zaher, also a player in the emergent movement, took turns mapping out the territory in the first presentation at the “Ancient Wisdom, Anglican Futures” conference at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, June 4–6 (reporting: Patricia Hanlon).

Jason stated that less than 2 percent of the population in the UK regularly attends church—it’s a “wasteland of a secular postmodern context.” That’s why the emergent movement has entered the scene—precisely because the institutional church was not reaching people. He sees in the emergent movement “the response of the Holy Spirit through all denominations to the changes in the culture. There’s a stream that has come about consciously among charismatics and evangelicals that something is not right. Intellectual assent in propositional prayers so we go to heaven when we die—isn’t Christianity more than that? We’re finding a space to discover that.”

Holly described the emergent church (EC) as a response to four changes in culture: consumerism, information technologies, globalism and celebrity culture. “These four factors shape how we are responding,” she said. “The missional church is asking—instead of being attractional, how can we be missional? Our Christology shapes our missiology and our missiology shapes our ecclesiology. Dymanic tension between the three factors (Christology, missiology and ecclesiology) is at play. Different streams in the emergent movement gravitate toward one or the other.”

Holly identified these values of the EC:
• identify with the life of Jesus—a high view of Scripture
• transform the secular realm
• live highly communal lives
• welcome the stranger
• serve with generosity
• participate as producers
• create as created beings
• lead as a body
• take part in spiritual activities

She also referred to a number of subsets of the emergent movement:
• neomonastics
• neocalvinists (Tim Keller, et. al.)
• neo-Anabaptists
• neo-missiologists (Christine Schwartz, Wolfgang Simpson)
• digital Pentecostals
• neo-liberals

Next post: Problems with the emergent movement.

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Evangelicals and the Great Tradition

In early June I attended a conference at Trinity School for Ministry in Ambridge, Pennsylvania, thanks to Gordon’s Administrative Development Grants Program. The conference, “Ancient Wisdom, Anglican Futures” held an obvious interest for me: I am a member of a local Episcopal church that has a long history of Gordon connections. The chief question posed by the organizers of the conference was: “How do Anglican ‘insiders’ welcome young evangelicals, post-evangelicals and emergents who are attracted to the ‘Great Tradition’?”
Though Gordon is nondenominational, this is one of those critical questions we wrestle with as well: What does “tradition” mean to evangelicals? How can students, faculty and alumni representing a broad range of Christian traditions tap into the Great Tradition? Is there even such a thing as a "Great Tradition"?
The conference was a rich feast with an amazing list of speakers, most of them non-Anglican and all of them, as Jason Clark (UK Vineyard pastor, Deep Church blogger, and one of the conference organizers) put it, “on the front line of responding to these questions.” I had the great joy of sharing dinner with Jason (pictured, above, with Holly Rankin Zaher, director of student discipleship at St. George’s Episcopal Church, Nashville, Tennessee) at the home of one of Trinity’s faculty members. In the next few weeks I will be blogging some of my “take-aways” from the conference.
If , like me, you are interested in understanding the relevance of tradition for postmodern times, consider this a cordial invitation to weigh in.
Coming up next: Jason Clark on “The Emergent Church: Contributions and Pitfalls.”
--Patricia Hanlon, director of Gordon College publications

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Gordon Student Uncovers History Treasures

This past spring, history major Dan Hayner ’09 scoured through old documents, photographs, books and artifacts in the Gordon College archives, each reflecting a part of Gordon’s history as well as New England, religion and media histories. Hayner categorized the collections and wrote brief summaries of each for a new archives page on the Gordon College public website, which is now available at www.gordon.edu/archives.

The archives—housed on the second floor of Jenks Library—contain artifacts, rare books, correspondence, newspapers, magazines and other writings as well as photographs, films, audio recordings and school records from the past two centuries. They include valuable materials for researchers, writers, scholars, authors and filmmakers interested in subjects such as 19th-century evangelical revivals in Boston, New England newspapers, Billy Graham’s young ministry, 18th-, 19th- and 20th-century funeral sermons, Clarendon Street Baptist Church (Gordon’s first campus), British abolitionist William Wilberforce, and a large collection of William Shakespeare materials, among others.

