November 5, 2003

GC focuses on international opportunities Nov. 3-6

International Week raises awareness of international opportunities and gives students the opportunity to win travel and passport stipends

By VANESSA CARPER
Contributing Writer

International music group takes part in Coffee house celebration of International Week. Photo by Neely McLaughlin.

With posters strewn about campus and cabbage rolls and gyros in the caf, it must be International Week. The Diversity Committee, the Office of International Studies and the Center for Calling and Career have worked together to schedule a week of events to raise international awareness and to inform students of opportunities to experience other cultures.

The week kicked off with the Career and Internship Fair. “The goal is to introduce students to international opportunities, and we hope to build on this for next year,” said Jennifer Marlow, assistant director of the Center for Calling and Career.

According to Marlow, a variety of opportunities were incorporated into the fair. These opportunities ranged from missions to internships. There were representatives from the International Mission Board, Cooperative Baptist Fellowship, the Helsinki Commission and Kentucky Cabinet for Economic Development, the International Trade Division and Flynnco.

“We want to serve as a resource base to students wishing to continue their education in China or pursue internships there,” said Elizabeth Flynn of Flynnco, a company that takes business delegations to China and Hong Kong.

Tuesday’s activities included campus worship and an International Coffee House. Campus worship focused on international missions. Students Mitch Woods and Grace Becknell and former student Kristen Calhoun spoke about their international mission experiences. The speakers spoke highly of their experiences and recommended that other students pursue similar opportunities. During the service, two passport stipends and one $500 travel stipend were given away through a drawing. These were the first of stipends to be given away. Opportunities still exist to receive such stipends. Two passport stipends will be given away Wednesday, and two more will be given away Thursday. Another travel stipend will be given away Thursday at the International Student Dinner.

“Part of the Lilly Grant is built on this premise that cross-cultural travel is a powerful and effective provocation for vocational reflection,” said Dr. Dwight Moody, dean of the chapel. “So we’ve tried to set up a way for people to travel.”

Wednesday’s event is the Chinese Cultural Festival in the Hall of Fame Room from 3 to 5 p.m. This is the third consecutive year for the Chinese Cultural Festival. As in the past, there will be martial arts demonstrations, music, food and displays of cultural artifacts. The festival is for CEP credit.

Thursday’s events will begin with a study abroad fair in front of the caf from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. The fair has been developed “to make students aware of opportunities to study abroad, especially with programs affiliated with Georgetown College,” said Dr. Glen Taul, director of international programs.

There will be information available about opportunities to study abroad at the fair. Students, professors and other representatives will be present. Some of the opportunities include travel to London, Belize, Athens, Rome, Hong Kong and more. According to Taul, Georgetown has a partnership with Hong Kong Baptist University that would be perfect for commerce, language and culture majors.

There will also be a booth set up during the fair for students to apply and reapply for passports. In order to do this students must have a certified birth certificate, a passport sized photo and a valid I.D. They will be taking photos at the booth as well. The cost is $85, which should be split into two separate checks. Fifty-five dollars goes to the State Department and $30 goes to the post office. The fee for a passport renewal is $60. At 5 p.m. on Thursday, the movie Bend it Like Beckham will be shown in Anderson Hall Room 039.

International Week will be capped off by the International Students Dinner in the Tiger Den from 5:30 to 7:30 p.m. The dinner will include foods from all of the foreign language departments and the international students, according to Randa Remer, international adviser and co-chair of the diversity committee.

According to student Kristen Ogata, there will be food from Bulgaria, China, Japan, Korea, the Ukraine, America, Africa and more. There will also be live Chilean and Bulgarian music and exhibits representing the home countries of our international students. The event is open to everyone. “We hope to make this an annual event,” said Taul. Next year’s International Week will still place emphasis on awareness of career opportunities while also including issues-oriented discussions about the world from different perspectives.

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Renowned author to speak Nov. 11

Homer Hickam, author of October Sky, will deliver the first lecture in the series resulting from GC’s partnership with Joseph-Beth Booksellers

By NEELY McLAUGHLIN
Features Editor

This Friday at 11 a.m., Homer Hickam, perhaps best known from the popular book and movie October Sky, will be speaking in the John. L. Hill Chapel. Hickam’s book, and the movie, is based on his experience growing up in Appalachia. He will be delivering a lecture entitled “Lighthouses, Rocket Ships and Dreams of Boys.” Hickam will be the first speaker to come to Georgetown as a result of the college’s partnership with Joseph-Beth Booksellers. The lecture series will also bring Madeleine Albright to campus. “It’s one of the few partnerships between a bussiness and a private college like ours. It’s a wave of the future,” said Dr. Scott Takacs.

Takacs is associate professor of marketing and economics and one of the people responsible for bringing the series to Georgetown. “[Hickam has] led a really liberal arts life. He’s been a scientist ... and a novelist,” Takacs said. And he’s one in whom Georgetown students might well be interested. “It’s all a true story,” said Takacs of the story portrayed in October Sky.

