Campus Blogs

On the first Sunday of our visit to India we were given the immense privilege of traveling with everyone to another school for Sunday worship. The ride there was long, extremely bumpy and at moments seemingly frightening but by this time we’d gotten used to the traffic system in India so an oncoming truck in our lane proved to bring us excited anticipation rather than sheer terror. Our drivers are amazingly skilled! When we got to the city we started with the bathing ceremony, something I had only heard about but had yet to witness. All I knew was that we were going to be completely soaked afterwards and we were... drenched completely from head to foot. It started with all the girls standing on the ledge on the left side of the huge bathing pool and all the boys standing on the ledge on the right. After the pastor spoke and prayed something I didn’t understand, we were given the freedom to jump into the water and be ritually bathed by one another in a ceremony that they see as a sort of communal baptism. I know that this ritual holds for them much significance and I wish it was something I could continue to take part in because I found so much joy in splashing around in that water with all those girls, drenching them and allowing them to drench me. Though I’ve held caution against the water here in Agra this whole trip, there was no way to avoid ingesting just a little bit of that water because some of these girls splashed me like there was no tomorrow. Being able to experience freedom from the fear of water contamination and just embrace the joy that was present in the pool with those girls was one of the sweetest experiences of my life. My love for them, for India and for God was deepened as I partook in such a unique and significant ritual. When the bathing ceremony was over, we got out of the pool and got in one huge line to continue in a ritual of prayer. Before starting the prayer walk we were marked with a bright pink cross on our foreheads and there was a holiness like I’ve never experienced as I glanced around at the multitude of crosses that marked us as followers of Yeshu. We proceeded to walk around the pool 6 times, repeating certain prayers over and over. The 6 walks around represented the 6 branches that are at the core of this ministry. There were also 6 bells to be rung at the beginning of each walk. The prayer walk lasted quite some time and all the while I was still drenched from the pool but it was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. Though I didn’t understand what the others were praying, I was still able to participate in praying over them and over the ministry because God is up to some amazing things here and it’s such a pleasure and an honor to see. Walking around the pool with the people I had grown to love so much was such a unifying experience for us all and it helped make me feel more at home with these people. I know that the rest of my team would feel the same way. After these two rituals we posted personal prayers on the prayer wall and then proceeded to the main worship service which was neat because we were able to take part in communion India-style, with fruit juice and chapatti! Then we toured the school there and got to see more of what the ministry has been up to since its foundation. It was incredible! I loved this day! -Alex Rios  

All I can say is thank goodness I am not driving in India, because I can’t even compete with the drivers here!  First of all, Indian drivers drive on the left side of the road.   Second, they honk as if their lives depend on it.  And third, traffic jams are insane!  The streets are filled with small cars, tractors pulling heavy loads behind them, gigantic trucks, millions of motorcycles, people pushing carts, and even the occasional cow or camel.  The vehicles are so jam-packed with people that there are even individuals standing on the back bumpers of cars and riding on the tops of trucks.  In the city, the streets are always full and busy with zooming, honking cars, and the country roads are rough and narrow.  In America, if a car drove past another and was only inches away, the drivers would most likely freak out.  In India, if a car is only a few inches away from another car, it means one car can move closer another inch or two.  One of the most bizarre things to see is “please honk” painted on the backs of large trucks.  Honking in America usually only happens when the driver is angry with road rage, impatience or in emergencies, but in India, honking usually is a way of telling other drivers that you are there behind or beside them.  So far, I have seen gigantic trucks only inches away from my car window while passing them on country roads and I have been stuck in the center of a traffic jam where our car was literally the center of a huge traffic circle.  The funny thing is, I feel very safe with my excellent Indian drivers and being a passenger in India is pretty fun.  There is always someone honking, zooming between lanes, headed straight towards you on the wrong side of the road, and any other crazy situations you might be able to think of. I am so blessed to have drivers that will take my group and I places when needed, because I would not survive Indian traffic if I were the driver.  If these Indian drivers were to come to America and drive, they would probably be the safest people to drive with because they are very skilled and are prepared for anything to happen.  No matter what people might say about driving in India, that it is dangerous and scary, it is weird and unusual, or it is crazy and makes people sick, one thing that can be said is that India has some very skilled drivers! -Landi Mello