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VISTA Grant Allows Recent Grad to Work with Underprivileged Youth

Two weeks before graduation and on his birthday, communication arts major and Dover, New Hampshire, resident Jon Nystedt ’09 received a gift many graduates hope for: a job. But Nystedt’s career began three years before—first as a volunteer with Gordon in Lynn, then as an intern with the program. During his senior year he completed his academic requirements as a public relations intern with Girls Inc., a Gordon in Lynn partner organization.
Now, thanks to a grant through the Massachusetts Campus Compact (MACC), as an AmeriCorps VISTA worker, Nystedt will serve full-time with Gordon in Lynn, working closely with the Lynn Housing Authority and further developing its youth programs including the College Bound program coordinated by Gordon in Lynn.
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The Microwave That Changed Everything

Steve Landwehr reports from the Gloucester Daily Times:

The microwave oven may be the only technological advancement in cooking since the invention of the electric refrigerator.
Stoves and ranges? Modern variants of the caveman’s fire pit. Electric mixers? Motorized versions of the stick early man used to stir the pot.
But what the microwave did for popcorn and dinner-in-a-tray is what the assembly line did for manufacturing—it changed everything.
Gordon College was recently given the archives of longtime trustee Tom Phillips, the former Raytheon CEO and president who spent 42 years with the company, where microwave technology was developed in the late 1940s.

Read the rest of the article.

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Old Town Hall Receives Funding from the State

In today’s Salem News reporter Tom Dalton made an announcement that Old Town Hall received money to work on refurbishing projects in this Gordon-run space:

In the morning state officials held a press conference in the 1816 brick building in Derby Square to announce a $174,000 state grant for renovations. Hours later, at a luncheon in Boston, the former municipal building and marketplace got another $75,000 from American Express’ Partners in Preservation program.
"It's a big day," said Kristina Stevick, codirector of the Institute for Public History at Gordon College, which signed a five-year lease last summer to operate Old Town Hall.
The combined $249,000 will be used to address a long list of projects that includes buying a furnace, reglazing windows, installing structural supports and refurbishing basement bathrooms."

Read the rest of the article.

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Chapel and Convo in Review

Dani Zorn ’09 (communications arts major and business minor) was the Communications Office student intern for the past (spring) semester. One of her responsibilities was to review Gordon’s chapel and convocation series. Of the experience she writes:

“I was excited to only have to go to 15 chapels the last semester of my senior year—this is one of the privileges seniors normally have. But the joke was on me when I learned one of the assignments for my internship was to write the reviews for just about EVERY chapel and convocation.
“As I sat in the pew every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, however, I realized how much I had missed while daydreaming in chapel the years past. Taking notes for the summaries taught me valuable lessons the Lord wanted me to specifically hear. I was convicted, moved and challenged this semester, and by writing these summaries I got to take advantage of the blessing that chapel is for students at Gordon College.”

Dani realized her passion for writing feature articles during her internship semester and hopes to one day write for a magazine or have her own newspaper column. In the meantime, Dani enjoys doing anything outside, hanging out with her family, and getting sweet tea from McDonald’s.
Read a selection of her reviews, and browse audio recordings of Gordon’s chapel and convocation speakers.

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Sandra Doneski Named Massachusetts Music Educator of the Year

For over a decade Sandra Doneski, associate professor of music at Gordon College (pictured, top left), has directed a number of outstanding choirs for children on the North Shore. This summer, though, Doneski will be overseeing the summer program as the newly honored Massachusetts Music Educator of the Year.
Read more about Doneski and about Gordon's Summer Music Academy...

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New Scholarship for Women and Minority Students Accompanies Donated Archives

Thomas L. Phillips, longtime Gordon College trustee and former CEO of Raytheon Company, has donated his Raytheon archives to the College, recognizing its ongoing commitment to science and technology scholarship. The Phillips/Raytheon archives are the second technology related archives housed at Gordon College since Ken Olsen donated the archives from the Digital Equipment Corporation last fall.