Dr. Rosemary Allen, chair of the English department, encouraged students to attend. “It’s not often that students get a chance to hear an author talk about his work. I think this is an excellent opportunity.”

Student Mary Burzlaff plans to attend. “At other times, I’ve really enjoyed getting to hear authors talk about their own books. You can learn interesting things you might not necessarily be able to figure out on your own.”

After the lecture, Hickam will sign his latest book, The Keeper’s Son. It is “one of only six book signings for the book in this country,” said Takacs. “We’re really privileged to have him come ... His new book The Keeper’s Son is actually a romance novel. He’s heading in a new direction.”

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Religious diversity abounds at Georgetown

Many options on and off campus available to students through campus ministries

By JESSE DARLAND
Contributing Writer

Students gather in the Grille for a Campus Ministries event. Photo by Neely McLaughlin.

The sheer number of options students of faith have at Georgetown College belies the small size of the campus. From weekly worship services to devos with their fraternity brothers, Georgetown students have diverse things to choose from.

The basement of John L. Hill Chapel houses campus ministries, the blanket organization that handles all religious activities on campus. On one side of the wide main hallway, past classrooms that sometimes house religion classes, is the office of Campus Minister Sharon Felton.

Felton has many duties. For starters, she is responsible to students, meeting with them regularly to help them coordinate student ministry activities. At the same time, Felton works with the rest of the administration because she is a part of the student life staff.

And, as an employee of the Kentucky Baptist Convention, Felton has additional responsibilities to that group. Churches use Felton as a contact when looking for student interns, adding another layer of duties, and she assists them with their own student outreach efforts as well.

And, if her schedule wasn’t busy enough, Felton needs to keep her door open to any students who just want to come in to talk. Her schedule is hectic, Felton says, “and it’s never the same. You never know who’ll come in the door.”

Any Christian group on campus is covered campus ministries, which can make things a bit confusing at times, Felton says. While the Baptist Student Union takes up a large portion of her duties, “the Georgetown College hat that I wear is bigger than just Baptists,” she says. In addition to BSU, campus ministries coordinates freshman family groups, FCA, the Catholic Students Association, Mission Fellowship, Common Ground worship services, dorm devos and other study groups.

There are also off-campus activities for Christian students who want to do work in the community, such as after-school tutoring at Scroggins Park or trips to Dover Manor, a nearby nursing home. Felton says that such activities help students grow. These “community missions,” as Felton calls them, show students “a bigger picture of the world and of God than what they’ve seen before,” she says. “They’re dealing with people who come out of different circumstances than themselves.”

The diversity of options is one of the things that makes being at Georgetown appealing, says Derek Ball, who is interning at campus ministries. “Most of the students that I’ve come in contact with really seem to enjoy being here,” Ball says.

This is Ball’s second year at Georgetown, which is a bit unusual; most interns stay for only one year. But Ball has stuck around because he “really felt called to come back for another year,” he says. “I guess I just didn’t feel finished, and I really enjoy the students.” Ball came to Georgetown after graduating from UK and says this campus is “very unique.”

From his cluttered office in the campus ministries lounge in the chapel basement, Ball muses on why Georgetown’s students are different. The religion classes students are required to take (often not far from his office) really help, he finally decides. As well as the students’ open-minded attitude. “They’re critical thinkers,” he says. “We have good discussions about things.”

Georgetown is also set apart by its diversity, even though that sounds unusual, Ball says. He explains that, at UK, there were few religious activities for students, and those who participated tended to be a rather exclusive group. In contrast, Georgetown offers many different things for different students to get involved in. “The people who go to devos is a different group that those that come to Common Ground, which is different than who comes to my devotional group,” he says.

In the building across from the chapel is Dr. Todd Gambill, who is serving in his first year as Georgetown’s vice president of student life and dean of students. Gambill comes to Georgetown after being a member of UVA-Wise’s student life staff for several years. Gambill appreciates that same diversity of options that Ball cites.

Gambill says his experiences as an undergraduate at Pfeiffer College, a small Christian liberal arts school in “a cow pasture outside of Charlotte, North Carolina,” led him to seek a job at a similar school, like Georgetown.

While not a Baptist himself (he’s Methodist), Gambill says that he felt welcomed at Georgetown. “Georgetown is of the Baptist faith, but not necessarily for the Baptist faith,” he says. What Gambill considers important is that the college offers students a chance to express their faith in the way they feel is right.

Felton agrees. “There are so many religious things that you can do,” she says. “They all do their own thing, but they’re all interconnected at the same time.”

Felton says that no matter how students choose to express their faith, ultimately what’s really important is simply that they learn to connect with other people. “You can’t just throw tracts in their yards and leave,” she says.

“You’re a Christian because you have a relationship with God .... You see what God does for you, how he provides for you, and you’ve got to do that for other people, whether they’re friend, family or stranger.”

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