[gallery] Yesterday morning I woke up to the subtle sound of bells. This pleasing sound came from the kitchen where our cook was diligently making our breakfast. The amazing smells fill our rooms as we are greeted with chipati (a delicious flatbread).  Another person who has helped us is our chipati wala (man who brings chipati), he fixes our air conditioners and he is our hero. He is just as much as a servant as our cook. He will fix our air conditioner as often as we ask, and care for all of our other needs. This team comes just to serve visitors. Humility and hospitality is overflowing from them. They have allowed us to fully focus on our task at hand, and not on hunger. After dinner, they patiently wait for us to finish planning before they can clean up. Neither of them knows a lick of English, but their constant laughter caused by our attempts in Hindi provides fun communication. Our entire team is overjoyed at the opportunity to meet and interact with these two individuals. I cannot wait to try and break language barriers with them and fill the room with laughter. –Gina Hilty  

Follow the journeys of India 2012,a part of the FPU Short Term Study Abroad Program!

From June 25-July 11 Team 1 will work with a ministry helping to run a children's camp for under-served children.

On July 12 Team 2 will arrive and, together with Team 1, begin a sojourn of India, its cultures, religions and ministries. Our travels begin in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh and will take us to Delhi, Punjab, and Haridwar. We return to the U.S. on July 30. Follow our journey and experiences!

Last week five of us from Fresno Pacific attended the annual "Academic Resource Conference" of our regional senior college and university accrediting agency, the Western Association of Schools and Colleges or WASC. Three of our Deans (Dr. Gary Gramenz, Dean of Education, Dr. Cindy Carter, Dean of Degree Completion and Dr. John Kilroy, Dean of Business), and our President, Dr. Merrill Ewert who is Commissioner for WASC, joined with me in Costa Mesa (it's a tough place to serve, but we all must do our part) for two full days. We also spent some time with our soon-to-be new President, Dr. Pete Menjares. I am very happy to report that the events of this year's meeting were not nearly so jarring as last year (see my blog from April of last year). Then the Federal Department of Education had mandated seat-time requirements in an age when universities and students everywhere are looking for alternatives (online, blended, accelerated programs, etc.). As someone said this year, 'if the DOE worried about 'seat-time' they are concerned with the wrong end of the student.' Well yes, but the DOE is concerned primarily about abuses of federal aid awarded to students, particularly at for-profit institutions. We get caught in the cross fire. All of us are learning to adapt to the heavy-handed regulations and at the same time concentrate on the achievement of "student learning outcomes." This is the right end of the student on which to concentrate. WASC encourages this concentration, with the goal of "Continuous Improvement" as a learning organization. There were many presentations on how to measure learning, what contributes to learning, how to demonstrate learning, how to move institutions to encourage greater learning. I am always, each year I attend, encouraged by the dedication of creative professionals at all kinds of schools—from our independent religious colleges and universities, to state universities, to research institutions, to specialized academies. We were each able to enter into wide ranging discussions with our colleagues from across the state and beyond. We are in a reaccreditation year, so this meeting was especially of interest to me as our current "ALO" (accreditation liaison officer). It was my third WASC trip of the year. We picked up a number of tips, got confirmation on what we are doing, and sorted through some thorny problems. Perhaps the best time, was sitting with colleagues from other schools, other members of the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities, or those with whom I have served on visiting teams for accreditation visits over the years. I met up with friends from Azusa, Biola, Vanguard, Cal Baptist, Claremont, CSU East Bay to name a few. We are all in this together, even when we occasionally compete for students. When we come together for discussion of learning and how to guide our institutions, faculty and students toward greater achievement, we become one big classroom. There are few secrets and information is shared widely and openly. We encourage and teach each other. Our campus is now working on, and will continue to concentrate intensely on our WASC "self-study." We will analyze our progress, the level of student learning accomplished, present evidence for that accomplishment (called in accreditation jargon "assessment"), and finally will host a "visiting team" of educators from other schools who will make a recommendation to the WASC Commission for our status as an accredited institution of higher education. (It sounds so simple here, but it will consist of something like two one hundred page reports, plus several hundred pieces of supporting evidence and documents.) It is a unique peer review process in comparison to most of the world where institutions of higher education are regulated by governments. To my way of thinking it is something to be preserved. It allows many unique kinds of institution to thrive, and makes different forms of education available to students with unique needs and desires.