To coincide with the donation, William H. Swanson, current Raytheon chairman and CEO, announced at a recent College tribute to Phillips, the creation of the Phillips/Raytheon Scholarship for women and students of color at Gordon College pursuing majors in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). The $100,000 scholarship, in honor of Phillips’ service to Raytheon and his commitment to local communities, is the first of its kind for STEM students at the New England campus.

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Sustainable Youth Ministry

“Churches often approach youth ministry in the manner castaways on Survivor take to setting up their shelter the first day on the island: trial and error. Once the shelter collapses or leaks during the first rainstorm, the tribe engages in a predictable argument of ‘I told you so!’“
Read more of Mark Cannister’s review in YouthWorker Journal...
Cannister is a professor of Christian ministries at Gordon.

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Science and the Sacred

University of Chicago biologist Jerry Coyne recently objected to the suggestion that humans might actually be a part of God’s creative plan. Like most of the so-called “new atheists,” he denounces the idea that evolution—all by its lonesome, blind, purposeless, unguided self—would ever find its way to such an improbably unique species as human beings.
Read the rest of Karl Giberson’s beliefnet article...

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Proloquo2Go: New iPhone App Assists the Disabled

Sam Sennott ’04, along with a colleague, has recently released the Proloquo2Go, a complete communication system for the iPod Touch or iPhone that helps those with developmental disabilities to communicate. Sennott was recently interviewed on Patrick Black’s Teaching All Students blog:

I originally became interested in working with people with disabilities at age 19 when I volunteered at the Michael Carter Lisnow Respite Center in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. It was like a second family for me in no time. I was holding babies with cerebral palsy, leading crafts and outings with adults with developmental disabilites, and starting to learn about teaching and job coaching. It inspired me to get a dual certification degree in special education and elementary education from Gordon College, a fantastic small school by the ocean on the North Shore of Boston, Massachusetts.

Read the rest of the interview, and browse Sam's website, along with this article on the Proloquo2Go in USA Today. And be sure to see the Proloquo2Go in action.

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President Carlberg Receives High School Alumni Award

On Friday, May 22, 2009, R. Judson Carlberg received the Alumni of the Year Award—from his high school! The B.M.C. Durfee High School Alumni Association in Fall River, Massachusetts, honored R. Judson Carlberg as one of only two distinguished alumni. President Carlberg, a 1958 alumnus (yup, that’s him in his senior yearbook), was awarded the honor at Nagle Auditorium on the Durfee campus last Friday.  

Dr. Carlberg is the seventh president of Gordon, and also serves on a variety of boards, one of which is another of his alma maters, Denver Seminary, where he received his M.A., and M.Div. in 1965. Currently he is the only college president from a Christian college to be elected to the Board of Directors for the National Council for Higher Education Accreditation, which is based in Washington, D.C.  It seems the Durfee high school grad is still a successful man on campus, and still loves basketball, orchestra and bands!

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Recapturing a Homeric Legacy

Graeme Bird, assistant professor of language and linguistics, recently completed a chapter in a book titled Recapturing a Homeric Legacy: Images and Insights from the Venetus A Manuscript of the Iliad, edited by Casey Dué.

Bird says, “The book deals with the oldest complete manuscript of Homer’s Iliad in existence, Venetus A, which resides in the famous Marciana Library in Venice, Italy. This manuscript dates from the 10th century A.D., but it contains, as well as the Homeric text, detailed commentary dating back to 1,300 years before that.

“In May 2007 a multinational team of scholars and conservators, including myself, traveled to Venice in order to obtain high-resolution images of the manuscript; this book deals both with unique features of the manuscript itself and with the technology involved in acquiring the images.”

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Magical Music—A Collaborative Project

Michael Monroe (music faculty) writes:
One thing I really value about our Music Department is the sense of community among the students. Last year when my music history class got to early 18th-century comic opera, particularly the popular and freely borrowing style of John Gay’s The Beggar’s Opera, I got into a spontaneous discussion with the class about the possibility of replacing a paper-writing project with a group opera-writing project. We chickened out for a variety of reasons, but the idea stuck with me, and when I was planning for this year, I realized we had a class very well-suited to the task.
Read more about this collaborative project involving Monroe and his students—Andrew, Austin, Beth, Chris, Christine, Diana, Dina, Ian, Jillian, Joe, Kassandra, Katie, Mary, Nate, and Paul...

