Messiah College President's Report 2007

a faith-infused education of distinction This summer I actually went to Timbuktu — “the mysterious” — as a participant on a Mali Water Project team through Messiah College’s Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research. On our way to that fabled place, there were nights we slept under the stars to escape the stifling heat of mud-walled rooms. We showered from a bucket and ate our food with our hands from a common bowl. We sweated in the heat and listened to local people with disabilities as they told about their lives and the difficulties they have obtaining water from the available sources in their towns, transporting it, and using it at home. Each of the team members brought training, perspectives, and skills from our various disciplines, but the mystery came as we waded out with those theories and ideas into the water of a different cultural, ecological, social, and economic context. We saw things you can’t see from a desk. As we spoke with people with disabilities, local experts, and with each other, we gradually found ourselves immersed in questions of latrines and limitations, water and well-being, cultural landscapes, appropriate interventions, the meaning of justice, of the Gospel, of our own lives. . . . One afternoon Kay See Tan emerged from an online research session at the World Vision guest house exclaiming, “I’ll never be able to look at a toilet the same way again!” Perhaps more profoundly, M. Traore, the facilitator of our participatory rural appraisal meetings, told us afterward, “I’ll never be able to see a handicapped person in the same way.” Hearing their stories, glimpsing into their souls, had given him new eyes. I believe the power of service-learning is in this quality of immersion — the liminal experience of stepping out of our ordinary time and space to travel across town or around the world opens us to see in new ways and to be changed. This is what education is about — not a head full of knowledge, but new eyes with which to see the world, to make new connections, and to imagine new possibilities. “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes,” as author Marcel Proust says. However, the process of getting those eyes may begin with a new landscape. True, you may not have to travel to Timbuktu, but you probably do need to go out of the classroom, out of the usual routine, out of the neighborhood, out of the comfort zone, out of your way. This is why we do service-learning at Messiah — because changed people change the world. — Evie Telfer, associate college pastor 17 http://www.messiah.edu/schools/math_eng_bus/collaboratory/ http://www.messiah.edu/schools/math_eng_bus/collaboratory/ http://www.messiah.edu/external_programs/agape/servicelearning/opportunities.html http://www.messiah.edu/ministries/staff/

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of Messiah College President's Report 2007

Contents An Education of Distinction A Rigourous Education of Distinction Articles A Visionary Education of Distinction Articles A Faith-Infused Education of Distinction Articles Sustaining an Education of Distinction Financial Reports/Volunteer Leader Appreciation Donor Recognition Messiah College at a Glance Meet Our Students A Mission of Distinction A Year in Photos

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