Wednesday evening I had the pleasure of attending the annual Alpha Chi dessert to honor professors at Fresno Pacific. Alpha Chi is a national interdisciplinary honor society and our chapter has been very active, receiving the "Star Chapter" award for six years running. This is one of the highlights of my year. The students are articulate and insightful, so I heard some of the best of what is happening among our traditional undergraduates in the arts, sciences, and humanities. Dr. Fay Nielsen, Associate Dean for Student Success, and Dr. Marshall Johnston, Assistant Professor of History and Classics sponsor the club and hosted the event. Dr. Nielsen has lead the chapter for 13 years, and is now turning it over to Dr. Johnston. She has also served as the Regional President. Last month eight of our Alpha Chi students attended the national Alpha Chi conference in Baltimore. The University paid for their trip. Some universities require the students to raise funds for the conference. We would rather they work on papers to present—it is a required that they present a paper to be able to attend—than work on a bake sale to raise funds. They presentation had titles like "The Rhetoric of Paul," "The Implications of Eyeglasses on Human Mate Selection," "King Alfred's Proto-Chivalrous Goal," "The Master of Baroque Sculpture: Gian Lorenzo Bernini," "You are Fat: An Observation of American Obesity by a Foreigner," and "'Annui Magistratus Imperiaque Legum Potentiora Quam Hominum": Livy's Use of Libertas in his First Pentad." Genevieve received the "American History Presentation Prize" for her paper "The Contribution of Mennonite Women to Civilian Public Service During World War II." Michaelynne was a Regional Scholarship Winner. And Joshua became a Region VII Student Representative on the National Planning Committee for the conference next year. This is all great academic and professional experience for students. It pushes them to excel and they compete well with students from across the country. The highlight to the evening is hearing the students honor the professors they have selected as "Inspirational." Patrick honored Dr. Don Diboll for his how he works personally with his kinesiology students, helps them learn how to be professionals, takes them into the field, and works intensively with them on the science of fitness. Dr. Brian Schultz teaches Hebrew and Old Testament. Ana, who is not a Biblical Studies major, has taken multiple courses from Prof. Schultz because he has shown her new perspectives in understanding the Bible, because he is always learning, and because of his gift for teaching. When a student takes a tough course because they are drawn to how the instructor teaches and how much they learn, something is really happening. Maria honored one of our adjunct instructors of Spanish language and culture, Ms Ana Ponce. Ms Ponce not only encourages students to seek knowledge and to learn deeply, but volunteers as a faculty sponsor of the "FOCUS" club, "Fellowship of Catholic University Sunbirds." Loretta honored Dr. Sherry Walling who took extra time to help prepare her for interviews for graduate school and connected her with professors in the schools she is hoping to attend. Bobby spoke about how Dr. Billie Jean Wiebe always advocates for the student's voice, and whose courses are both enriching and challenging. It doesn't get much better than this for an academic administrator—some of our most accomplished students honoring some of our most demanding and inspiring professors. Our goal as professors at Fresno Pacific is to be excellent teachers and mentors of students, to be accomplished scholars, and to form a community of learners, students and faculty together. When I attend this event, see not only the students and professors there, but our deans and the President as well, I am reminded that this is what an institution of higher learning is about, and that I am honored simply to be a part of it.