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Bagpiper Rob Knectle Leads the Class of 2009

Saturday, May 16, Rob Knechtle ’09, communication arts major, led his class in the Commencement procession . . . with his bagpipe! We wondered about his unique instrument and decided to ask him about it before he left Gordon.
Q: When/where did you start playing the bagpipes?
Rob: I started playing when I was 14. My cousins and brother picked it up as well while we were vacationing in Nova Scotia. We began taking lessons at the Gaelic College on Cape Breton Island, and I continued to do that each summer
Q: Where do you practice while you’re at Gordon?
Rob: I practice outside if I can. If I play inside, it’s usually too loud. I often go to the Gordon woods to play, but since I’m living off campus, I’ll play at the beach instead.
Q. Do you play often for Gordon?
Rob: I’ve played at Homecoming and a few other events, about four or five times a year.
Q. How do you feel about leading the class procession for graduation?
Rob: It’ll be an honor to lead the class. It feels like an appropriate ending to my time here. I’m a little nervous about leading such a great group of people I’ve come to love.
Q: Who will take over after you leave?
Rob: I heard there is an incoming freshman who might play, but my cousin also enjoys the instrument, so he might pick up where I left off.
Q: You will continue to play the bagpipes once you leave Gordon, right?
Rob: Most definitely. I’d like to learn a few other variations of the instrument, such as the Irish pipes that are played on the soundtrack of Braveheart.
Q. What are your plans after graduation?
Rob: I’m going to be working at a sports camp back home in Connecticut for the summer, but I’d like to visit Scotland at least once.

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Steve Kefalas, Junior Baseball Player, is "Mr. Versatility"

The Hamilton-Wenham Chronicle recently published an article about Gordon College junior Steve Kefalas:

What to call Steve Kefalas? That is the big question for the Gordon College baseball program these days. Is he Steve Kefalas, the reliable pitcher who picked up three wins including a huge one against eventual conference champion Western New England College? Is he Steve Kefalas, the slugger who batted .290 with a team-leading 29 RBI? How about Steve Kefalas, Mr. Versatility, who has played each position except first base for the Fighting Scots in his three years at the Wenham College?
“We call him the Golden Greek 3,” said Gordon’s Coach John Ryan. That’s a prestigious honor, especially when you follow the late Lynn and Boston Red Sox legend Harry Agganis and another ballplayer near and dear to Gordon’s program. The Commonwealth Coast Conference has another name for Kefalas–Honorable Mention All-Star.

Read more about this student-athlete...

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From Greece to Gordon

What do Greece, field hockey and Gordon College have in common? The answer is Ariande Niavradaki. The ’09 biblical and theological studies major, originally from South Africa and Greece, moved to the Boston area with her husband, Peter, in 2007 for his residency in pediatrics and internal medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital while Ari attended Gordon.
Read more of Dani Zorn’s article about this Gordon athlete...

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Using Adaptive Technology to Learn through Dyslexia

Because many students struggle with disabilities while at Gordon, the Academic Support Center (ASC) acts as a liaison between students with disabilities and faculty, setting up appropriate accommodations like recorded audio books, quiet testing areas, extended time on tests, notetakers during class and special advising. They also help with time management, study skills, specialized advising, issues related to learning disabilities and ESL as well as general troubleshooting.
When it comes to adapting to dyslexia, Katie Whallon is a pro. A sophomore business administration major, Katie uses the adaptive technologies provided by the ASC to achieve success in her courses.
Dyslexia is a specific learning disability that occurs when the brain lacks the neurological connections to decode phonemes, the basis of written language, which causes reading difficulties in otherwise bright students. Katie has overcome her difficulty to the point where she can read competently, but long assignments and dense texts still exhaust her mentally.
To facilitate her studies, she uses Kurzweil Educational Systems reading software. This program can read out loud from text files with nearly flawless precision, allowing students with dyslexia to simply scan their textbooks into a computer, load them into the program, and listen to their assigned readings. In Katie’s case, because she has developed her auditory comprehension to compensate for her reading difficulty, she can listen to the Kurzweil reader at up to twice normal speaking speed. People with dyslexia often develop such outstanding abilities, although the process of listening will always be slower than the average reading speed for students without dyslexia.
The adaptive technologies offered by the ASC make it possible for students with learning disabilities to thrive at Gordon. Still, Katie points out, “The software is not meant to substitute for learning but to enhance the learning.” For her these tools are not crutches but running shoes.

