In his own words, artist and emeritus professor of art Ted Prescott describes the process and meaning of his High Center installation, “Psalm.”

The sculptural installation in the entrance to the Calvin and Janet High Center for Worship and the Performing Arts is composed of 14 linear forms that move throughout the entrance space. Each form was made from multiple pieces of apple wood that are fit together to create dynamic and expressive lines. More than 1,500-feet of apple limbs measuring between one and eight feet in length were cut from a local orchard that was being cleared to make way for a housing development. All of the limbs were peeled, and then dried for one to two years. From this inventory roughly 225 feet of various shapes were chosen for use. These pieces were modified by grinding and carving before they were joined together. Finally, each completed form was sanded, stained and sealed before being installed here. (more…)

A sense of belonging. Greater self- awareness. History made personal. These are just a few of the expressed outcomes of students who delved into their family history during a first-year seminar course focused on genealogy, history and personal identity.

“We were foreigners,” writes Laura Passmore about her family in her reflection paper for the course. “I was amazed by all the different countries in my background.”

“[This class] allowed me to uncover the past that I never knew,” writes Jazz Baker, a first-year student from Harrisburg. Baker relished playing the family historian and recounting her findings to her mother and four sisters. (more…)

Through the course of Jerry Sandusky’s now infamous two-week trial, Messiah alumna Sari Heidenreich ’11 tweeted more than one thousand times.

To get the most out of each 140-character message while still maintaining her professional voice, the social media producer for abc 27 in Harrisburg had to not only double-check facts and figures, but also weigh every last word to determine which could be abbreviated—or deleted.

But over the course of a thousand tweets of facts, quotes and insight, it was an innocuous punctuation mark she typed without a second thought that got her in trouble.

“I used an exclamation point in one of my tweets, and someone called me out on it,” said Heidenreich of the gossipy tone that character conveyed in her message. “I think they were right; and I didn’t use an exclamation point for the rest of the trial.” (more…)

With education abroad programs in more than 40 countries worldwide, Messiah College has touted international travel as an integral part of  the academic experience for some time—something that benefits students as well as professors. Just ask Biblical studies professor Meg Ramey, who traveled to five continents in less than one year from May 2011 to January 2012.   (more…)

In America, giving thanks and spending money, eating turkey and going shopping, have become seemingly interchangeable. Thanksgiving now stands as a two-package deal: a day to indulge in delicious food and a day to splurge at the mall on the deals of a lifetime.

While some roll their eyes in disgust at this display of American consumerism, others create strategic plans to conquer the masses at their local mall. Either way, Black Friday tops the charts as the biggest shopping day of the year.

By the numbers
The concept “Black Friday” originated in Philadelphia and refers to police and bus drivers stuck in a huge traffic mess caused by the convergence of holiday shoppers and football fans arriving in town for the annual Army-Navy football game. Since then, people claim retails stores use this day to bump their sales “into the black,” making them profitable for the year. In fact, Black Friday and Christmas sales account for 20 percent of retailers’ annual profit. (more…)

The game quickly becoming a world-wide phenomenon found a place at Messiah College this summer. Completing each hole in the fewest number of throws with the target of an elevated metal basket, disc golf tops the lifetime fitness chart and is the perfect sport for all ages, shapes and sizes. By installing a course at Messiah College, students, alumni and faculty members hope for players to engage in the beautiful campus while getting great exercise.

As many question the exact birth of this game, most experts give credit to George Sappenfield. Discovering that kids could play golf with Frisbees in 1965, Sappenfield presented the idea to Ed Headrick, an employee of a Frisbee company. Gaining popularity, a group in Rochester, NY held the first national disc golf championship in 1974. Two short years later, Headrick, deemed the “Father of Disc Golf,” started the Disc Golf Association. Today, the Professional Disc Golf Association (PDGA) governs and sanctions rules, tournaments and its 40,000 members. The PDGA predicts 8-12 million people play the sport, estimating a 12-15% annual growth rate. With 3,485 courses world-wide, disc golf continues to spread around the globe. (more…)

Student Rachel Morris reflects on her summer 2012 trip to Nicaragua with Messiah’s Collaboratory for Strategic Partnerships and Applied Research

Anticipation rose as we turned off the bumpy dirt highway into off-road country surrounded by roaming farm animals, tiny huts and clotheslines. A swarm of kids chased after the big yellow bus that carried our diverse team of Messiah College students, Living Water educators and newly trained village leaders, welcoming us to the community. After spending time in Puerto Cabezas preparing, we finally arrived with the mission of bringing pure water and The Living Water to the small community of Awas Tigni, Nicaragua. The next two days spent in the beautiful land of Awas flew by like a blur. Community members were eager to learn all we had to share. Classrooms were filled, and people completed a variety of activities and lessons on everything from hand-washing, to making a tippy tap to using one of our filters! (more…)

Working half a mile underground in an old Minnesota mine, two engineering students and their physics professor described the subterranean lab as pretty typical … except for the occasional bat flying overhead.

Messiah College Physics Professor Abaz Kryemadhi and two engineering students, Joel Love ‘14 and Nick Martin ‘14, were awarded a Department of Energy Visiting Faculty Program grant to spend 10 weeks at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory in Chicago. There they worked with the Cryogenic Dark Matter Search (CDMS) experiment which is located half a mile underground in an old mine in Soudan, MN. The Messiah College team worked on simulation and detector design for a new generation detector called SuperCDMS. (more…)

Being able to breathe fresh air, connect with nature and engage in physical exercise are just a few of the benefits of being outside. Therefore, it is no wonder that parents often want their children to play outside during the summer months.

One of the best ways to get children outside is to go outside with them. Time spent outside together can create lasting memories that strengthen family bonds. (more…)

You might not expect a historian of Medieval and Renaissance Europe to be among the first educators at Messiah College to volunteer to lead a pilot project exploring the impact of mobile technology—in this case, the iPad—on students’ ability to learn. But that’s exactly what happened.

Joseph Huffman, distinguished professor of European history, and the eight students in his fall 2011 Intermediate Latin course exchanged their paper textbooks for iPads loaded with the required texts, relevant apps, supplementary PDFs and a Latin-English dictionary. The primary goal was to advance the learning of Latin. The secondary goal was to determine whether the use of the iPad improved, inhibited or did not affect their ability to learn a foreign language. (more…)