Finally we are getting somewhere. Just last week, The Chronicle of Higher Education, the major news journal of Higher Education, released its new website http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/. The Project was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation and is the most sophisticated and user-friendly site I have seen on college and university graduation rates. This is a major step in just the right direction for anyone desiring to know how seriously a college or university they might be contemplating entering takes its work of education. Other sites that are helpful are, for instance, the California Colleges site developed with the assistance of the Association of Independent California Colleges and Universities (AICCU), or AICCU's "UCAN" ("You can go to college") site which offers information on California independent colleges and universities. Both sites are helpful but do not allow for the comparisons the new Chronicle site does. Or one can go to the US Department of Education's IPEDS (Integrated Postsecondary Education Data Systems) site. However it is not nearly as friendly to use. It is built for researchers and government purposes, and these purposes are often not the same as the student or parent of students attempting to get a fix on the schools they are interested in. Plus it doesn't give particularly useful breakouts of data for comparison—its work to use. A couple of weeks ago President Obama announced his desire to create a College Scorecard and asked for public comment. I cannot help but think that private cooperative initiatives will be more helpful. Government efforts, no matter how well intentioned, are often heavy handed and do not provide the ease and directness we need. The issue of the Chronicle in which the College Completion site was announced included a number of opinion pieces on why graduation rates are not the only measure of quality. Colleges and universities have an interest in what the data shows. Some may not look too good, compared to peers. Others are directed by state policy to have open entrance standards (that means a student does not need to have competitive grades or test scores to be admitted). Their primary mission is "access" rather than graduation. Those schools with higher entrance standards (higher selectivity in HE jargon) enroll students who are better prepared, often more serious about their studies, and so graduate at higher rates. And researchers, by their professional training, like to raise questions of the data. It's what they do. And they are at least partially correct. Graduation doesn't measure everything. Some students, for instance, do not intend to graduate; they want classes to improve their skills, or a certificate in a certain professional area. And graduation rates do not measure quality. One way to increase graduation rates is to lower the demands of course work—fewer might fail, and more will graduate. No doubt there are all kinds of reasons why graduation rates are not the final measure of learning. But let me declare myself in the debate. I am all for the new site and the ability to have access to comparable data in order to consider carefully the college or university anyone is looking into. One of the new initiatives of The Western Association of Schools and Colleges (WASC, our accrediting agency) is to promote transparency, to encourage the presentatin of clear information about student retention (continuation from year to year) and graduation rates as a basic measure from which to begin to measure institutional quality. I embrace this move and the help that the new site provides in assisting students, parents, and higher education institutions themselves see more clearly and comparatively what they are accomplishing. Even given all of the qualifications of the higher education experts, the new move seems to me to be a sound one. I would invite anyone interested in understanding what happens at our various schools, and various types of schools to visit the site and spend some time exploring it. It will be illuminating. When I tell students and parents that FPU has the highest four year graduation rate in the Valley, they are always impressed. When I tell them that it is just over 50% for those who enter as freshman, they seem confused. But when they see that our competitor schools are less than half of that they begin to understand. Having available the comparative data is a positive trend. It will give us information upon which to reflect. The student might ask, "What do I need to do to graduate on time?" The parent might wonder, "What should I expect in the coming years? What is a reasonably time to completion?" The school might try to determine, "Where do we sit in the higher education landscape? What should be our goals? What do we need to do to raise our graduation rate? And how do we help students understand that learning depends finally upon their willingness to pursue it with purpose and energy?" The data are there to begin to answer these and many more questions. We in higher education ought to welcome the data and the thoughtfulness that has gone into the new site. I hope students and parents will find it helpful. Pass the site along.