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Packing for a Wildnerness Expedition

Nate Hausman, director of Adirondack programs writes:

The end of the school year means the beginning of the La Vida Expeditions season. Seventy-three Gordon students began their La Vida experience last night and this morning, joined by 18 La Vida leaders, or Sherpas as they are known on trip. The nine groups will all begin their 12-day wilderness trip here on campus with time spent on the ropes course.
Following the ropes course, the groups drive to La Vida’s base camp property in the Adirondack Mountains of New York. La Vida owns 75 acres just outside of Lake Placid, home of the 1930 and 1982 winter Olympics.
Groups spend the next nine days traveling through the largest state park in the continental U.S., either backpacking or canoeing. 2009 marks La Vida’s 39th summer of ministry in the ADKs. Please pray for all the students and staff as they journey into the wilderness to hear God’s still small voice.

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Commencement 2009

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Seniors Wrap Up Academic Year with Public Presentations

From pacifism, human trafficking, and the sleep patterns of college students, to Bronte, Medea and Madison Avenue, seniors at Gordon in their final semester explored a wide variety of academic and theological interests to complete their studies. Graduating students across disciplines presented original research, creative projects and public talks about their work as part of their course or thesis requirements.
Read more about student research and other projects...

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National Voices in Modern Abolition Movement are 2009 Baccalaureate and Commencement Speakers

Two prominent leaders in the modern antislavery movement have been chosen to address the Gordon College Class of 2009 during the 117th graduation ceremonies.
For the graduates’ final worship service on Friday, May 15, Rev. Gloria White-Hammond, M.D., will speak at the 5 p.m. Baccalaureate Service in the A. J. Gordon Memorial Chapel. On Saturday, May 16, at 10 a.m. on the quad in front of Frost Hall, Dr. David Batstone will address the class during the Commencement Ceremony. This year an estimated 375 students will receive bachelor's degrees in the liberal arts and sciences from Gordon.
Read more about these Commencement speakers...

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Senior Project Turns to a Swashbuckling Adventure for Computer Programming

Pirates are all the rage–whether they’re stealing our imaginations in movies or causing a ruckus in foreign seas. At Gordon College they are making an appearance in the virtual world. “For whatever reason, computer geeks love pirates,” said Steve Brinton, associate professor of computer science. And this new computer program is no exception.
Brinton has been working with seniors Chris Pfohl and Adam Elnagger on their senior seminar project: CPirates–a computer program that uses a pirate game to teach computer programming concepts. “It was one of those dream moments,” Brinton said. He admits that learning to write programs that resemble something like the numbers trickling down in The Matrix can be pretty dry for students. “I try to make things as interesting as I can,” Brinton said, “but a lot of programming theory is not hands-on.”
Over the years Brinton noticed the increase of students playing video games in their spare time. Thinking outside the box, Brinton wanted to take something “dry” like learning theories behind computer programming and turn it into something more interactive. CPirates was the answer.
According to Pfohl, cocreator of CPirates, students write the programs telling their pirate ship what direction to move. If the code is programmed correctly, the ship should travel around the map. If the ship is programmed incorrectly, it will travel in circles or not move at all. This means Brinton can see if his lessons are sinking in or not by the way the pirate ships travel. So it looks like students are learning how to control a ship, but they are really learning how to control a computer.
CPirates is also designed to be competitive—allowing other programmers to see the progress of their classmates—and programmers have to watch out for more than just classmates. Pfohl and Elnagger have created sea monsters to navigate around, treasure chests to find, villages to plunder and other adventures besides ship navigation.
The program will continue to be developed with other students taking an active part in their and their peers’ virtual education after Pfohl and Elnagger graduate.

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