Francis Chan, author of Crazy Love, Erasing Hell, and Forgotten God, was the speaker at Fresno Pacific University's annual Ministry Forum this week. He is an engaging and substantive speaker—1300 pastors, youth and lay leaders of churches and para-church organizations turned out to our Special Events Center to hear him, about double our largest previous crowd. Opinions are mixed on his message. I put out a facebook post on what I was hearing during the first session, and immediately received comments back. Let me take a crack at an appreciation of what he brought to us. Chan mentioned that he has critics. But I found him refreshing theologically and spiritually, and I want to try to put into words why I think he is a voice we should listen to. The center of Chan's insights is that God has communicated to us through the Bible, his Word, and that we ought to do what he says. The note I put out on facebook said 'What is his gift? 'I read the Bible and say we need to do this!' A number of times he referred to taking the Bible literally in a simple and direct way. Paul asked others to pray that he would be bold. Chan says he has friends whom he has asked to pray for boldness for him. Paul says he is an apostle by the will of God. Chan asks am I really doing the will of God? Will I do whatever he asks me to do? He spoke of his daughter saying after, if I remember correctly, feeding the poor 'I feel like we popped out of the Bible.' Similarly Chan responded to questions about his book on Hell. Rob Bell wrote arguing that "love wins," with the implication that there may not be a Hell. (Wouldn't Dante be surprised? To get a quick fix of the controversy see this Time article and another from Christianity Today.) Chan went back to the Bible. He would like for there not to be a Hell, but throughout the Bible he sees a God who is angry about sin and its destructiveness. We have to take that seriously. It may not make us comfortable, and throughout the day he made consistent references to the beauty and generosity of God's grace and mercy in our lives. But even so we cannot throw out what we might not like or think right that is in the Word given to us. This might be simplistic, but it need not be. Chan reads in context and knows that he is following a Jesus whose life and teaching demands a radical discipleship, not a legalistic response with a list of "do"s and "don't"s. He noted that this kind of following is not comfortable for churches, and friends and family might try to talk us out of what we think God is calling us to as we read the Word. Let me speak from my work as an historian of the church (there must be a few times when this is useful). Chan's approach, in its simplicity and directness, is, it seems to me, a gift to the church that has been consistent, if somewhat rare in the church's history. We see it in St. Anthony, the father of monasticism, who heard the word 'go sell all you have and come and follow me." He did. We see it in St. Augustine who heard "take it and read" in the song of children, a strange song he admitted. He took up the Bible and read. There he heard and met God's grace, the Holy Spirit. We see it in St. Martin who gave half of his cloak to a poor beggar in winter. And we see it in St. Francis who heard "build my church" and began restoring the walls of a church, and who in response to Jesus healing the leper began to do the same with an exuberant embrace of those who were contagious. These are great figures. Perhaps this gift is not as rare as we think. How many of us know of people in our midst, in our churches, cities, and neighborhoods have responded in this simple and direct manner? I can think of several from multiple denominational homes, though it might embarrass them if I mentioned their names. This gift, like the words of the Word crosses boundaries and binds us together. In our time of interpretive sophistication when all of can argue about hermeneutics and interpretive method, and are sensitive to the historical context and the difficulties of understanding just what a particular Biblical text might or might not be saying, I found Chan's talk refreshing. I also found it challenging. When we are open to his kind of reading we don't know what the consequences might be. I was reminded of what our confessions over time have said, sometimes with the same simplicity that Chan brought us.  Here for example are the first words of the Second Helvetic Confession (1561): "We believe and confess the canonical Scriptures of the holy prophets and apostles of both Testaments to be the true Word of God, and to have sufficient authority of themselves, not of men. For God himself spoke to the fathers, prophets, apostles, and still speaks to us through the Holy Scriptures." And the current Mennonite Brethren Confession of Faith echoes this Reformation confession with an Anabaptist emphasis: "We believe the entire Bible was inspired by God through the Holy Spirit. The same Spirit guides the community of faith in the interpretation of Scripture." When Chan visited us this week, we were engaging as a community of faith from all part of our city and region in the interpretive task. His is a unique voice and gift. Francis Chan, thank you.